Okay, maybe they do matter. We can definitely clean up the Dwight entry passes, pump-fake travels and Lin's road to nowhere. However, I am fine with us being in the bottom half for total TO's as logn as we can execute when it counts.
My least favorite are the "travels" and "out of bounds" turnovers. And the refs randomly/selectively making "carrying/palming" calls.
Nonsense. TOs are the main reason we are a 9-5 team, instead of 11-3 or 12-2. Last night we would have been absolutely destroying the Wolves if we didn't keep giving them so much easy offense due to our turnovers.
We have a high turnover rate because we have several players that think they are better ball handlers or distributors than they really are.
a lot of our TO feel like we are the swordsman. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4DzcOCyHDqc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PwpAbDvl8Kw?list=FLw1YYApu1fNDIGwNTEPmBzQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> look what i found damn LOFs
The TOs problem will get better when they play more together, but it will always there, mainly due to the style the Rockets plays, and the way some of the players play. They won't have that much trouble to win 50+ games with the TO issue, but it will hurt them in the playoff.
Turnovers and perimeter defense are both abysmal on this team .... I think they could live with one or the other but not both and go past the second round. Lin , Harden & Casspi are all guilty on both counts , Im beginning to wonder if the three can coexist and win big.
The turnover problem is interesting to me. I think we (and by we I mean NBA fans) really ride on-ball players about turnovers a lot. The fact is, your shot creators are going to be fairly high turnover players. Those who don't turn the ball over are the exception to the rule. When it really becomes a problem is when guys with very low usage cause a lot of turnovers (Asik). If a player is creating good shots overall, you want that guy to keep doing that (i.e. if Lin and Harden occasionally miss a difficult pass, that's okay). And keep in mind, the difference between the worst turnover team last year (us) and the lowest turnover team (the Knicks) was 4 turnovers. So when you look at how to actually improve it, there's no easy solution. Taking it out of Harden and Lin (or whichever player you don't like today)'s hands doesn't necessarily help our offense. It may help our defense (in the sense that we aren't giving away uncontested fast break buckets). But those guys are doing good things for the team, letting them pound the ball is probably a net positive. I think the ultimate solution is probably changing our offense away from pick and rolling anything and everything with everyone and focusing more on off ball movement and screens, but so far we haven't seen a whole lot of that.
Oh, and for Parsons to stop pump faking and travelling. Every time he does it it's like nails on chalkboard.
The only type of turnover I cannot excuse is lazy passing on the perimeter. If Lin or Harden dribbles into the lane and get stripped? That's fine. If a big man gets called for illegal screen? Whatever. If we get a couple of bad throws on the fast break? Alright as long as it's limited. Howard/Asik TOs? I can live with those. But you can't have TOs from making a lazy pass in a half court set.
We can soon over-analyse each TO to death: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>NBA will announce tomorrow that box scores with video links will be available to all fans on <a href="http://t.co/FEdwClyOLp">http://t.co/FEdwClyOLp</a>.</p>— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/statuses/404808545809354752">November 25, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>For example: If LeBron is 10-of-16 from the floor, fans can click on that "16," and see a video reel of all 16 LeBron shots.</p>— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/statuses/404808676147343360">November 25, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>There will be similar clickable video for assists, turnovers, steals, rebounds, but NOT fouls. Archive will include last season, too.</p>— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/statuses/404808943832018944">November 25, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In that same thread, Carl Herrera wrote what I thought was a really interesting perspective on the TO issue. Post #1517 People talk a lot about Harden and Lin getting TOs. The fact is that these guys are sort of "taking one for the team" in the TO department. Specifically, if one or both of them are not playing, the team won't turn the ball over much less than they do now. We'll most likely end up with other guys using up Lin/Harden's possessions and turning the ball over at a similar rate. Possessions don't just disappear just because a guy is missing, somebody else will get to handle the ball and try to make things happen. The way that this team plays is geared toward getting the ball into the paint, via dribble penetration, passing, etc., and working in the paint is inherently a turnover prone activity because you are more likely to be surrounded by defenders and draw contact (some of which refs miss). If Harden or Lin isn't around to do it, we'll get more Dwight posting up (and he turns the ball over quite a bit) or Parsons, Casspi, Brooks or Beverley doing their best Harden/Lin impression and perhaps turning the ball over at a higher rate than these guys do.
