This post is intended as follow up? supporting? a successor to? the great post by torocan. The level of the first part of this post is basic offense. The latter positions are more advanced in their analysis of defensive scheming against the Rockets offense. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=252677 The Rockets half court offense can roughly be split into three categories depending on the underlying principles. The offense is generally either post oriented, motion oriented or spacing oriented. Post oriented offense focuses almost entirely on Howard, with a little D-Mo sauce on the side. Other than those two players the Rockets do not push the ball into the post often. The offense will generally attempt to clear out the strong side, attempting to move defenders out of easy ball help range. D-Mo is generally set up deeper than Howard in many cases, because D-Mo does not demand the attention that Howard does on offense. Motion oriented offense is also easy to recognize. Players run around like crazy. It is when the ball is usually in the center area of the court, in a space about 1.5 to 2 times wider than the paint. The ball generally starts out on the perimeter of the center and a big, mostly Howard, D-Mo or Asik setting a screen for the ball handler, developing quickly into a P&R. This screen generally is just the first jab, unless the defense fails on the P&R coverage. A secondary or tertiary P&R may develop, with Howard sliding to the rim for a possible lob pass. In the chaos of the motion offense there are many opportunities to score. Almost all of the picks the Rockets employ are used in the motion variety of their R&R. The third type of offense the Rockets employ is a spacing based offense. It features four players spaced around the arc, with the center generally, but not always, offset to the weak side, high or low. What the offense is intending to do is open up driving lanes for the ball handler. In order to contract the width of the lanes the defense will "flex" off certain players to "shade" towards the driving lane and the ball handler. Once the ball handler (likely Harden, or sometimes Parsons or Lin) starts to drive, he must quickly decide if they should continue to the rim or pass the ball to someone on the perimeter who has been left open by a defender helping on the drive. The defense will generally be stretched to the breaking point in this system. An alternative we see often is the ever effective Harden step back three. The on ball defender provides to much space to Harden, attempting to limit the damage the drive inflicts. That generally is about it. Simple? No, not for defenses to scheme against. Although the Rockets drive down their mid-ranged shots as low as possible, the shear variety of the offenses they display means that playoff preparation will not be easy. If one kind of attack doesn't work the offense is off to the next. One thing that I believe should probably change is the Rockets continual reliance on early game post offense. That a defense can successfully scheme for, and success there may lend a measure of confidence to the other team. The Rockets do not rely only on those three forms of offense. The primary consideration of defensive schemes against the Rockets will always be transition defense. The Rockets fuel their impressive point runs using transition offense. And then there is the three point line defense to consider. A properly spaced offense is very difficult to defend. Especially when that offense has a master at dribble drive penetration and scoring at the rim with the ball. NBA teams that do not have proper personnel fit have no spacing. LAL with Bynum/Howard and Gasol. DET with Smith, Drummond and Monroe.
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Good job being constructive. Guy makes a serious post and you have to jump in trolling? Save the trolling for the player opinion threads. If you have nothing to contribute to a sincere and serious post, then it's best you stay on the sidelines. Per the OP... While I do understand your description of the offenses, the problem with our spacing offense is it loses tremendous effectiveness against highly athletic and fast teams. While the vast majority of teams can NOT contest the inside AND the perimeter, there are a handful of teams that can -- namely the Clippers, OKC and Miami. This is why personally I would prefer to see more motion offense sets employed by the Rockets. You do NOT have to congest the lanes or abandon drives into the paint with a motion offense. If you look closely at the Spurs offense, they heavily use screens on the PnR ball handler so that they can distort the defense, and more importantly to give the ball handler a running start off a screen before they penetrate. While this doesn't work perfectly with Harden (who loves to catch at the top of the key and play off the dribble), I think other players like Lin, Casspi, Parsons and Bev would benefit tremendously. And I don't even think we need to implement a full motion offense, even a handful of sets would help tremendously. For example, stealing a page out of the Spurs play book, just adding "the loop" would create many opportunities for Parsons, Bev, Lin and others to catch the ball on the move while coming off double screens and then make a play. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RLFouXbUKrI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/pxCihOz6_UU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> It's not overly complex. It allows for read and react. And it also happens to be an excellent way to tire out the opposing PG.
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Excellent torocan. I was attempting to simplify the offenses down to a basic level. I believe that there is a place in CF for instructive posts. They are good for the community. I initially wrote this in your screen thread to attempt to explain why the Rockets have the lowest number of effective screens in the NBA. The portion of their offense that utilizes screens is probably less than 40% of their total offense. The Rockets use of spacing in their offense is a work in progress. Actually it is a power forward who can hit 35%+ from deep away. Once that player is found it will free up many different opportunities. The problem is that there are few players 6-9 and taller that can hit the three at that accuracy level. Morey, in the summer of 2012 decided out with the old and in with the new. Four new starters last season. Three this season. The team's continuity su**s. Morey is probably pretty much done with wholesale changes. He may, going forward, add a few peices here or there. Max of one new starter a year. If Morey did not know that major roster changes are detrimental to roster efficiency I feel sure McHale let him know.
I would just say: iso harden throw it to Dwight parsons or Lin drive to lane to take shot or kick out to a shooter.
I was just messing with jtr because we argue a lot on here about the Rockets' offense. But that's interesting about trolls. I never understood the mind of a troll. It just doesn't make sense to me to get pleasure out of saying nasty things for the sole reason of making the other person react in anger or whatever or say nasty things for the hell of it. I never "got" trolling.
Upon rereading your post I believe I need to add a specific reply. The spacing offense is the optimal use of Harden's skills. The wing defenders who are quick and disciplined and big enough to handle Harden on the perimeter can be counted on three fingers. Space is underutilized by NBA teams. I see it employed regularly by the Rockets, the Heat and the Thunder. A few other teams employ it sporadically, including such examples as Dirk in Dallas. If spread appropriately Harden has two open driving lanes. One to the left of the on ball defender and one on the right (from the right hand side of the offensive court). Both will cause immediate drastic rotations in the defense. That is a good thing. I believe this is where Morey is driving with his offensive "vision". He has on the roster one of the finest dribble drive offensive weapons in the NBA. The only problem I personally see in the offensive set is that the defensive center can release Howard to the power forward with impunity. Plus of course the difficulty of the skip pass into the opposite corner. I am not arguing that the Rockets offense could not use more diversity. That will develop over time. I firmly believe that the coaching staff is competent and will integrate "wrinkles" into the current offense. But it will take time.
More like dude is playing in pain from his back spasms, toes, feet, legs and or knees. It's obviously your boy can't hit it into high gear to create his own shot, playmake as well and don't forget break down the defense and take it to the rack. Putting into that gear makes your boy grimace in pain and remember he struck out 2 times in a row already in that end of the year aspect. 2 no shows in the post season, will this year a 3rd?