Both teams are snatching 72.4% of their defensive rebounds which is tied for 24th in the league. The Blazers were rated as one of the worst defensive rebounding teams the first few games so this improvement is a nice trend. When our teams starting center gets double doubles it certainly helps! But I’m more surprised by Houston. They have two of the best rebounders in the league in Howard and Asik so I would’ve expected them to be a great defensive rebounding team but their now not even rated as average on the young season. The Spurs are rated #1 at 79.9% while the Celtics are the worst at 69.8%
Last year the Warriors lead the league at 75.5% while the Kings were the worst at 71.0%. My take on why this is a great rebounding stat; it is pace independent and it eliminates offensive rebounding. The problem with teams that offensive rebound is they often are out of place defensively and can have a lot of easy fast break points scored against them. While its good to have a single guy such as Thomas Robinson or Lopez inside attempting to get the putback the other 3 players and often the shooter should ignore the offensive rebound and immediately run back on defense when the ball is in the air. Since opening night we’ve done a pretty good job of this. Also the score of the game can play a role, as when a team is winning like the Spurs often are they don’t need to worry about taking risks to get extra points. Its more important to be in place defensively. But if a team is trying to crawl out of a deficit they may need to risk sending someone in to crash the offensive boards.
Our offensive rebounding % is 30.4% which is 4th in the league. The Raptors lead the league at 32.0% while the Heat are the worst at 18.2%. Houston is 6th at 28.9%.
