About a week before the Houston Rockets signed forward Josh Smith, general manager Daryl Morey tweeted a cartoon for no apparent reason other than he liked it.
Morey, known for his long and close relationship with statistics, and often amused by those that confuse correlation (or even coincidence) with causation, was simply enjoying the comic and its appeal to his math nerd side.
Now, it applies.
The Rockets signed Josh Smith. The Rockets played poorly in a back-to-back, losing to the San Antonio Spurs (without Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard) and Washington Wizards and looking bad doing it.
Signing Josh Smith, therefore, was not working. Correlation implied causation.
There is one problem with that theory. Smith had little to do with the Rockets’ issues or their challenges as they head to a stretch of tests against the New Orleans Pelicans, Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers. Only the game against the Heat will be at home, and that will come on the second half of a back-to-back.
Smith played poorly against the Spurs and Wizards. He seemed hesitant in the Rockets offense while working to make it his own. He was not yet instinctive and explosive. He missed a few long jumpers that his critics would rush to understandably argue that he should not take.
He and the expected process of working him in were not, however, the reasons the Rockets lost or that they took so long to put away the undermanned and struggling Charlotte Hornets on New Year’s Eve.
Smith and Rockets coach Kevin McHale were repeatedly asked about that process after the loss to the Wizards and in the days since about getting him up to speed. The Rockets will, of course, eventually need Smith to resemble the player they believe that they signed. But their issues are not just about—or even predominantly about—working in the new guys.
In Smith’s case, he could not be considered culpable for the loss to the Wizards despite the assumptions because he got as much playing time in the fourth quarter as he had when he was in his post-Detroit limbo. After the game was tied, the Wizards scored on nine of their last 11 possessions, all while Smith stayed on the bench. The loss was the Rockets’ fourth in six games.
“It wasn’t the new guys out there,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “Brew [Corey Brewer] played well. Josh struggled a little bit, but the other guys did, too. I’m not sure what their excuses were.”
The recent struggles were not even new. In four of the Rockets’ five wins prior to taking out the Hornets, Houston came back from double-digit deficits. Before the losses to the Spurs and Wizards, the Rockets had been 9-0 in games decided by five points or fewer, or in overtime.
That track record speaks to their fortitude when behind and their strong play late in close games, but teams cannot rely on coming back from down 14 to 16 points every night. They cannot expect to win every close game.
“It’s overshadowed when you are winning," guard Pat Beverley said. “You like to stay with the positive. That’s getting the win. When you lose, everything is magnified.”
The Rockets might not have learned that lesson until they lost, but the warning signs were there before they began trying to fit in Josh Smith.
“Yeah, when we’re down we played hard,” Rockets guard James Harden said. “We played extremely hard to fight back. We need to do that from the beginning of the game. If we had that mindset—which we had in the beginning of the season—hold teams to where we want them to be defensively, we’ll be a lot better.”
Though they struggled for much of the game against the Hornets, only pulling away late when Harden completed an offensive roll in which he scored 23 second-half points in 15 minutes, there were signs that the Rockets learned something not just from their two-game losing streak, but from the struggles that preceded it.
Playing against the league’s least turnover-prone team, the Rockets forced 18 turnovers, getting 10 steals. Smith still looked uncomfortable offensively, but he blocked three shots and had three thefts.
With enough live-ball turnovers, the Rockets could get their break going again, Smith could get some easy buckets to feel comfortable offensively, and Houston might be ready to move past a few relatively rough weeks.
The Rockets took those losses to the Spurs and Wizards hard. They were highly critical of themselves. But they viewed the additions of Smith and Brewer not as a cause of the problems but part of the solutions.
“With this team, it will take a little time, but I like the group,” Kevin McHale said. “I think they’re committed. I think they have the right mindset of trying to become a great team, which is really hard to do in our league. They know how hard it is. It may take a little time, but we’ll get there.”
from Bleacher Report http://ift.tt/1EQPeTE
via IFTTT January 01, 2015 at 01:37PM
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