This keeps coming up, and is flat out wrong.
Rockets pace has actually been slightly slower in March compared to February: [https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/rockets-pace-by-month-this-regular-season](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/rockets-pace-by-month-this-regular-season)
It seems to line up pretty well with Sengun being out – so ever since he got injured, the team’s pace has been slower:
[https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/rockets-pace-by-game-this-regular-season](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/rockets-pace-by-game-this-regular-season)
**Rockets isn’t scoring a higher percentage of fast break or transition points either between February and March.**
Funny how we see what we want to see. Your eye test, in general, is probably wrong.
by mintthins
3 Comments
Added data points and clarification – pace accounts for garbage time etc, so that’s not impacted by it. And it’s not our bench either – our bench, as eye test confirms, is actually faster:
[https://x.com/dmac21bucs/status/1771886380731273437?s=20](https://x.com/dmac21bucs/status/1771886380731273437?s=20)
Also, pace isn’t as impactful to begin with as most of you think – at the end of the day both teams get more possessions, and it was actually killing us earlier since we were turnover prone and also couldn’t shoot so ended up wasting a lot of possessions. Udoka slowed the game down on purpose to fix those and he was saying we’d start to pick up post-ASB anyway. Some required reading on pace:
[https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2023/Does-Controlling-the-Pace-Win-NBA-Games](https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2023/Does-Controlling-the-Pace-Win-NBA-Games)
Rockets fans used to like data, then we got Russ and most ran from it.
You don’t need data to see that Rockets are playing faster and very different with Sengun off the court. This does not mean that we are better without Sengun, it just means that we have a variety of ways to attack and defend when he comes back.