How to Beat Houston: No Three's!!!

Dateline: 05/15/97

Seattle has climbed back from having a 10% chance of winning this series to just about even odds. They have done it by not allowing Houston to take three pointers. They have forced Hakeem Olajuwon to beat them at the offensive end and Olajuwon rarely beats people at the offensive end. Even in the two championship seasons, I would say that opponents were foolish in double-teaming him and leaving the three-pointers wide open. That is the way I would have coached against that team and the way I would coach against this team. It sounds like opinion and if you don't agree with it, you probably never will. But I do have some support for this.

First of all, there is what most people accept: Houston appears to be better when coming from behind or when they're in a hole. Bob Neal said it on the TNT broadcast. A number of people I have talked to have said the same thing. The reason for this is because they play a high risk offense very well. A high risk offense is one that shoots three-pointers. Houston has been one of the best. When they won their titles in '94 and '95, they did it by making about eight three-pointers per game, an incredible amount unseen in history.

This year, they are living and dying on the three-pointer. Charles Barkley said it earlier in the series. Seattle is now taking that three-pointer away and Houston is suffering for it. Fortunately for Houston, Seattle is stupid and will probably go away from it in Game 7. But back to my evidence that it is three-pointers, not Olajuwon's offense, that is most damaging. Let's make a list:

  1. Houston's record in games where they shoot better than 40% from three-point land is 4-0. Houston's record when they shoot worse than 40% from three-point land is 2-3.
  2. The correlation between Houston's three-point shooting percentage and their offensive efficiency is very good (about 0.66), but the correlation between Olajuwon's offensive efficiency and the team's offensive efficiency is low, actually negative (-0.25). The overall team offense works better when defenses focus on stopping Olajuwon.
  3. In general, the higher the percentage of Houston's points that are scored by Olajuwon, the lower their team offensive efficiency.
Finally, while I don't have time, space, or patience to present it here, I have done extensive work that shows that offenses which spread the ball around are generally more efficient than those that rely on one player.

All this implies that three-pointers are what make Houston's offense go, not Olajuwon himself. There is a strategical advantage to making Olajuwon's offense beat you, rather than the three-pointers. George Karl and his SuperSonics are not known for being smart enough to take advantage of this sort of thing, so they will probably blow it. On the other hand, Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich is very good at playing cards like these. Watching the cards fall during the playoffs is what makes them so much fun.

Houston Olajuwon
Opponent Outcome Three-
Pointers
Off.
Rtg.
Points Off.
Rtg.
Points
Created
Points
Scored
SEA L 6-23 103.8 96 116.1 26 30
SEA L 5-27 111.5 94 138.4 27 31
SEA W 14-30 106.8 110 144.8 21 11
SEA W 7-21 113.7 97 140.4 21 24
SEA L 9-27 109.2 101 103.8 13 19
SEA W 15-28 121.9 112 99.0 14 15
MIN W 15-28 133.5 125 127.1 20 19
MIN W 9-26 108.6 96 125.5 15 18
MIN W 11-27 122.0 112 99.7 16 18

In the meantime, down at the rink...

If we wanted to see blood, we'd go to a hockey game. The Bill Walton "Let Violence Rule in the Playoffs" theory of reffing is a disgrace. It's a disgrace not to just basketball, but -- if I am allowed to say this -- also to the black community. It is the players, most of whom are black, that are portrayed as violent, just by following their coaches' suggestions to foul hard.

The odds in the Miami-New York series would be 25% for Miami to 75% for New York, but, due to the non-basketball antics of Game 5, the Knicks will be missing three significant players in Game 6, which qualitatively helps Miami. The Knick defense will hurt without Ewing and Ward, but you have to assume that the replacements, Buck Williams and John Starks, will just hit Miami players even harder. Starks, in particular, has nothing to lose since he is already suspended for a potential Game 7.

Completely personally, I have never been a fan of the Chicago Bulls, but I am rooting for them in the East simply because the Heat and the Knicks take winning and losing so seriously that they've almost stopped playing basketball.