Houston Rockets: How The Rockets Can Improve On Offense

It’s really hard to imagine that the Houston Rockets could still improve their offense. The Rockets were second last year in points scored and points per game. They averaged a blistering 107.7 points per game, second behind the Clippers’ 107.9. Whatever the Houston Rockets lacked on defense, they brought it on offense. This is a team clearly positioned to be an offensive superpower who can outscore just about everybody.

And yet, the offense can still improve. The team was an isolation based team, with James Harden, Dwight Howard and Chandler Parsons carrying the load for everyone else. With the departure of Parsons and Jeremy Lin, the Houston Rockets will have to play more of a team-oriented style in hopes of improving an offense that got worse this offseason.

The first way to improve the team is by using the pick-and-roll a lot more. The Houston Rockets have the most devastating pick-and-roll center in the league in Howard and they should start to exploit that. With Harden being as good as he is offensively, there is no reason to think they can’t use this system to improve the efficiency of the offense.

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Via the pick and roll, the Rockets can improve their ball movement exponentially. The team would struggle to move the ball as it would frequently stick to Harden or Howard’s hands. Moving the ball around more ensures easier penetration lanes and wide open shooters as a result.

The Houston Rockets took and made the most amount of three pointers in the league. The Rockets attempted an astonishing 26.6 three-pointers per game while making 9.5. That comes out to a percentage of 35.8 percent which was 16th in the league. The Houston Rockets have a lot of room to improve on that percentage by running a team ball style.

Team ball is essential to getting that percentage higher. The league leader in three-point percentage was the San Antonio Spurs and it’s obvious why. Their ball movement kept their offense extremely efficient.

The team was average across the board in their outside stroke. Here’s the shot chart for the Houston Rockets from last season.

Shotchart_1413521295272 /

Average across the board. As good as the Houston Rockets were, they had a big weakness when it came to moving the ball, and as a result, getting open jumpers for the right players. Kevin McHale should be changing up the offensive system to a system that promotes ball movement. After all, who is going to produce any offense when Howard and Harden are on the bench?

If the Houston Rockets do manage to improve their three-point percentage and ball movement, the rest of the league better watch out. Because if Harden and Howard can get some more ball movement and better spacing, they will be unstoppable.

If they continue to do what they did last year, things won’t go as smoothly. With the amount of offensive talent that left this off season, the Houston Rockets are going to need to play team ball. Otherwise, the team’s elite offensive production could slip. And that would spell disaster for the offensively-oriented Houston Rockets.

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Houston Rockets: How The Rockets Can Improve Their Offense

By Kevin Sanchez | Oct 17, 2014