[Hardwood Paroxysm]Drive and Dish: Rockets-Warriors For the Ultimate Fun Championship

CarolNYC · Mar 8, 2013

Nice piece about the game tonight....

Drive and Dish: Rockets-Warriors For the Ultimate Fun Championship
March 8, 2013 by Jared Dubin

The Golden State Warriors were early season darlings. Entering their February 5 (we’re using “early season” loosely here) game against the Rockets in Houston, the Dubs were 30-17 and the biggest surprise in the league. They had a top-10 offense–as they still do today–and though their defense had been cratering for about a month, it still sat a respectable 12th in the league at the time. But on that night the Rockets exposed all the weaknesses in Golden State’s defense as they poured in 140 points, 23 3-pointers and 21 fast break points.

15 of those 23 3-pointers were of the spot-up variety, and of those 15, nine of them came directly out of pick-and-rolls. Golden State likes to try to force pick-and-roll ball-handlers away from the screen by jumping out on the high side and denying use of the screen at all. This works against a lot of teams, but Houston has two guards–James Harden and Jeremy Lin–who are perfectly comfortable declining screens and driving straight into the lane. That straight line driving ability puts a whole lot of pressure on the remaining three defenders on the court to crash down into the lane to protect the rim, and the Rockets got a whopping six spot-up 3s on plays where they declined the screen on pick-and-rolls in favor of a straight line drive and kick.
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The Warriors cleaned some stuff up in the second meeting on February 12, as they managed to hold the Rockets to only 116 points; but Houston still got seven spot-up 3s, five out of the pick-and-roll, and two through rejecting the ball screen. Though they harassed Lin (3-11) and Harden (7-22) into poor shooting performances, the Dubs also managed to put the two of them on the free throw line a combined 19 times (of which they made all 19), which is not exactly ideal when you’re talking about guys who shoot 83.3 and 88.0 percent from the stripe, respectively. Golden State was also so concentrated on stopping the Lin-Harden duo that they allowed the rest of the Rockets to shoot 33-58 (56.9%) from the field.
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Houston, meanwhile, has gone 6-6 in that same timespan, lighting the world on fire with a preposterously efficient offense; they’ve scored 115.8 points per 100 possessions–or 5.2 points better than Oklahoma City’s league-leading mark–since that first Golden State tilt. However, their defense has been nearly as bad as their offense has been good, as they’ve allowed 110.0 points per 100 possessions–even worse than the league-worst Bobcats–over the same period. The Rockets have mixed good wins against the Warriors, Thunder and Nets with bad losses to Sacramento, Washington and Dallas. Though they’re fun to watch, they’re still fairly inconsistent.
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While it’s not especially likely that either of these teams will mount a deep playoff run given their lackluster defenses, they’ve at least got a shot at Ultimate Fun Championship tonight.
Click to expand...

More,including videos, etc....

GIGO · Mar 8, 2013

CarolNYC said: ↑

Nice piece about the game tonight....
More,including videos, etc....
Click to expand...

A nice article by Jared Dubin. Thanks.
But the links do not work for some reason.
Let me see if this works.

http://www.hardwoodparoxysm.com/2013/03/08/drive-and-dish-rockets-warriors-for-the-ultimate-fun-championship/

CarolNYC · Mar 8, 2013

Thanks. Links work now...I originally screwed them up. But fixed now.

jocar · Mar 8, 2013

I hope Jeremy goes nuts, we win by 30, and Mark Jackson cries.

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[Hardwood Paroxysm]Drive and Dish: Rockets-Warriors For the Ultimate Fun Championship

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