Nylon Calculus: Who is winning the style battle between the Warriors and Rockets?
By Ian Levy
For as much as their offenses are associated by obvious traits like pace and 3-pointers, the Warriors and Rockets actually utilized fairly different approaches during the regular season. Houston played one of the most extreme styles in the league, leaning heavily on the individual creation abilities of James Harden and Chris Paul, spacing the floor around pick-and-rolls with Clint Capela using three, mostly static, shooters. Everything was designed to get shots at the rim, or create open space beyond the 3-point line.
Houston pushed the pace when they could, using quick screens to create open looks on the secondary break but they weren’t necessarily among the fastest teams in the NBA — nine teams had a shorter average offensive possession length, according to Inpredictable.
The Warriors actually attempted fewer 3-pointers this season, letting the mid-range brilliance of Kevin Durant take a larger hold on their shot selection. But their ball movement and player movement was still at the extremes, the polar opposite of the Rockets.
The graph below highlights the offensive styles of the Rockets and Warriors during the regular season, along four spectrums (find a more full description here).
The differences in style are enormous but, again, the difference in results was tiny — just a tenth of a point per 100 possessions.
One of the big questions heading into the Western Conference Finals was whether either offense, through pace and the use of defensive pressure, could disrupt the offensive rhythm of the other, forcing them to go away from what had worked so well during the regular season. We’ve seen two games, each one a blowout in the opposite direction. We’ll probably need the benefit of hindsight looking over a completed series to really tell what worked and what didn’t but at least through two games we can see how each team has forced (or coaxed) adaptation from the other.
The Warriors’ use of pace and shot selection has been almost identical to their regular season marks but they’ve also dramatically reduced their ball movement and player movement. Through the first two games of this series, Golden State is averaging about 100 fewer passes per game and their average touch has lasted about 14 percent longer than during the regular season.
However, it’s tough to get too wrapped up in that decrease when they’ve been scoring a point more per 100 possessions than they did during the regular season. Such is the power of an engaged Kevin Durant.
Houston has also retreated into isolation although, in their case, it’s been emphasizing what worked for them in regular season, rather than deviating from it. Their Conference Finals MoreyBall percentage, the measure used for shot selection, would have led the league during the regular season. Their Conference Finals average seconds per touch, average seconds per offensive possessions and average distance traveled per 24 seconds of possessions — the measures for ball movement, pace and player movement — would all have ranked last in the league during the regular season.
Next: The Warriors and Rockets are hunting mismatches
But, again, it’s worked for them and their offensive efficiency is also above where it was during the regular season. Much was made of Harden using roughly 110 fewer dribbles in Game 2 but his average dribbles per touch only declined by just over one dribble (from 7.53 to 6.17) and the Rockets, as a team, only made two more passes in Game 2 than they did in Game 1.
Of course, it may be that one team initiating a style change in the other is irrelevant to the outcome. These are two of the best teams in the league and both have the depth and talent to attack and score efficiently in multiple ways.