i don't post as much as i used to since as you get older you take on other important responsibilities in life. but the excitement around this season brought me back to posting more. mostly replying to threads but i feel that i'd like to just say my piece in one shot. i don't want this to become a mchale or lin or howard thread, but i will speak honestly about my feelings, and if it causes a stir or a bunch of "not another mchale/lin/howard/asik/whoever thread! then so be it. 1) early struggles mostly due to the TT experiment. our record doesn't show how good the team is with jones and donuts splitting the 4. we are better than our record shows. 2) this team has enough talent to win a ring if you were going to design a team to beat the heat you would start by attacking inside and at the point. consider james our primary ball handler and we have that. speaking of ball handlers, man i love our PG's. the only way to upgrade from here is a true all-star. lin and bev play good cop bad cop with bev's defensive pressure and lin's scoring punch off the bench. i have to give credit to lin for improving his shot SO much in one offseason. he's going to be an amazing 6'th man. the shooting means he can now play off the ball so he fits with harden, but still has the ability to drive and PnR to run the offense when james gets a breather. he's VERY valuable to the team right now. lin only fan's can rejoice in how well he's playing, but get over the fact that he's doing it from the bench. manu and mchale spent most of their careers as 6th men. ask them if they cared after winning all of those championships. underrated acquisition: omri casspi. man was i disappointed when i was expecting josh smith and we signed omri. i'm not saying i would now rather have omri, but i'm REALLY happy with him. credit DM for seeing something most of us didn't. bench play: lin, garcia, casspi, dmo, smith. all underrated but in the top tier of benches in the league. that's not even counting brooks and brewer, or whatever we get for asik. 3) on defense... why are we not a dominant defensive team? howard and jones are pretty good inside. we force a low FG% and have a good defensive rating, but i don't feel like i'm nitpicking when i say we should be a lot better. howard, jones, and beverley are all great defensive players. parsons was once, and harden has the ability to be. this one i'm putting on the coaching. our guys look like they are playing defense individually out there. there should be a clear system for team defense. instead of just trying to keep your man in front of you, our perimeter guys should know how to force the offense into the help D. and the big guys should be anticipating the perimeter guys to be funneling the offense into them. but instead they all look like they are playing on on one D and late to help because they are always surprised that they have to. its a split second decision of "should i stay with my guy or go help" that's causing them to be a second late to help. its a decision that should be made in practice so there is no thinking involved at the time, just reaction. 4) on offense... lets start with dwight. i think he's been great for our team defensively (even better than asik last year) and much better than asik on offense. i'm really impressed with his dedication and improvement at the ft line. that said, giving him the ball one on one in the post should be the second to last option on offense (next to giving the ball to jones one on one). he doesn't see the double team, ever. he has one predictable move that he hasn't even mastered. i'm not taking anything away from him, he's a superstar, but not a go-to guy. why haven't we seen more PnR with him and harden? i thought with would be play #1. last year's run and gun worked well for a team trying to overachieve, but we have serious talent this year and need to add new dimensions to the offense. here are some suggestions. feel free to add your own or just agree or disagree with these. play #1: PnR with dwight and harden, lin, parsons. no explanation needed. play #2: some sort of motion or flex offense that includes off the ball screens to free up harden, lin, parsons for easy shots. these guys are working too hard going one on one all game trying to beat their guy off the dribble. down screen for one of them to curl for an open free throw line, or 3pt wing jump shot. this should be the first 2 or 3 plays of the game just to get harden going. play #3: off the ball cuts. in reverse of play #2, where are the high off ball screens for back door cuts? we play 4-out-1-in... there is LOTS of room for this to create easy layups. again, our guys are working too hard. we have enough talent to be able to create easy shots. lin, bev, garcia, casspi, etc... the role players can really get involved here. play #4: harden iso at the corner of the FT line. remember how tmac used to dominate from here? he was one dribble from the basket and could either drive or post, but man that caused a double team or a score every time. james iso at the top of the 3 is ok but it gives the defense time to help. there isn't enough time to help when you start from the corner of the ft line. if he catches it there they have to bring a double team right away which creates open 3s, or let james go one bounce to the rim, or post a smaller guard, or step back fade... just watch how a healthy tmac dominated from there. chandler could also do some of this. play #5: here is where the rockets current offense starts. iso drive and kick. harden, parsons, lin, bev at the top of the key or on the wing. spread the floor, beat your man, cause a rotation on defense and kick it to the open guy. we have the talent for it, but it shouldn't be options 1, 2, and 3. play #6: if we are shut down by great half court defense and have no other option besides jacking up a contested shot, then yes, dump it into dwight... 5) closing thoughts i don't want to put all of the blame on the coach here. i realize that i praised all of the players and complained only about the offense and defense (and about dwight's offense in particular) but i call it like i see it. mchale really did a great job overachieving last year, but now that he has enough talent to really do something special, i want to see more wrinkles in the offense, and more cohesion on defense. i can't help but wonder with that kind of system in place if we would be a clear cut championship contender. i'm not saying fire mchale, or i know better than him or anything crazy like that. i'm just wondering why we have no cohesion on defense and no plays for easy baskets on offense. maybe its the immaturity of the players? maybe he's planning on implementing things slowly with such a young group thrown together so quickly. but either way it has to happen. thank you for letting me rant/get all of these thoughts out of my system! Sorry that i don't have time to proof read this or read the first 3 pages of the GARM to see if anyone has said something similar... as i said earlier, other responsibilities are calling
Enjoyed the read, smoothie. You'll make some friends with this quote: "if you were going to design a team to beat the heat you would start by attacking inside and at the point. consider james our primary ball handler and we have that. speaking of ball handlers, man i love our PG's. the only way to upgrade from here is a true all-star. lin and bev play good cop bad cop with bev's defensive pressure and lin's scoring punch off the bench. i have to give credit to lin for improving his shot SO much in one offseason. he's going to be an amazing 6'th man. the shooting means he can now play off the ball so he fits with harden, but still has the ability to drive and PnR to run the offense when james gets a breather. he's VERY valuable to the team right now. lin only fan's can rejoice in how well he's playing, but get over the fact that he's doing it from the bench. manu and mchale spent most of their careers as 6th men. ask them if they cared after winning all of those championships." As for our offense and defense, when you wrote, "maybe its the immaturity of the players? maybe he's planning on implementing things slowly with such a young group thrown together so quickly. but either way it has to happen," that pretty much nailed the problem, in my opinion. We have a very young team, many of the players new to each other, and it will take time for them to jell. Some games, they clearly click, and the results are impressive. It just doesn't happen nearly enough, not yet. Given time, and a resolution of the Omer Asik conundrum (which will probably involve integrating yet another player!), we should be much more consistent by the break. I certainly hope so.
Good post. I disagree on Dwight being better than Asik defensively and offensively. He's allowing around 50% in the paint, something's not right. He definitely has the potential to be greater, but he's not there yet. Blame it on Dwight, blame it on team defense, the defense isn't as good.
agreed 99%, especially on the offense suggestions. i don't agree DH12 is better defensively than Asik though. like you mentioned, DH12 is great on 1-on-1 defense and help blocking shots at the rim. but too many times DH12 is too lazy to come out to contest a mid-range.
i think a lot of it has to do with the perimeter guys getting beat off the dribble. they should either funnel their man into help defense so dwight can be ready and in good position, or they need to deny the penetration. but getting beat means dwight is out of position and recovering to help which means he may stop some or may get called for a foul, or may be in foul trouble and has to allow it. (not saying dwight has to allow layups, but if he's in foul trouble, mchale may tell him not to pick up another foul). point being if it were asik down there he may not be doing any better. but from watching them both this season, dwight is a better rebounder, better one on one defender, and better shot blocker. asik is great, but dwight is dwight. neither can create their own points, but dwight is better at finishing when given the ball in scoring position. that's why i say dwight is better at both ends. not taking anything away from asik.
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Regarding smoothie's comment on why the team D isn't better: What my eyes tell me, and what the data suggests is that the one difference between Howard and Asik is that Howard is leaping high to block almost every shot while Asik tends to just make sure that he is in position with his hands up to contest. The effect of this is that while Howard more often blocks shots or intimidates the opponent into missing than Asik does, he also leaves the man he's guarding available to grab offensive rebounds if the rest of the guys are not able to help out on Howard's guy. Below is a table comparing where the team ranks in terms of overall defensive rating and the 4 defensive categories (Opponent effective FG%, opponent among the 30 NBA teams so far this season to where they ranked last season: <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table { border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif font-size: 12px; } .tableizer-table td { padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc; } .tableizer-table th { background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold; } </style><table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th></th><th>DRtg</th><th>eFG%</th><th>TOV%</th><th>DRB%</th><th>FTM/FGA</th></tr> <tr><td>2012-13</td><td>16</td><td>19</td><td>19</td><td>2</td><td>9</td></tr> <tr><td>2013-14</td><td>20</td><td>6</td><td>30</td><td>27</td><td>7</td></tr> </table> http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2014.html So, the team is still below average overall on defense so far. It has actually improved great deal in terms of lowering the opponents field goal shooting efficiency-- particularly in terms of 2 pointer FG%, where Houston is now ranked 3rd overall vs. 15th last season (the Rockes are still giving up too many 3 point attempts, though). However, the team has REALLY gotten worse on defensive rebounds, going from 2nd overall all the way down to 27th. It will be curious to see whether these trends hold up. Howard's past teams have had high DReb% so it is entirely possible that this issue will be taken care of as the team adjusts to how Howard plays. Also, another factor could be that HOU has played several teams that really go after the offensive boards (partly because their offense isn't all that great at actually making shots) so that could skew the numbers some. Other notes: 1. The team still does a good job not sending the opponent to the line, which is good. 2. The team is now even worse at forcing opponent turnovers-- dead last in the league, actually. Kind of an issue for a team that wants to run. But then again, the Rockets' rate of getting steals is, while still below average, at least not dead last. This means that for some reason, the team is generating few "dead ball turnovers"-- not sure I know how to explain it, really. 3. The team's offense is ranked 6th overall, same as last years. It's a pretty good sign, I think, since this team has yet to hit its stride in terms of chemistry and 3 point shooting %. It also has played its share of minutes in the offensively inefficient Asik+Howard lineup. If the team stays healthy, they should get even better offensively.
great explanation carl. the Dreb issue could be tied to howard going for blocks and the team not boxing out howards man in his absence. how do we rank in terms of offensive rebounds allowed? it seems that if we are forcing a low opponent fg%, but we are weak in Dreb AND weak in forcing dead ball turnovers (such as a rebound going out of bounds) that means the only other place all those missed shots can go are back to the offense. this is HUGE. but as you said, it could just be the teams we played are mindfully doing after the Oreb. it is a small sample size, but realistically its 1/8 of the season so we can't really wait too much longer to figure it out.
Could the lack of dead-ball turnovers be related to a lack of charges? Could that in turn be related to having two real centers? Offensives try to take the ball around or away from true centers, whereas they may sometimes try to shoot over smaller players (and end up causing an offensive foul in the process). This could hardly be the full explanation, but it might be a factor.
Great analysis worthy of 5 stars. The OP should be hired as an assistant to help the coach see where it can be improved. Why don't the coaches see this if a clutch fan can? LOL.
I think our defensive struggles are mainly for one reason: When Dwight goes to help on a drive, nobody else rotates over to cover his man. We had so many good defensive plays negated by either a pass to Howards man at the last second or with offensive rebounds because nobody boxes out Dwights man. This is just something this team needs to learn. If someone drives in the lane, Dwight will go for the block (and that`s a good thing). So either the PF or the SF needs to check Howards man. When the team has this down we will be a much better defensive team. Other than that they just need to learn to play together especially on pick and rolls - way to often they are not sure who to cover after a pick and roll and that leads to easy baskets.
I'm wondering if this has a lot to do with the fact that this team is combining a fast paced offense with Howard's incredible shotblocking presence. Normally when Howard goes to contest, another Rocket (usually a guard) should come over to box out Howard's man and secure the rebound. However, because this team encourages the guards to run off as soon as they see a miss, they abandon the defensive rotation, giving up an easy rebound.
