15 shots to analyze rockets: highlights and flaws of the defensive system; Offensive innovation

Let's talk about rockets.

The Rockets may be the most eye-catching team in the preseason so far; Or the team that has changed the most from last season. Although we all know that the introduction of Uduka in the offseason, the introduction of VanVleet, Dillon and the others, heralds that the Rockets will stop swinging and start cashing in on their talent.

However, judging by the current sample, the magnitude of the change in the rocket is still surprising. At the same time, this group of talents is finally no longer a plate of scattered sand; Uduka's strong coaching ability put it together well. In this article, we mainly talk about the innovation of attack and defense.

Before that, let's talk about the purpose of these operations of rockets -

First of all, we need to make two points clear: First, for a team that has been rotten and uncompetitive for many years, it is not good to bring in signings when the same amount of weight is added in the market. In other words, add money;

Second, for rockets, this is another new 3-4 year cycle. In this cycle, what he needs to achieve is a breakthrough of "0" in the playoffs, then to the second round, and so on... Instead of ascending to the sky in one step.

Therefore, after understanding these two points, we can actually understand the truth of a series of rocket operations:

Introduce well-known players who conform to Uduka's aesthetic and are conducive to the team's ethos and culture to change the previously undisciplined and disorganized environment; In this new cycle, the team will be transformed from a bad team culture to a winning team culture.

From this, let's look at a few new signings -

VanVleet: Conscientious, long-term domination of the top few minutes per game in the regular season; Not very talented, but the field. (Contrary to the state of some Rockets players before them)

Dillon: The league's famous villain image, tough defense, the Rockets need him to drive mental power and transform defensive positivity;

Jeff Green: A representative of self-discipline, he still maintains a very good body at the age of 37 and can often perform violent dunks in competitions;

These players represent tough style on and off the field, hard work, self-discipline and record-keeping will. And this is what Uduka needs to be implanted in this team at the moment.

And after this 3-4 year cycle, the Rockets also ushered in a new wave of contract renewals; At this point, it is actually the second half that really determines whether they can reach the top of the league. Therefore, we can actually think of the development of a team as three stages:

Swing rotten, accumulate talent→ cultural reform, start winning→ test your success.

So, after talking about this, let's look at the changes on the defensive end of the Rockets, and we will have a deeper understanding.

First of all, we have to be clear about the starting lineup of VanVleet + Jaylen Green + Dillon + Jabari Smith + Shin Kyung, what are the theoretical single-point defensive drawbacks:

Among the outside defenders, even if VanVleet is a very hard-working and active defender, due to his height and physical talent, he will inevitably become a target under the blocking strategy;

Among the inside defenders, Shen Jing's footwork movement speed, if the squat pit defense will produce a defensive vacuum that blocks the removal;

Among the special defenders, although Dillon is a defensive player, we can see in some playoff samples: because Dillon has been placed in the No. 3 position for many years, he has to be forced to play against forwards who are much taller than his position. Against such star players, its defensive effectiveness decreases.

Then, after understanding this, the construction of the rocket's new defensive system has three characteristics that meet the above three characteristics: a large number of swipe cards to assist defense, high-intensity middle contraction, and frequent local pinching.

If we substitute these three characteristics into the above round, we can find:

McConnell forced a breakthrough from the left flank with the ball, and Dillon on the left quickly swiped the free throw line to help VanVleet defend; This successfully stopped McConnell.

The Pacers were forced to re-enter the outside and continue their offensive launch, this time with Bruce Brown breaking through with Theis cover. Jaylen Green was hung behind him with cover, and it was Dillon who swiped from the left to assist the defense, forcing Brown to split the ball to Shun Theis. With this, the Rockets managed to prevent the ball from Theis, and it was a complete miss, the defender did not lose position, and faced Shin Kyung's defense one-on-one.

Let's substitute the disadvantages and characteristics mentioned above -

In this defense, the Rockets used Dillon's two important flank swipe cards to assist in defense, and successfully forced two breakthroughs to stop; And make both the ball carrier in the second block and the center down lose the shooting space at the same time. As a result, the problem of Van Vleet's single point weakness and Shenjing's weak anti-blocking and dismantling was solved.

At the same time, it is good to use Dillon's defensive free throw line ability and positivity.

Let's look at this shot again:

McConnell broke through with the ball, and Dillon Card forced it into the Jaylen Green defensive area with his left hand and right hand; Green then assisted Defense and Dillon formed a small range of pinch. McConnell was forced to give the ball to Brown.

After that, Dillon quickly added to Brown's side and formed a stronger pinch circle with VanVleet and Smith; This successfully made this conversion steal.

And in this round, it again belongs to the characteristics of defensive positivity + small range of pinching circles that we mentioned above.

Let's look at another example involving the weak side of the lower line, which is the Smith area.

We won't say much about McConnell's handling of the ball in the first layer of this round. Mainly look at the last layer, when Bruce Brown did not take Theis to cover this side on the left (partly because Ethan's assistant defense on the left side of the upper line was already in place), but directly chose to break through on the right side.

It can be seen that the moment Brown broke through into the box, Jabari Smith's defensive position was quite well controlled, and immediately came to the bottom of the basket to guard the inside; At the same time, Jabari Smith's long arm interfered with Brown to some extent, forcing him not to send the ball to the first chance point at the far end, but to the second chance point on the flank.

In basketball, there is a rule: excellent offense can directly deliver the ball to the first chance point on the weak side in the development of the strong side (such as Jokic); A good defense may not be able to handle the first chance at the far end, but it can force the defense to give a second chance at the near end and use the rotation to solve the second chance.

The speed of footsteps at this time is enough for the second chance. (Of course, the top defense can handle the first chance)

Thus, the Pacers' two-point chance fell into the box, again in the encirclement of the rockets. This is the defensive rotation that involves the defensive contraction of the lower line and the two-point chance under the Jabari Smith area.

And the operation of this kind of defense is actually a good combination of Dillon's advantages in the upper line and Jabari in the lower line to assist the defense.

Let's look at another shot, this time focusing more on Jabari Smith.

In this round, Jabari Smith first switched to McConnell after covering from the outside, and then pinched the left to the right, forcing him to where Shin Kyung was. That's right, again in line with the regionalized small pinch circle mentioned above. At the same time, Whitmore, who was on the line, recovered to the free throw line and continued to swipe to assist the defense, forcing McConnell to stop.

Same operation; Changed to Whitmore to play the role of Dillon before. It still meets the high card defense rate; Features of high pinch rate.

Then, when the Pacers player broke through with a second acceleration against Whitmore, Smith became that co-defender, once again pressing the opponent at the free throw line.

Finally, switch to McConnell on the outside, who did not choose a three-pointer, so fell into the encirclement of the inside. Even if this defense was finally fouled by McConnell; But this is a matter of experience and takes time. And once again, we were able to get a taste of the Rockets' defensive thinking in such a round.

At the same time, we want to bring out another feature of the Rockets' defensive system: the relatively extreme shrinking of the restricted area.

Before we talk about the relative contraction of the box, we have to review some of the interior defensive weaknesses under the Rockets' starting lineup (i.e., without Ethan) -

On a large scale, although the defensive combination of Jabari Smith + Shenjing is theoretically in line with the form of squatting + sweeping; And this kind of format can solve some core basket problems involving the depths of the box.

However, from the perspective of the players themselves, Shen Jing's personal physical talent and absolute ability to interfere with the inside block are not high. This also leads to certain problems when the rocket is defending some deep positions inside the line, or a powerful inside killer.

At the same time, as we said above, when Dillon swings to the No. 3 position, he is facing teams with special forward configurations, such as the tall team like the Pelicans in the picture above; Absolute height will be at a disadvantage.

Well, it is the synthesis of this appearance; The rocket has the aforementioned large number of auxiliary defense swipes that involve breakthroughs; Simply put, it is to intercept the opponent in advance before he breaks through to the depths of the inner line.

Therefore, we can find that Uduka also emphasizes the team's singles when facing a low defense or a clear side of a strong point; It will lock the overall line of defense very small.

As shown in the image above, all 5 players will stand near the three-second zone, waiting for the right opportunity to assist and trap.

Well, for the Rockets, this is actually an operation that uses physical talent + flexibility under youth to cover up the height of the forward and the ability to protect the basket. To put it simply, the players in the squad are faster and more active; Faster movement means higher defensive coverage and a higher rate of presence under co-defense, which means more and more contraction defense.

Obviously, there is still no escape from Uduka's big theme when deploying the team's defense: how to develop the strengths and avoid the weaknesses, and play to the characteristics of the players.

So, what is the Rockets short of a true defensive powerhouse?

First of all, we have to be clear that the story of one-step ascent to heaven is difficult and rare. As the author of this article has repeatedly emphasized, the first step Uduka is currently doing is how to transform the team and squeeze the scattered sand into a collective; And how to give full play to the characteristics of each person, make use of strengths and avoid weaknesses.

At least for now, one of the most common characteristics of defensive teams in the league is that there are two defensive players in the starting five, or one DPOY+ quasi-defensive player. Of course, there is not much to say about individual counterexamples such as the Heat.

So, obviously, while we've been saying that Jabari Smith defends well and has great qualifications; But he also needs to prove his defensive value through time and specific results. Of course, the process that may prove to be synchronized with the process of the team's defensive transformation.

However, for now, the Rockets defense will have the following problems:

(1) Dillon's height on No. 3. Dillon is strong on the outside for small players, as well as the ability to assist defense. In other words, Dillon's height is still problematic when the team has to face star players up front.

(2) The team lacks the test of defensive ability against multi-star teams. Of the two teams in the preseason, the Pacers have limited strength and the Pelicans are a multi-star team, but there are obvious disciplinary issues in this game. Then in the face of such teams, the Rockets' high-frequency defense is quite effective.

However, when faced with higher-level stars and games, the Rockets' top defensive resources are not enough; It remains to be investigated.

(3) The author has always said that another conversion formula for top defensive teams is actually that only 1.5 people in the 5-person group are not defensive weak rings (of course, the requirements here are higher, belonging to the TOP3 level of defensive teams).

"1" refers to the deviation of a player's overall defensive data, and his teammates need to "wipe his ass"; "0.5" is worth having a defensive player who is multi-fingered center, invincible inside the basket, but slow on the outside. Obviously, the rocket is not up to par at the moment.

However, we want to return to the theme of this article, the current new stage of the rocket is the transformation stage; And a transformation team, he naturally has shortcomings and tolerance -

In other words, in time, say 4 years from now, if the team culture and player level really grow. When the starting 5 are Amen + Green + Ethan/Whitmore + Smith + Shin Kyung, we look at the problems in front of us, and many of them are solved.

Of course, the future can be expected, and the future is unknown...

Let's talk briefly about offense:

Uduka's transformation of the attack has three main points -

Introduce reasonable tactical coordination, such as the bottom line cross cover turned low in Figure 2 above, some of the bull horns involve Shen Jing's strategy, and so on. At the same time, emphasize the proportion of transmission. Last season, the Rockets were the worst team in the league in terms of assists per game, averaging just 22.4 per game; compared with 23 in the first two games of the preseason, one was 34.

Especially with the joining of the organizer VanVleet and the consolidation of Shenjing's central axis position, the Rockets have a lot of empty cut runs in the positional warfare attack, as well as the roll-cut attack basket after the strong side turns to the weak side. And the biggest beneficiary of this is Jabari Smith.

It can be seen that it has a lot of weight under the tactical construction of Uduka. Whether it is as a cover point for crossings in tactics, or an endpoint under cooperation, or an empty run, there are his scenes.

In addition, in the more experimental pre-season, Uduka is also trying to get multiple players to work on the offensive end. We can see some scenes of Ethan holding the ball and Shin Kyung playing blocking, and Smith holding the ball and Shin Kyung playing blocking and dismantling.

VanVleet's arrival also led to an increase in the team's off-ball runs and blocks.

Chat about areas that may need improvement:

The low-post offense is currently somewhat small, and the proportion can be appropriately increased;

Jaylen Green has to learn to slow himself down. The specific implementation is to block and break with Shenjing, and after entering the three-point line, you can not only go down the ball, and kill the basket; Mid-range emergency stop and throw options should also be added;

Dillon is still a potentially old problem. Although he will become a non-spatial point to be let go on the field, he must control his desire to attack, especially the desire to play blindly. (This is not serious at the moment)