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Houston Rockets 103, Utah Jazz 94: Defense is a relative term

The Houston Rockets beat the Utah Jazz for the second time in as many tries, and this time they held them to a mere 94 points. That’s good defense, isn’t it? That, unfortunately, is a real question and the answer doesn’t look great. This game was encouraging due to how terrible the Rockets have been this season, and looked like the Rockets starting to get back on track. The track is still a long way off, however, and it’s not clear if this is even the track they should be on. The track isn’t as good at defense as it looks.

The Utah Jazz shot 48.7 % overall. That’s a big number. That’s even bigger when you consider that the Jazz shot 25% on three point attempts. That’s 62% shooting from inside the arc for Utah, and they graciously missed 6 of their 17 free throw attempts. The defense did, in the second half, look better. That’s not nothing. Unfortunately, there was a much bigger factor in this game, and it’s the stat of the night.

28.

The Utah Jazz attempted 28 three pointers during the game, and they happened to miss 75% of them. Even a slight regression toward the mean in three point accuracy, and that 94 points becomes a lot less impressive. If the Jazz had hit 35% of their threes, they end with just about 102 points. This has been talked about in a lot of places, but it boils down to one thing: three pointers are extremely variant and generally defense is hard to measure. The best teams limit three point attempts primarily. Don’t believe me? Look at this link to ESPN’s lovely stats site and read which team allows the fewest three pointers.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/team/_/stat/defense-per-game/sort/avgThreePointFieldGoalsAttemptedOpponent/order/false

It’s a noisy stat, but it’s important and well-observed. The San Antonio Spurs are the best example this year of a team flat-out denying teams three pointers at all costs, and their defense is literally historic. The Houston Rockets are less proactive on this front. Their defense can’t seem to decide if the inside is a wasteland or if the perimeter is a bloodbath, but either way is a problem. Some elements of the team are coming together, but they still allow over 25 threes a game, somewhat below league average. The defense is better. The defense is not good.

Dwight Howard did not play due to back spasms and was a game-time decision. The Rockets are being extremely cautious with him, and that’s a good thing. It also means he may miss games and have people angry at him for missing games that he did not choose to miss. Life is a struggle. Keep on keeping on, Dwight Howard.

His absence, however, was merely one of many. Donatas Motiejunas continues to face back pain, though test results were negative in the way that means good, he’s not re-aggravating it. Sam Dekker, bless his heart, is also dealing with back problems. Sam, Dwight, and Donatas clearly are contagious, and the rest of the team needs to wear those flu masks on their lower backs from now on. Also, avoid the Jazz locker room, too. They were missing Derrick Favors, Alec Burks and Rodney Hood, while Rudy Gobert was on his first game back from injury. This was not a well-staffed game.

Ty Lawson was also absent, but for a different reason. He was suspended three more games, the league announced, due to his second DUI offense while on the Denver Nuggets last season. If his zero game suspension seemed too good to be true, that’s because the NBA was going to suspend him for two games randomly in mid season. And if those two games seemed too light of a sentence, here are the three games he gets for the other offense. It seems like the total is going to come out to five games, but don’t be surprised if NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announces one last game suspension for Lawson some time in 2021.

James Harden also played basketball tonight. He had one really bizarre turnover wherein he looked pointedly at an empty spot on the court and defiantly threw the ball into the fifth row. He also took apart a three-on-one fast break by himself, so the beard giveth and the beard taketh away. On balance he was great, but since this was essentially a 2014-15 game by way of personnel this wasn’t surprising. He’s ectremely good at being the entire offense, which is sort of the double-edged sword that powers the whole affair. 33 points on 25 shots is fine, especially considering that he went 0-7 on threes. He had his usual retinue of stats to go with that in 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and a block with a not-horrible 4 turnovers.

It was at times a shootout, but it was a shootout that the Rockets won. This season, that’s reason for celebration. Just try to keep the other guys from shooting so many threes next time, okay?

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