Rockets after 20 games

madbucky · Post #1 » by **madbucky** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:36 pm

Some eye-opening numbers:
http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterockets/2 ... el-as-one/

1. Rockets are 10th in the league on offense (in terms of pts per possession).
This seems surprising since Houston doesn't have a very good FG% or 3pt%. However, this is offset by the Rockets being 4th in FT attempts. This reflects in their 8th highest TS% (which includes FT).

2. Rockets are 24th in the league on defense (pts allowed per possession).
But what's really interesting is that the Rocket's half court defense is excellent, 6th best in the league in pts allowed per half court possession. It's their transition defense that is the worst in the league.

So for all the "offensive woes" that fans are screaming about (Asik's scoring, Lin's jumper, Harden's isos and turnovers), the Rockets are actually doing fine on offense. And for all the "defensive woes" (Harden's lack of defense, sitting Lin for Douglas), Houston is actually doing great in half court defense.

The biggest area for improvement is transition defense, which should (??) be a relatively easy fix. Everyone hustle back on defense. When one player is penetrating, the other guard should be moving towards half court to cover the transition. I wonder if one of the problems is the amount of 3's that we take, those result in long rebounds and fast break opportunities. I really would like to see Houston rely less on the 3.

rocketsballin · Post #2 » by **rocketsballin** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:15 pm

overall as a team i knew we weren't bad on offense. we scored 100+ vs lakers, heat, spurs. i think we avg 100pts?

the halfcourt/transition ranking are like reversed. as the 2nd youngest team we should be good in transition d but bad in halfcourt d. when u look on paper we do have good defensive players.

Zubby · Post #3 » by **Zubby** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 10:38 pm

Asik/Parsons beast for us when we get set

Transition defense well we commit a lot of turnovers... most in the league. Thats easy buckets for the other team.
On missed shots Harden doesn't get back... and Lin is too busy trying to a rebounds.

This means Parsons has to track back and now we dont get to see anymore signature Parsons Monster Put Backs!

madbucky · Post #4 » by **madbucky** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 12:26 am

Good points all.

If there's some consolation, the Rockets have had the 6th toughest schedule so far. So the schedule should be a little easier the rest of the way.
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerr ... _/sort/sos