This team does not prioritize three pointers enough

Offensive rebounds are still great in the playoffs. Maybe a little less effective, but most things are less effective in the playoffs. For the Rockets, it wasn't the offensive rebounds that doomed them. The passing was much less effective. The shooting died. The offensive rebounds went down a little compared to what the Rockets did without Adams, but I expect most of that was due to an inability to run an offense and to trying to play more without a center more often.

 

Sengun with shooters around him would stand a chance against Wemby.

There, I said it

 

This team does not prioritize “shooting” enough.

 

The Rockets shot nearly 38 3PAs per 48min with Amen off the court in 24-25.
The Rockets shot 36 3PAs per 48min with Amen off the court in 23-24.

Unless one wants to say Ime should not be playing Amen much, Ime is not at fault for the low 3PAs this year. The Rockets did not have the personnel to run 4 shooters and play defense.

This isn't to say Ime is perfect, or even a good coach. This is only to say the Rockets shot plenty of 3s when Amen wasn't starting.

 

Its always hilarious seeing amen stans pull the "amen and sengun" line when bringing up our spacing issues. Yall are not slick

Most centers in the league do not shoot 3s. Even after you trade sengun you will still face the same problem. Amen ****ing sucks and it is extremely hard to find complimentary players for him. You want to build around a guard who cant shoot when hes not even talented enough to be the best player on a 8th seed

 

With Sengun, the morden day Charles Barkley, in the paint dribbling for 5 seconds trying to get a basket.....3's will never be more than 2's.

 

Amen sucks? Hard to find complementary players? Weird - because his twin brother just got a round further than him being an even less capable offensive player with what I would argue is a generally inferior roster to ours(outside of Cade) that finished 2nd(in the East, but still - that's a lot of wins). I mean all Detroit did was say "go be the best defensive player you can be every minute out there" and he was a WRECKING BALL.

That's generally the problem here - we spend too much time and effort trying to make players something they aren't rather than accepting what they are good at and focusing on how to amplify that. Houston is too busy trying to grow Amen into the PG they don't have rather than picking what he is good at(defense, playing in the dunkers spot, etc). Ime is so worried about Reed getting hunted on defense or TOs but meanwhile Castle is out there coughing up the ball every few minutes on national TV and yet his team is treating those as learning lessons rather than things to be avoided. That's the difference. When you frame the problem from a "glass half empty" narrative - you tend to accept solutions that lower our ceiling over far better players. I like Okogie - but the guy also got way too much PT because he was better at defense than Reed - that can't happen again because defenses aren't changing their strategy if Okogie hits 3 or 4 threes but Reed gets two in a row and all of a sudden the coach is wondering if they need to try something different....and that doesn't show up on a stat sheet as easily.

 

With Durant, FVV, Adams hurt, and DFS sucking, the roster the Rockets played in the playoffs was not better than Detroit. Cade is really good.

 

It’s not about defending anything. Unlike most people on this site, I don’t put all the blame on the coach especially when I’m not a professional NBA level coach and none of you are as well. I simply look at facts from news reporting, trends, and analyze games then base my opinions and assessments from them. I stand by what I have said all along is it’s roster construction. Sheppard gets pulled for reasons known to him and likely to poor defense and errors on offense. It’s no good to make a 3 when you lose the ball or allow a wide open cut to the basket. I think people are laser focused on what they want to see instead of looking at the wider lens while being honest in their evaluations of our team.

 

Castle is a playmaker, great defender, and gets in the paint while getting fouls and generating positive offense. Sheppard isn’t a great playmaker and terrible defender. He has little explosiveness going to the rim

 

I wasn’t discussing why we lost. I was addressing the OP contention that more 3s is a winning formula.

In the playoffs, the data doesn’t really agree, using 3pt rate.

When we look at the last 5 years (per the OP framing of “these days”), and you look at only the true contenders playing in the conference finals or finals (ie the true playoff rounds), here’s what we got:

• Rockets 3FGA rate was 38.6% of their shots were three pointers

• Teams in 17 out of 30 contender series shot equal or less than that (ie their rate for a conf finals or finals series)
• The number grows to 21 out 30 for < 40% — which equals the bottom third of the league (for regular season)
• 3 out of 5 champs shot less that the Rockets in the finals

The actual stats say while 3 pointer rate is increasing for regular season, in the playoffs, more contenders shoot same or less than the Rockets in conference finals and finals.

thus, shooting more 3s than the Rockets is not what’s happening when the real games begin (over last 5 years)

 

OKC doesn’t run their offense thru Hartenstein. Williams can shoot 3s and midrange so their offense is completely different although they ISO a lot as well.

 

We didn't have a PG generating many open 3 point shots; KD loves the mid range; and 2 starters are non 3 point shooters. Plus everyone else was inconsistent at best -- even the historically good shooters.

 

Yes. Ausar sucks too. Cavs left him wide open the whole series. He probably cost duren 100 million lmao. Players should absolutely hate playing with either of them

 

people love to compare but no team in the league has similar personnel as the Rockets. All the centers on teams who run their offense thru them are stretch centers (VW, Embiid, Jokic). This allows them to have driving lanes or pick and pop and a spread offense

 

3pt shooting from Cs

Ware 39.5%
Turner 38.3%
Landale 38.3%
Jokic 38%
Vucevic 36.9%
Towns 36.8%
Chet 36.2%
Reid 36.2%
Lopez 36%
Clingan 34.1%

https://www.espn.com/nba/stats/play...ffensive/sort/threePointFieldGoalPct/dir/desc

Plenty of Centers are now shooting 3s.

DD

 

I think the main problem is that they pass up open 3s and flat out refuse to shoot contested 3s.

idk if it’s a coaching thing or what, but it’s pretty infuriating to watch.

I don’t care who it is, they need to let that sucker fly or sit on the bench.

I’d rather see a missed three than see them drive the ball into the paint against 5 defenders for the 3rd time on the same possession.