The real test of the new small ball strategy starts with the next game against the Lakers. Houston has to be able to win consistently against teams with elite bigs to have a viable path to a championship. But Morey and D'A wouldn't go all in with this strategy unless the underlying math suggested it would work. The majority of fans here and outside of Houston are going to jump on the mantra that you can't win without rebounding and having effective rim protection. This is based on confirmation bias and not actual math or results. There can be no factual basis for this assumption because no team in NBA history has ever constructed a roster to play this way. This is uncharted territory and as such, the whole world should be waiting to judge it until we see what happens. And what's happened so far in the past three games is FASCINATING. The Rockets have beaten three less than elite teams on this run - the Hornets and Pelicans which are lottery teams and the Mavericks without Luka. So this analysis comes with a caveat that we haven't beaten a healthy playoff team playing small yet. But we also haven't seen how adding Roco, an elite perimeter defender, will improve the team's performance. What we can say, is that the Rockets have won three games in a row by an average margin of +10 points, despite shooting a lower FG% in all three games, giving up at least 12 more rebounds in all three games and without having a meaningful advantage at the Free Throw line. So lets dive into the numbers and see how the Rockets have won these games despite giving up an average of nearly 16 more rebounds per game: Rebounds: CHA - 53 HOU - 41 NOP - 63 HOU - 43 DAL - 52 HOU - 37 This is the heart of the argument that you can't win playing small ball. Over this three game span, the Rockets have been out-rebounded 168 to 121. Opponents are pulling down 39% (!!!!) more rebounds than the Rockets. That has to be an absolute killer right? No team can possibly win consistently giving up 40% more rebounds than their opponents? Frankly I was stunned by this number. I love the idea of small ball and I'm all about the math, but even I couldn't initially wrap my head around the idea that the Rockets were giving up SO MANY MORE rebounds! That had to mean that they were taking a ton less shots than their opponents right? RIGHT? Field Goal Attempts: CHA - 83 HOU - 97 NOP - 94 HOU - 105 DAL - 90 HOU - 98 Just let these numbers soak in a minute. That's right, in all three games the Rockets took significantly MORE shots than their opponents. So this doesn't make ANY sense. The Rockets are giving up 16 more rebounds a game but taking 11 more shot attempts a game? HOW IN THE WORLD IS THAT HAPPENING? Turnovers: CHA - 17 HOU - 4 NOP - 21 HOU - 7 DAL - 17 HOU - 6 Wow...just WOW. And those are the entire team's turnover stats, not just Harden's. In fact, we've seen games where Harden and Westbrook have each individually had more turnovers than the team had in these three games. A lot of the Rockets turnovers were related to attempts to put the ball into big guys hands at the rim or due to an emergency attempt to kick out when one of our guards drove the lane only to find a rim protector in their face at the last minute. Removing the inside game means less passes in traffic and spacing the opposing big out toward the three point line means less rim protection when Brodie or Beard drives. The Rockets are getting 47 less rebounds over the three game span, but 38 MORE turnovers. And when your team is more efficient at scoring than the opponents on a per possession basis (and the Rockets are more efficient than anybody except maybe the Bucks) turnovers (which give you more possessions) are worth more than defensive rebounds (which deny opponents more possessions). But here's the insidious thing about turnovers and why they are FAR superior to defensive rebounds. If you are the Rockets and you take a shot and miss and the opponent rebounds that ball, their rebound simply gets them a shot on the other end, the same as if the Rockets had made the bucket. Defensive rebounds prevent 2nd chance points, but they don't create an additional opportunity for the other team to score. It's one possession for the Rockets and one possession for the opponent. But if the Rockets score and then steal the ball and score again, the turnover has resulted in an "extra" 2 or 3 points that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get. Defensive rebounds don't create additional possessions (and extra shots) but turnovers DO create extra possessions AND extra shots. That's why the Rockets are losing the Rebound battle so badly, but winning the FGA battle so decisively. And why are other teams turning the ball over so much more? Because they are giving more possessions to big men in traffic who are being covered by smaller, faster defenders who can disrupt plays more often. Field Goal Percentage CHA - 47% HOU - 44% NOP - 45% HOU - 39% DAL - 48% HOU - 46% So this is exactly what you might expect with teams having a height advantage. They will be able to get higher percentage shots off against the Rockets by pounding the rock inside and laying it up over shorter defenders. But because the Rockets average more FGAs a game, this happens: FGM CHA - 39 HOU - 43 NOP - 42 HOU - 41 DAL - 43 HOU - 45 So the higher percentage shots the opponent bigs are taking in the lane don't matter because the Rockets are taking MORE total shots and making just as many total field goals as their opponents (actually in 2 of 3 cases - even more!) But the best part is saved for last: 3 point conversions / attempts: CHA - 13 for 33 HOU - 20 for 60 (!!!!) NOP - 10 for 33 HOU - 16 for 51 DAL - 14 for 36 HOU - 21 for 45 And here is where the math advantage destroys other teams. The Rockets are averaging over 50 3 point attempts per game! Even if they shoot in the low to mid 30% range, if you make the same number of FGAs as your opponent and 6 - 7 of those attempts are for 50% more points, you are going to win EVERY GAME, unless your giving up more points at the free throw line.... FTs: CHA 19 - 24 HOU 19 - 23 NOP - 15 - 20 HOU - 19 - 22 DAL 21 - 27 HOU 17 - 20 ....which the Rockets aren't doing. The Rockets used to need a good margin in free throws to consistently win games. With refs denying Harden the calls he used to get, the Rockets can't rely on FTs to help them win games as much as they used to. And we all know that FT calls dry up in the post season, so for playoff basketball, relying on the charity stripe as a way to win games is dangerous. The small ball lineup doesn't need an advantage at the FT line, it just needs relative parity. And it doesn't hurt that we are replacing Capela, a sub 50% shooter at the line, with Roco who is a career 80% shooter. So all of this analysis could get blown up tomorrow in Staples Center if the Lakers dominate the Rockets inside and the small ball lineup gets exposed. But if it plays in Hollywood like its played so far in Houston, then I think we may want to re-examine our assumptions about how important rebounding percentage and rim protection actually is and how valuable the Capela for Covington trade may turn out to be.
Awful competition lol. Dallas's didn't have their star player and we barley eeked out a win. Giving up those rebounds to a legitimate team we get slaughtered. Wait till tomo
it should be obvious to anyone the rockets are doubling down on their strengths which gives up some rebounding. House even brought this up last night. They're banking on that not mattering in the aggregate with the additional offense created and improved perimeter defense. Who's guarding wb and Harden in space? good luck
I like this analysis but disagree that you can attribute a lot of these turnovers to us going small I think maybe 10-15 percent were generated when the other team tried forcing a mismatch inside The rest was sloppy play Dal was missing their best player and primary ball handler Charlotte is just awful and young And NOP is a very young team as well . I watched all of those games closely . If teams try to post up PJ and James small ball can be solid defensively. If teams bring the pick and roll with a big finisher that’s gonna be tough to stop . It’s not the post ups that kill us it’s the second chance points and lack of rim protection . A veteran , prepared team in the playoffs will absolutely find ways to take advantage of our lack of height . We will just have to hope we are hot from 3 .
You have to play thru a 7 game series to fully evaluate the outcome. But it seems to work against good opponents, would have wanted to watch Doncic though.
I think too much of anything has it's drawbacks. Sometimes we will be better off with Hartenstein or Chandler in there stopping them from getting so many second chance points or making easy layups. Last night we played an awful team. I'm worried about MDA not adjusting and playing a real center when we play a bigger and better defensive group that dominates us at the rim.
Nice analysis, thanks for the time. It's definitely a positive that we can potentially defy the odds, but I have a feeling the Lakers will destroy us. Let's see what happens once Robert is here, the trade deadline has passed and how we will adjust. The main problem I have is MDA still running guys into the ground, mainly Tucker. He's not a center and will have to bang with some big boys even more. You best believe that the odds are against us and we will lose him for a significant time if those minutes are not brought down significantly.
I have no idea how this will work in the playoffs. but for regular season I’d be very surprised if we don’t start running teams out the gym again just because of the space for harden and the added shooting now always on The court with no Clint or any center for that matter. harden is an offense of his own so I get what houston is doing they want to bring out the best version of harden and the stats back it up when he scores a lot we win a lot and when he can get to the paint it really opens up the game for not only him but also the others. when harden is getting in the paint the others touch the ball more. When he’s going iso and shooting threes which he’s very good at the others don’t really touch the ball. so offensively this is going to be really good. Defensively it will be good also we can go back to switching 1-5 and actually be really good at it. like others the rebounding is a concern of mine. but if my memory is correct when GSW we’re winning big the last five years and had a great Defense they weren’t a good rebounding team either so maybe if you have great offense and good perimeter D and the ability to switch everything then the rebounding is less important. time will tell but I do expect the rockets to really shoot up the standings after the break.
Great post. A few points to consider: 1) Those teams are not that good (It seems the Mavs are a force with or without Luka, but with Luka they're clearly better) 2) Small sample size 3) Rockets defense has been a little better in these games imho We can justify the trade as much as we want, but at the end of the day not having a big is going to hurt us. Other teams will drive on us without hesitation and the other teams bigs will take advantage. In order for small ball to produce wins, the Rockets will have to hit their shots and take care of the ball or else it won't work IMHO. They also have to come out and consistently play defense (RoCo will help with this hopefully).
Don't know if you listen to the "Thinking Basketball" podcast but there was an interesting one on the value of rebounding - or, rather, the value in using rebounding to assess a player. It was pretty interesting. I don't think I fully understood it as I was doing other **** while listening, but one argument the guy (Ben Taylor) made was that team rebounding matters, but individual rebounding does not. Essentially, rebounding from an individual is more easily replaced by others than other things like scoring or playmaking or perimeter defense. Anyway, it's worth a listen. My summary here doesn't do it justice. I wonder if the Rockets think similarly on rebounding and that was a potential motivator.
