6 replies to this topic

[Red94]

New post: Memphis Grizzlies 102, Houston Rockets 100: I’m not saying it was the refs…
By: Paul McGuire

One argument which is often trotted out against Moreyball is that a reliance on free throws will not work in the more physical postseason. Referees will call fewer fouls and thus it will be more important to hit that mid-range jump shot. But the reality is there is no evidence that the refs swallow their whistles more in the postseason. For example, the 2013-14 Rockets shot 31 free throws a game in the regular season. Against Portland, that dropped all the way to 30.

 

And as tonight showed, you don’t need to wait until the postseason for the referees to swallow their whistles. Zach Randolph hacked Harden on Houston’s final drive, Marc Gasol made a tough jumper over Terrence Jones, and the Rockets lost a chance to come within half a game of second place in the West. The game was not lost just by the fact that Houston grabbed only 5 free throw attempts tonight (the same amount as during that other badly-reffed game of the season against Chicago), but it did not help.

 

So what were the other reasons for tonight’s loss? The big problem, especially during the second half, was that Houston just does not have the size to fight Randolph-Gasol without Dwight Howard. The Rockets entered the second half with a 59-54 lead, but then those two scored or assisted on every Memphis bucket for the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. Terrence Jones played well, Josh Smith was okay, and Donatas Motiejunas was awful. But none of them could stop Gasol and Randolph from getting into the paint and causing havoc.

 

As noted above, Motiejunas in particular struggled throughout the game. Part of that could be attributed to another poor call. With 8:21 left in the second quarter, Motiejunas was called for a blocking foul, his third of the game, despite being clearly set. This forced him out for the rest of the half, and the Rockets resorted to playing (gulp) Dorsey.

 

However, Motiejunas’s 4-12 shooting performance is his worst scoring game efficiency-wise in almost two months. Instead, Terrence Jones had an All-Star caliber performance tonight. He scored 21 points, grabbed 9 rebounds, and hit several key shots down the final stretch. But as long as Howard is out, the Rockets need Jones and Motiejunas to not just play well, but to fill in for Howard’s role as a rim protector. And it would be nice if both of them could play well at the same time.

 

The Rockets have three fundamental weaknesses. If they lose in the playoffs, it will be due to an inability to overcome said weaknesses. They do not have enough size without Howard. Even when he returns, Houston will need to figure out what to do when he sits. They rely too much on Harden to create their entire offense, which is the reason for their horrendous turnover rate. Prigioni could help with this, but McHale did not play him tonight. And for as much as people talk about Moreyball, the Rockets are not a good three-point shooting team. Tonight, the first mistake did them in.

 

Also, a shout-out to Patrick Beverley, who seems to be getting out of that horrible slump of the past few weeks. Since returning from his flu-like symptoms, he is shooting 44% from long-range in the past four games. The Rockets need Beverley to make his shots and not be the next Rafer Alston. Trevor Ariza shot extremely well – from mid-range. He missed all four of his three-pointers.

 

The Rockets can point to a lot of positives tonight. Despite a major size disadvantage, they managed to battle the third-best NBA team to what should have been an overtime game. And while the ending sucked, Houston is still 13-3 in games decided by 5 points or less. A great deal of clutch deal comes down to mere luck. Houston will win some and lose some in that situation, and things just went badly for them tonight. They need to figure out how to tangle with big teams without Howard, Donatas Motiejunas needs to regain his play from earlier in the season, and it will be nice to see Houston get the call and the free throw for a change.

 

But these are things which can be fixed or improved upon. And with a little over a month left until the Playoffs, the Rockets must work to iron out the last few kinks – kinks which cost them tonight just as much as one stupid call.

[Alituro]

So, after a competitive outing against the EC's best without our superstar or (other) star the night before, we travel and face the WC's second best and come within a blown call of taking them to overtime (still without that other star). Hell, a normally or even marginally sub-par foul calling night and the game wouldn't have even been close. I don't see any reason for worry. 

 

Our guys have shown tremendous mettle in this stretch with Dwight out. His return isn't going to cripple our squad if he's at least 90% healthy, it will open up other dimensions to our game and make our already diverse rotations even more so.

 

When it comes down to it, in the bloodbath that the WC playoffs are sure to turn out to be, none of the 8 in the race have any weaknesses that aren't countered by having huge strengths in other aspects. Including the Rockets. Each series is going to be determined by only a handful of made or blown calls or shots. The team that emerges is going to have luck on their side over any actual talent advantage (Injuries notwithstanding).

 

Are we now able to see the results of the crunch-time calls? Aren't they being made public? What kind of ramifications does this supposed new thing have going forward for the league and it's officials?

[Red94]

New post: A night of basketball on March 5: The non-call, Terrence Jones, and the Caanaanball
By: Rahat Huq

First off, if you haven't yet, check out Episode 72 of The Red94 Podcast where Richard Li and I delved into some of the data pertaining to the team.  We looked at bench usage, crunch time effectiveness, and, of course, Dwight Howard postups.

 

Now, to turn your attention to the real topic of the moment:

 

 

It hurts to go down like this in such an important game, with the 2 seed on the line.  (Yes, I get that #3 is probably more favorable at this point, but for bragging rights, it's the 2 seed man!  We haven't finished that high since I was in middle school.)  And it was clearly a foul, as shown above.  But what's the use?  It happened, we'll take our apology from the league and I guess wear it proudly in the standings?  But I guess the greater issue is the ramifications.  As Paul mentioned in the recap, there isn't much evidence of a downtick in foul calls overall in the postseason.  But close and late?  One would have to imagine there would be a greater aversion to blowing the whistle for contact in the paint.  Fortunately, Harden has spent all season perfecting the art of the mid-range.  I was actually surprised he drove it in last night on that play.

 

It hurt to lose, but you can think of this loss, and the one against Atlanta, (as well as the win over the Cavs), in one of two ways.  First, we actually hung with or beat three of the top teams in the league, without Dwight Howard.  Actually, when you throw in wins over the likes of the Clippers, we've demonstrated an ability to compete with just about everyone in the league, save for Golden State, without Dwight.  That bodes well for the future, if factoring in Dwight's inevitable return.  On the flip side, you could argue that we might not ever get the real Dwight Howard back, and if he insists on murking things up in the halfcourt with his postups, there will be an overall loss in the aggregate.  We'll just have to see how it plays out when he comes back.  Houston could've desperately used Dwight's size inside last night in the paint to contend with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol.  But do they score as freely as they have been if a reduced version of Dwight is in there instead of Terrence Jones and Motiejunas?  We saw an extreme example of this late in the game last night where a lineup featuring James Harden at power forward was so offensively overwhelming that it surged the team back into the game.  As I said yesterday in the podcast, the best thing Dwight Howard can do for the Rockets, aside from getting healthy, is to embrace becoming Tyson Chandler.  I'm not holding my breath.

 

2.  Look at Terrence Jones' last six games: 15 and 15, 14 and 8, 26 and 12, 19 and 7, 18 and 8, and 21 and 9.  At just 23 years old, he's looking like a budding All-Star, taking a step even beyond the colossal step he took last season.  We see now that he's scoring, even without Dwight, and against the best teams in the league, a valuable development over last season.  (While his splits with Dwight off the court were stellar, Jones did not fare well against the league's top teams).  Kevin McHale isn't having to go small to close every game anymore (and although he did last night, it wasn't at the sacrifice of Jones).  The big question now will be whether Jones can consistently defend the paint against the top 4's in the Western Conference.  I wanted to trade Jones, most notably for Goran Dragic, but in hindsight, perhaps Houston dodged a bullet?  It might be premature to go that far as Dragic is of course coming off an all-NBA season, but if Jones continues this trajectory, his loss would've been tough to swallow in the event Dragic walked in free agency.  Especially with Dwight Howard's future up in the air.  But with Josh Smith and Motiejunas already holding down the fort, maybe a point guard would do more in the short term?  That leads us to point #3.

 

3.

 

 

I wrote the day of the trade that if I could ask Kevin McHale just one question, it would be about Isaiah Canaan.  What exactly happened leading up to the banishment of a player who in theory, seemed to have every tool this team was craving for in a point guard?  There are those of course who will point to Russell Westbrook's stat line last night, or rough nights yet to come for Canaan.  But that's missing the point entirely.  While I thought Canaan could one day start, that's not what this team needed.  They just needed a guy to come in and give them 15-20 minutes a night of playmaking and accurate shooting from the point guard position.  Canaan could have fit that role to a tee, if given the chance.  Instead, the Rockets traded him for a guy who, while in theory was an exciting acquisition, will probably never see the light of day.  With Houston in contention for the 2 seed, in maybe the most brutal conference in league history, without Dwight Howard, it's tough to find fault with Kevin McHale's coaching these days.  But after Lowry, and now Canaan, a disturbing trend seems to have evolved surrounding McHale and his point guards.  We don't know exactly what happened, but given the facts on the face of things, the speculation seems to add up.  Maybe the tight ship McHale runs, while alienating his generals, has directly contributed to the team overachieving in every regular season since he's been here.  If that's the case, shedding a few bad apples who don't want to buy in was certainly defensible.  But from what we know, which is nothing, aside from the fact that Isaiah Canaan is a baller and we let him go for nothing, the entire episode seems curious.  You're telling me a team running the worst point guard unit of any playoff team in the league couldn't make use of 20 minutes a game of that kind of firepower (shown above)?  Really?

 

[Alituro]

I'm glad Canaan is finally getting some PT, he deserves it. At least he isn't going to be draining them somewhere in the West, if that's any consolation.

[thejohnnygold]

I'm glad people aren't over-reacting to this game.  Yesterday's game was eerily similar to this season's other 5 free throw game against Chicago.  We played good basketball, but the referees found our opponent's defense to be nearly perfect.  Yesterday, we scored 50 points in the paint and shot 5 free throws.  I saw contact--lots of contact--on more plays than I can recount.  I get that these things are anomalies, but it is still egregious.  50 points in the paint (plus all the visits we didn't score on) and the refs don't see the contact.  OK.

 

As for the oft-cited, but seldom understood point about "play-off fouls", Rahat seems to understand what people (at least myself) are talking about.  It's not that the whistles go away in the playoffs.  No one (that I am aware of) has laid claim to that.  Whistles at the ends of games disappear.  When Harden goes fishing for one (as he did last night), he is going to find these fish aren't biting.  In all fairness, I haven't seen one person mention the foul T-Jones put on Gasol on his game winner--that should have been an and-1.  Jones clearly hit Gasol's left elbow as he was shooting.  Refs call that contact all game long...but not on game winning plays...which is what Harden has got to learn.

 

I would actually like to see James develop the Jeremy Lin drive to the rim, stop 5 feet short and pivot towards the middle shot.  Given how hard defenders bite on his drives this would give him 5 foot bunnies anytime he wanted and easy passes to trailing bigs for monster dunks.  I don't know...anything except driving looking for contact.

 

This is why I found the late game call for LeBron (when Smith played pretty good D) a bit unorthodox.  I think in a playoff game that whistle does not get blown.

 

I love how Josh Smith still gets begrudging acknowledgement.  If you take out the shot-clock bail out 3 pointer Harden forced on him he went 6-13 from the field and 2-4 from deep.  8 boards, 2 assists, a steal, a block, and 0 turnovers.  He even hit both his free throws.  Team-wise, he posted an Ortg of 128 and a team best Drtg of 109.  He was a difference maker for this team--like it or not.  But, apparently, Josh Smith was "OK".

 

Perhaps he was just outshined by Terrence Jones.  I imagine all those who said D-Mo had outplayed him and Jones was the odd man out are second-guessing that now, eh?  I love the Terrence Jones/Josh Smith pairing.  What's better than one Josh Smith caliber athlete?  Two Josh Smith caliber athletes.  Opposing teams may have one Draymond Green type player to deal with their athleticism, but very few will be able to match both of them on both ends.

 

Yes, D-Mo struggled, but is that a surprise?  That is some of the stoutest interior defense in the league and D-Mo has proven one thing this season--he is not a power player.  He is a sub-par rebounder and does not attack the rim strong when he should.  I think those things get addressed this off season, but for now we live with them.  His 3 point shot looked good--real good.  Despite his off night, I am still seeing improvements in his game as the season progresses.  He still hasn't found his ceiling.

 

Here is the link for the Officiating Reports--as of now, still not posted.  I think we all know what it's going to say.  Personally, I am glad we lost (I get the glory of being #2, but come playoff time that glory will be a curse) because I think OKC passes San Antonio to snag the 7th seed.  When people point to Linsanity and try to rationalize that he is a star because he did that for a couple weeks they need to stop and look at what actual stars do when they go off for a couple weeks--Lin fans, meet Russell Westbrook.  (what's hilarious is he is doing this while shooting horribly from the field, but he is living at the stripe).

[thejohnnygold]

Here is the official report from the NBA on the Memphis game.  To no one's surprise, the review committee found the referees missed the call.  

[Losthief]

Here is the official report from the NBA on the Memphis game.  To no one's surprise, the review committee found the referees missed the call.  

 

among others for the home team. Strange that it went that way on the home court...road wouldn't be as surprising...