From their postgame interviews: Harden: "That's gonna be our defense every game: making sure we communicate on our switches. That helps us be in positions to be able to rebound the basketball. It's extremely important that we communicate, because we're smaller, as far as height-wise, so we have to position well to rebound the basketball as a team. ... You gotta take on the challenge. ... If you've got that competitive spirit and have the will to want to get things done, then that makes up for anybody that's tall, that's seven feet." Westbrook: "We're small out there, so we gotta be scrappy. We gotta play hard. 'Cause if we don't, our chances of winning come down. And the guys in the locker room know that. And everybody stepped up on all levels: defending, you know, rebounding, using our quickness." Common theme: Small ball works because people do what they have to do. You trade size for speed, and then the players, acutely aware that they don't have size, play harder and with more focus to compensate for that. Each of them takes on more responsibility. No big man is there to bail you out. Whatever needs to be done, you have to do.
It's a really interesting experiment. Win or lose, it has been successful and they should continue refining it with whoever is the coach. I've been saying for 2 years, rebounding is nowhere near as important as defense. But on average, people talk about poor rebounding as though it's the equivalent of poor defense but it is NOT close. If you can get a significant defensive or offensive bump in exchange for rebounding, you do it. The point of rebounding is to gain a possession, the point of a possession is to score or deny a basket (offense and defense). As long as the players take advantage of the new opportunities, it's a plus. We are transforming the league again. Rebounding is going to significantly reduce in importance throughout the league imo.
I don't think there's any reduction in importance in team rebounding. The Rockets are at their best when they are able to close out defensive possessions with the rebound. Having a single elite rebounding big man is, perhaps, less important than people think. PJ Tucker doesn't get nearly as many rebounds as Clint Capela, but I bet he has comparable impact on the boards because of the box outs.
Yes, but the link between rebounding and winning has changed. We can lose the rebounding battle handily, but lose a lower proportion of games than we would have lost in the past in that same situation. When we get outrebounded by 15, it doesn't really matter. We still give maximum effort but we have reduced our capacity and intentionally accept the consequence of a significant dip in rebounding. We are just not going to win the rebounding battle most nights, and we are going to win more as a consequence. It's incredible if you think about it.
I'd like to see the math on points scored per defensive rebound vs points scored per turnover forced. Then we could run an equation as to how the tradeoff of D rebounds for turnovers nets out.
Once the Lakers figure out they can play LeBron as the nominal 5 when Davis is out instead of the moronic twin towers lineups and that 3 of 9 from deep is not an unsurvivable stat line from their role players, and is way better than having Dwight out there, things will get much tougher. Recall when the Warriors struggled in 2016 against the Thunder in the WCF it was because the Thunder nailed Stephen Adams and Enes Kanter to the bench in order to counter the "death lineup" of no center with.....Andre Roberson, who couldn't score for ****. But it made life miserable for what was an unstoppable Warriors offense all season, almost enough to take them out. But it's 9 months later and Frank Vogel still hasn't figured this out so...?
Good post and I’d love to see a statistical study to prove you’re right. I bet Murrley has it. One small item- rebounds are listed as a defensive stat, with blocks and steals.
Vogel can read advanced stats too, with AD at 5 Lakers score .860 PPG and give up 1.01 PPG. There is no magic solution for the Lakers vs. Rockets.
That’s right. It’s not a surprise the Rockets are facing a rebound deficit - the new lineup is designed to limit its own turnovers and create more turnovers. That means we have more FGA and the opponent has fewer - if we get defensive rebounds at the same rate, we would end up with fewer boards.
y = 144.75 x1 – 1.47 x2 + 4.28·10-1 x3 + 32.03 x4 – 150.85 x5 + 1.33 x6 + 4.12·10-1 x7 – 30.13 x8 – 37.19
Some turnovers hurt more than others, so that’s another factor to include in the analysis. As a first approximation, a forced turnover is more valuable than a defensive rebound. But it doesn’t follow that a team that focuses more on winning the turnover battle will be better than a team that focuses more on rebounding. If you are gambling a lot to force turnovers, that can compromise the defense. I think the way the Rockets play is smart for their personnel. But I don’t think there’s a mathematical proof available that one strategy is objectively better than another.
NBA stats, look it up. Giannis is leading playoffs with 15 boards/game average. Covington, Kawhi and Harden are leading playoffs in steals per game. Rockets only team with 3 players in top 11 in total steals. Only Bulls have 2 such players in top 15. https://stats.nba.com/teams/rebounding/ The most successful teams in playoffs are not leading in rebounds. https://www.foxsports.com/nba/team-stats?season=2018&category=REBOUNDING&group=1&time=0 Go back and look at all the championship teams in last 20 years, most did not lead NBA/playoffs in rebounds.
Individual rebounding has always been overrated. (I think Morey mentioned about that once.) We see teams losing an elite rebounder and team rebounding does not drop much. There's only one guy getting the rebound each time. A great rebounder not only takes the ball away from the opponent, but also from his own teammates. That said, small ball defense and rebounding takes a lot of focus. That's the main point of Harden and Westbrook. The Rockets have to be super focused on that end. I hope they can sustain it all the way to the championship.
In few of the post interviews, Harden let it slip that Rockets have been studying tendencies. All playoff teams do this, but I'm wondering if the Rockets is emphasizing this a lot more. Best defense in bubble: the 'quick hands' and the 'deflections' looks methodical, almost like the defense can telegraph what opponents would do. Where guys like to keep the dribble on that first step, when to deflect the pass. Rockets defense not just randomly swiping. Staff may be doing a better job at prepping our guys. Lebron says they lost game 1 because of turnovers. They're pro nba players, you don't just turn a ball over unless faced by a stifling defense.
