What if our Offense needs Fixing more than our D ?

Well I have eyes,


So that's how I know that our defense is bad

Spoiler

I also have advanced metrics that can explain precisely why defense is the problem...

 

PTS/G: 106.5 (4th of 30) ▪ Opp PTS/G: 106.4 (25th of 30)
SRS: 0.34 (15th of 30) ▪ Pace: 97.6 (7th of 30)
Off Rtg: 108.3 (7th of 30) ▪ Def Rtg: 108.1 (21st of 30)


22nd in FG/FTA allowed
23rd in eFG% allowed
27th in defensive rebounding (tot)
30th in defensive rebounding (%)
28th in fouls/game

 

The "advanced metric " that is used to measure defense (and offense) is this thing invented by a Canadian egghead professor Naismith called a "point"

There is a 100% correlation between point scored/allowed and wins and losses.

Rockets were good at one, bad at the other

 

I think we were only a top ten offense when Harden was on the floor. It probably dropped to 30 when he sat. So in that sense I think you're right. I also think it's true that our shooters are bad at shooting three's and put the defense in a bad position to defend once the other team rebounds. I feel like I said this a thousand times today but our problem isn't really the coach (Now that JB is gone). All the Rockets needed was a competent coach. We don't need a great coach but it would be nice. What they really need is more talent. JVG's offense would not work here, it would end up just being more ISO. JVG would slow down the pace and make Harden less effective. As much as I like JVG. I wanted Vogel but whatever D'antoni should be fine as long as we get better players.

 

There's certainly merit to your theory.
I don't believe Bev and Ariza just became bad defenders overnight (although Bev shouldn't be starting PG - that's why Lawson was brought in).
Our offence was better than the D because of Harden. How many ISO plays did he alone have? More than several teams total combined.
With all the disheartening talk about D'Antoni, maybe I/we are clutching at straws using this theory, but I hope you're right.

 

what if god descended from the heavens above and smacked the ****in **** outta you?

 

our offense consisted of harden balling his ass off and not much else. you guys think thats good enough to win a title? i don't know man. maybe d'antoni can help give us a complete offense that isn't so reliant on harden dominating the ball.

 

Our offense was horrible just like our defense! People who think JVG and his all defense mentality would've fixed our problems are delusional. Both problems were because of personnel, lack of focus, chemistry. This year with preferably some upgrades and a new coaching staff, both can and hopefully will be fixed. I just don't like Dantoni and his history as a coach.

 

Cutting down on turnovers could help us shave a few points per game off the average. It would also help if we found some players who could make shots, but our transition defense was so bad last year that whenever we missed it was 2 on the other end more often than not.

 

Basically what you're sayign is that the ol "eye test" should trump the bottom line numbers - that the Rockets offense is relatively good, and their defense is relatively bad.

I don't say you don't have to watch the games, or that numbers are perfect encapsulations of reality - but they do a good job of filtering out biases. The Rockets' generally awful season puts a negative tinge on an offense that is nearly the exact same in terms of content & efficacy as last season (a squad that won 56 games and was 2nd in the west), or the recency bias of their brutal last game vs. GSW (where, excluding Harden, the entire team went 0-11 from the field for the 1st period, IIRC).

It's how misconceptions start - people see Harden dribble down the shot clock at the end of a game (which is how EVERY TEAM ends the game, with hteir primary ballhandler holding for the last shot) and it becomes an extrapolation that that's what he Rockets whole offense consists of (it is outrageously dependent on Harden, but not becuase he dribbles the shot clock and just throws up whatever shot is available at all )..mostly due to recency bias or confirmation bias. It's what you just saw and remember the best, even if you try to block it out.

This is actually a good time to test your eyes. Watch some of the other playoff games and look at what the other teams do on offense and since you're not a fan of those teams it will be easier to see.

Hell, watch ANY Raptors game from the entire playoffs. Talk about stagnation and awfulness and repetitiveness and horrible offense - one of my colleagues is from Toronto and a big Raptor fan. They had a drinking game where they would take a shot after the Raptors ran high screen and roll with Lowry/Valenciaunas during the Miami series - they were hammered by the first period, because that was literally all they had other htan the DeRozan dribble-dribble-shoot, and it was horribly ineffective for the most part.

Look at the Thunder's pivotal wins against an arguably great Spurs team with a universally lauded coachign staff - you want to see stagnant offense? Man, what were the Spurs doing? Hell look at the Thunder for their last 4 games - here I can put down their entire playbook - it's Russell Westbrook run at the basket as fast you can and shoot or dish to Kanter/Adams. Kevin Durant, dribble around and shoot over somebody. This is coming from Billy Donovan - a respected "system" coach just out of the NCAA.

Hell, look at Golden State - the greatest offense in history, putting up just 14 points in Game 1 of the WCF's.

Maybe I'm wrong about this above, but even if I am it illustrates that the trouble with using the eye test is that the most noticeable flaws, and what is noticeable is more or less subject to the vagaries of human nature, is going to be magnified and pinpointed as the cause, regardless of whether or not it is.

Now a more data driven response to your questions above:

Why were we good at offense ? Because of our superb system ? Or because of the greatness of Harden
Considering he was the engine for a massive proportion of the Rockets offense and directly created something ridiculous like 60-70% of the offense via points and assists when he was on the floor - and probably even more indirectly due to the attention he drew resulting in "hockey assists" or FT assists - yes he is probably the reason.

You'll find a very high correlation between the NBA's great offensive players and the best offenses. The top 3 offenses are the Warriors, Thunder, and Cavs - which just happen to be lead by MVP/HOF level offensive superstars.


What about the turnovers this offense produced ? What about the long scoring droughts ? What about the lack of ball movement leading to crappy shots ?

Believe it or not, the Rockets actually improved their turnovers from 2015 to 2016. They turned the ball over fewer times, on more possessions.

The 2016 Rockets turned it over 14.2% of the time (27th in the league).

The 2015 Rockets turned it over 14.6% of the time (26th in the league).

By way of compariosn, the Warriors are at 13.5% (20th in the league)

It's not turnovers - the Rockets went from averaging 16.7 TOV/game to averaging 15.9, and their point differential slipped from +3.4 to -0.1.

Those two numbers are not moving in tandem.

On "long scoring droughts"

I don't know of any metric that quantifies droughts - but every team goes through them, including the Warriors. Unless there's something to tell me the ROckets are more "feast or famine" I'm not inclined to believe it, and the famine would have to be balanced out by a corresponding series of feasts of the Rockets blowing people away, Warriors style. I would say that the Rockets are SO Harden-dependent that when he sits, famine is likely. That's a depth issue, not an offense issue.

"What about the lack of ball movement leading to crappy shots ?"

If the Rockets were taking crappy shots, why did they make more of them in 2016 as opposed to 2015? (.516 efg vs. .512)?

If they lacked ball movement why are they in the middle of the road (17th) in terms of assists per FG?

It can be legitimately argued that one of those three aspects of our offense caused us to lose as many games as our inability to get stops. Not being able to get stops down the stretch sucks. But it sucks equally to not being able to score because the offense is more stagnant than 610 at rush hour.

It cannot be legitimately argued that turnovers are the problem when even more turnovers led to a better result last year. It cannot be legitimately argued that poor shot selection is the cause when more of those shots go in. It's just arithmetic.

All of these numbers point to the offense not being the problem. All of the defense numbers point to the defense becoming putrid.

All of the flaws of the offense are amplified when you are, on average, spotting the other team 4 points a game on defense.

Harden turning the ball over in the last minute isn't really a problem when you are up 7 - it is definitely a problem if you are only up 3.

But what do you think would resonate more with discussion by fans, a critical Harden turnover at the end of games or a less-noticeable cumulative decline in the defense that surrendered a few extra points in the previous 47 minutes? Obviously the former but the latter is far more devastating overall. So I'm not surprised you/we fixate on the former.

 

^^ If we simply allowed our opponents to score 3 less PPG and we score 3 more ppg then we'd probably be closer to the GSW/OKC/Spurs tier. Oversimplification but I think people are too focused on ONE side of the ball as the main issue is BALANCE.

Do you truly believe that our personnel is as bad on defense as the numbers suggest from this season?

 

our offense lacks cohesion and it is to predicated on harden. I dont think that will change too much with D'Antoni. we basically ran his stuff the last 3 years only thing was our pace isnt as fast as the Golden days Phx Suns. I think that will change - and probably force Harden to facilitate more and make better decisions by increasing the speed.
I have a few questions if we do go with D'antoni

1. will Harden learn to play more like a traditional 2 guard? OR is harden the Steve Nash.
2 Who will handle the rock, you have to argue that the system works best when your PG is a good shooter from 3. P beverly isnt good enough.
3. Who is our PF? The starting PF wont be anyone on our roster now if we have D'Antoni. DMO has a chance but i doubt it.
4. Who is our 6th man that can push the pace? ALA barbosa....

 

While I agree to a degree that the offense needs improvement, I think the biggest offensive problem is less scheme but the mismatch between scheme and roster. The concept of building an offense around increased efficiency of 3s, layups/dunks and FTs is sound, but unfortunately the roster is filled with players that couldn't make wide open 3s (and there were plenty of wide open 3s missed), players that missed layups, players that didn't dunk, etc. and players that couldn't shoot FTs.

So changing the offensive scheme might have helped, I'd also argue that whatever scheme they changed to would also have suffered from the same roster issues.

If anything, its a miracle the offense was as good as it was with the serious roster issues.

That said, the defensive issues were so glaring that to not focus on those would border on criminal. And not prioritizing that focus by passing it off to a secondary hire ("the assistant coach will address that) to me sends a message that the front office just does not get it.

Do you think James Harden will respond to a defensive assistant coach? More likely, James will focus his energies on adapting his offensive game to whatever offense D'Antoni implements.

Instead, if the Rockets hired a Thibodeau, or a JVG, whose primary focus would be on improving the defense... James would focus his energies on that... or leave.

 

Yes the offense does need work. Enough with the ISO'S!

 

what if,,, what if the earth is a cube?