HORNS Offense

[Cody73]

I wish missed shots that resulted in defensive rebounds counted as turnovers. Then Casey might realize that even though ISO has lowered our turnover rate, it has in fact increased the other teams fast break chances and shot attempts. I think not taking into account missed shots makes that offensive efficiency stat pretty fucking useless. I think you're bang on that our change in offensive style was extremely detrimental to our defense. Another thing to consider is that ISO style of play usually results in quick shots with lots of shot clock left, so we're essentially playing defense a lot more than we used to because we don't take advantage of our offensive time by passing around looking for good shots.

This post is exactly why I had myself ripping out hair. Casey really didn't see how many shots we missed, did he? All he cared about was TO's.

[planetmars]

I wish missed shots that resulted in defensive rebounds counted as turnovers. Then Casey might realize that even though ISO has lowered our turnover rate, it has in fact increased the other teams fast break chances and shot attempts. I think not taking into account missed shots makes that offensive efficiency stat pretty fucking useless. I think you're bang on that our change in offensive style was extremely detrimental to our defense. Another thing to consider is that ISO style of play usually results in quick shots with lots of shot clock left, so we're essentially playing defense a lot more than we used to because we don't take advantage of our offensive time by passing around looking for good shots.

The Raptors were 14th in the league in opponent fast break points allowed.. so I don't think the ISO quick shot was that detrimental to their defense.. I'm sure it doesn't help, but its not the main reason why their defense went to sh!t.

[Primer]

The Raptors were 14th in the league in opponent fast break points allowed.. so I don't think the ISO quick shot was that detrimental to their defense.. I'm sure it doesn't help, but its not the main reason why their defense went to sh!t.

True, I don't think it's fair to blame all the defensive woes on ISO play. The main culprit was Casey running a system that we didn't have the personnel for, and being stubborn as fuck about trying anything different that our players were actually suited for. It's like if your kid is really good in English but sucks at math, but you want him to be a scientist, so you keep making him take math courses. Why won't this square peg fit in this round hole?

[DanH]

Offensive rating DOES take into account missed shots. A missed shot counts as about 0.75 turnovers (as your team has a 25% chance or so of rebounding a missed shot).

[consmap]

From what I remember, the Raptors still ran plays, but there was a tendency for the ball to stick if the play didn't work out. A number of sets they used were also basically just ISO plays, except with some movement beforehand (check out that Set of the Night video MixxAOR posted). A bunch of the perimeter players would get post ups called for them, whether it was DD, Lowry, JJ... and I still remember when JV fed Vasquez in the post.

The guards seemed to be obsessed with kicking out to open 3 point shooters, even when there were open big men in the paint. They would either ignore screens or use them with the intent of scoring first and not really looking for teammates. I guess they were really eager to get off those shots that they usually make. Which sucks, because any time this team did move the ball and shared the offensive load it worked out well.

[MixxAOR]

Even if Horns worked. We shouldn't settle. It's a very basic unimaginative offense. Every team in NBA run some sort of variation of it. If we get a new coach or new assistant I'm hoping for some new and more complex plays.

[consmap]

Lol I'll say this though. There was that one really cool baseline out of bounds play they ran that almost always got someone open underneath the basket. I liked that one

[KeonClark]

Even if Horns worked. We shouldn't settle. It's a very basic unimaginative offense. Every team in NBA run some sort of variation of it. If we get a new coach or new assistant I'm hoping for some new and more complex plays.

Theres no super innovative magic black book containing offensive plays that NBA coaches haven't seen before. Theres slight variations and improvements, but the NBA is a very small world. As the Barenaked Ladies say "it's all been done"

[TheTyrant]

So true. It's execution and quick decisions that gets buckets. The decision making this year leaned so much on ISO plays. We got selfish. But it was our defence that killed us

[Primer]

Offensive rating DOES take into account missed shots. A missed shot counts as about 0.75 turnovers (as your team has a 25% chance or so of rebounding a missed shot).

From looking at Hollingers stats, the best predictor of success seems to be EFF FG% which the Raptors come in 8th. To show how unbalanced and vulnerable our offense is, I look to AST Ratio, in which the Raptors were an embarrassing 22nd in the NBA.

One stat that certainly does not predict success is Turnover ratio, in which Charlotte led the league, Toronto was 4th, the Lakers were 5th and Detroit was 6th. So maybe our idiot analytic staff shouldn't have made that a focus.

[MixxAOR]

From looking at Hollingers stats, the best predictor of success seems to be EFF FG% which the Raptors come in 8th. To show how unbalanced and vulnerable our offense is, I look to AST Ratio, in which the Raptors were an embarrassing 22nd in the NBA.

One stat that certainly does not predict success is Turnover ratio, in which Charlotte led the league, Toronto was 4th, the Lakers were 5th and Detroit was 6th. So maybe our idiot analytic staff shouldn't have made that a focus.

they probably share Dean Oliver's point of view with his 4 factors of Basketball Success. 1. Shooting 2. Turnovers 3. Rebounding 4.Free Throws.

[iblastoff]

From looking at Hollingers stats, the best predictor of success seems to be EFF FG% which the Raptors come in 8th. To show how unbalanced and vulnerable our offense is, I look to AST Ratio, in which the Raptors were an embarrassing 22nd in the NBA.

One stat that certainly does not predict success is Turnover ratio, in which Charlotte led the league, Toronto was 4th, the Lakers were 5th and Detroit was 6th. So maybe our idiot analytic staff shouldn't have made that a focus.

im guessing they made that focus but didnt account for the massive drop off elsewhere, outside of assist rate.

i mean how would this team have turned out if we kept the high iso offense which generally faired well, but still maintained a top 10 defense?

[Primer]

im guessing they made that focus but didnt account for the massive drop off elsewhere, outside of assist rate.

i mean how would this team have turned out if we kept the high iso offense which generally faired well, but still maintained a top 10 defense?

As a perfect example of how ISO ball doesn't work in the playoffs, just look at our playoff OFF EFF, where we were the second worst playoff team, with an embarrassing 95.4, only Milwaukee was worse. For comparison, in the regular season, only one team had a OFF EFF lower than 95.4, and that was Philly.

Our defense also didn't do us any favors, as we had the lowest DEF EFF in the entire playoffs, a 112.5, which is beyond awful. For comparison, the worst DEF EFF in the regular season was Minnesota with 109.6.

So by the EFF stats, we were the worst playoff team by a wide margin. Ughhhh, starting to feel pissed about retaining Casey again.

[Mess]

You don't need stats to figure out we were the worst team in the playoffs. With the way the Lowry and the Raptors were playing I'm not sure they would have beaten any of the 16 playoff teams in a series.

[S.R.]

I started to get uncomfortable before the playoffs last year when I saw DD and KL in some US interviews and features describing the Raps as "their team" and the playoffs being their time to "step up" and "carry the team" etc. (not exact quotes, things to that effect). At the time I was thinking how that wasn't right, these guys weren't Jordan and Pippen, the best Raptors ball we saw last year was selfless and very team-oriented. We didn't need a one-time All-Star and a no-time All-Star to "step up" and "carry the team," we needed them to play together.

Things were still okay for a while, but the ISO play and poor selection are the responsibility of all three of Casey, DD, and KL. All three of them thought they were doing the right thing and nobody had the smarts to figure out what was wrong as things got progressively worse. The high ORTG this year didn't help anybody and covered up a broken system. Instead of adapting they all dug in, pounded rocks, and continued to miss shots they usually make.

Although the players were part of the problem, dealing with the problem and presenting a solution is the coach's job. If the players don't buy in to that, then replacing them is the GM's job.

Gawd, I hope this next year isn't another Casey/KL/DD repeat of last year. I'll tear my hair out.