Is Houston really less of a jump shooting team then Portland?

I have heard this crap all season, so I figured I would check and see if Portland shoots way more jump shots the Houston.

The wonderful site www.82games.com actually tracks the percentage of shots made by a team. Currently they only have the regular season's breakdown, so there might be a huge difference in the playoffs, but that seems unlikely.

The Portland Breakdown

The Houston Breakdown

As you can see, Portland takes 66% of all shots as jumpers. Houston takes 63%. That is a mere difference of 3%. That is really not large enough to differentiate one team from a another.

If you lump Jump shots and Close shots together, Portland comes out ahead at 90% to 96%. Neither team can be considered anything but a jump shooting team.

Once again, in the playoffs a team might change their game plan some, but not radically so. We can safely assume that the two teams take roughly the same percentage of jumpers and close shots.

I don't think it is fair to categorize Portland as a Jump shooting team and Houston an attack the basket team. The comparison is pretty much a wash.

 

The difference? Houston is allowed to drape themselves on our shooters. The Blazers are not.

 

Houston's more of a team that builds around an inside presence. Whatever Yao does in the post opens up a lot of looks for other players. We take a lot of threes each game, but most of these are good, open looks because of the attention that Yao gets. In terms of penetration, Artest, Brooks, Wafer, and Lowry are pretty much the only players who can do it on a consistent basis.

 

This is true.

Watch Artest and Battier body Roy, and crew.

Then watch Oden and Pryz body Yao and crew.

Two different results.

 

How does this change the fact that Houston shoots only 3% less jumpers then Portland? Perhaps we all need a better definition for jump shooting team. I would assume that would be a team whose shot selection is predominately jumpers. That is true for both teams which makes them both jump shooting teams.

 

This doesn't have a whole lot to do with Portland being designated a jump shooting team while Houston is not. Your statement does suggest that the difference in foul calls has little to do with play style. I would agree that saying Portland doesn't get to the line because they take a ton jumpers while the Rockets attack the basket more is a common myth used to explain away dubious numbers in this series.

 

do you think houston will be allowed to do that to the LA kobes? hell no!

 

Here is something else I discovered on that sight.

If you look at all of the teams this season, the difference between the highest percentage of jump shots (Dallas at 72%) and the lowest (The Bobcats at 57%) is only 15%. There isn't a team in the league that shots less then half their shots with 15 feet of the basket.

Another interesting thing. If you had to guess the top 5 jump shooting teams, who do you think would be on the list.

They are: Dallas 72%, Spurs 71% and a 4 way tie between the Cavs, Heat, Hornets and Raptors at 70%.

As I stated above, the team that shoots the smallest percentage are the Bobcats. The next team, the Suns at 59%.

Most of these numbers fly in the face of what I am being told by NBA analysts which leads me to believe the term is entirely subjective and not based in reality.

 

So, what % did the Boston Celtics shoot last year? 66% - same as us this year
http://www.82games.com/0708/0708BOS3.HTM

 

I'd like to see what those numbers are in the playoffs, whenever they are available. I haven't seen anybody on the Blazers really attack the basket aggressively, other than Brandon Roy. And he happens to lead all players in free throw attempts. Lowry, Wafer, and Artest have all penetrated into the lane very regularly. Scola, even though he does shoot a lot of midrange jumpers, also has drawn a lot of contact with aggressive moves going to the basket.

 

Uh huh, yaa sure. Thats why B. Roy is chilling at the free throw line all game. Anyways, Rockets work around Yao because he is a good offensive threat. And, nobody really penetrates besides Roy, Alridge makes the mid-range turn around but other than that.. not much near the basket action.

 

As I said, it is entirely possible that Houston has radically changed their offensive attack in this series. I wish there were stats for this series. Hopefully there will be in the end.

However, all season long Portland has had the label of "jump shooting team" when they are really in the middle of the pack as far as shot selection. Has Houston had the same perception this year? Honestly I have no idea.

 

Indeed. So why is Portland a jump shooting team while Boston is not? I have no idea. I think the term is essentially meaningless.

 

You can look at the shot chart on espn to get a feel for the number of inside versus outside shots. Just eye balling it, the shot distribution looks about the same for game 4. Perhaps this evening I will make a count of the shots to come to a percentage.

 

I think the game we took the least amount of perimeter shots was Game 1 (based off of eye-balling the shot chart), and that was the game we got crushed. Houston shot more jump shots that game for sure.

 

Certain things in the offense has changed since around the all-star break. We traded Rafer Alston, who was not really an attacking PG, for Kyle Lowry who likes to penetrate. Von Wafer is getting more minutes in this series than he has for a good chunk of the regular season, and he's our best penetrating wing by far. Ron Artest, to me, has done a better job of getting into the lane and using his size advantage compared to much of the season. We're running more post ups for players not named Yao in the series than we have for most of the regular season.

But, mostly, it's not so much that the Rockets are drawing a lot of fouls as it is that the Blazers aren't drawing enough. But this isn't a shock -- again, the Rockets were one of the very best teams in the league at not fouling, even though they were near the top in defense. They've been very good about that for years. Frankly, that's been a surprise to me becaue the Blazers were so good at rebounding during the season. That's a big x-factor so far.

One big factor here that's worth mentioning is the disparity in rebounds. One of the best ways to draw fouls is to get an offensive rebound. The Rockets have been much better at it than the Blazers for virtually every game in this series. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised at that, because the Blazers were such a good reboudning team during the regular season. But it looks like that is a big x-factor in this series.

 

Wouldn't points in the paint be the indicator were looking for?

 

Are points in the paint only made field goals, or all scores (including free throws) that come from paint scoring attempts? The Rockets are not very good finishers in the paint because of their lack of athleticism (so they may not have a lot of made field goals in there), but I think they've done a better job at drawing contact in the paint.

 

I don't think these percentages have to do with makes, but with attempts. So Portland has a higher percentage of dunk attempts the Houston during the regular season.

However, if Portland is indeed making at least as many attempts near the basket as Houston, then saying the free throw discrepancy is due to Portland taking more jumpers is false. There would then have to be another reason for the difference.

 

To be realistic, the Houston rockets have had more attempts at the rim without contact then with. I know for sure Von Wafer has had 5 uncontested dunks this series. This is due to Portland's not so awesome defense. Every Portland player that goes into the paint gets contact. Though the shot chart suggests that the vast majority of shots come from 15 feet out or more.

One thing I would love to see is the location of personal fouls. We don't have that data available, but it would be interesting to see where most of the fouls are called.