High scoring games ?

I never really found the time to get back on to this forum, but I did read and appreciate all the responses to my last thread.
And I've got a question about the high scoring games in the league this year. Has there been a change to any of the defense of rules?
My impression was that the scores had gone way down when zone defense was allowed. maybe it's just that I wasn't paying very good attention in the last few seasons, but I feel like I'm seeing more games well over a hundred points this season. Like the 123 to 120 Mavs/Rockets game. Is there anything to this, or is it all in my mind?

I think a lot of it has to do with officiating. I think it's slanted towards benefiting more offensive oriented teams.


KJ

Josh,

Here's a comparison of league-wide averages by year.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats.html

If there are more high-scoring games like the Mavs/Rockets one you mentioned, then they must be offset by the Pacers holding everyone they play into the 80s. League-wide scoring is 99.2 so far this season, which is up about a point over last season, but that's still down from five years ago. One thing I did notice is the Pace column (the number of possessions per 48 minutes) -- it's the highest it's been in 20 years.

As far as rules go, the league has "points of emphasis" that affect scoring, particularly regarding impeding progress. In looking for a site describing this season's points of emphasis, I found this video produced by the league. It's relatively long (20 minutes), but I think it's really well done and explains several aspects to officiating the game that I found quite helpful as a fan.

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/nba_tv/2013/10/25/2013-14-officials-points-of-emphasis.nba/

Regarding zone defense, I don't think it's been that big of a deal. Most teams don't use it or use it only sparingly. I always thought that a big reason that zone defenses don't work in the NBA is the three-second defense call, which makes no sense to me. I think you should be able to play any type of defense you want, just like in college or international play, and the three-second defense call cripples a zone. However, during last night's Memphis-Spurs game, Hubie Brown made a comment that gave a different spin to it -- he said that zone defenses aren't that effective because NBA players, for the most part, don't buy into playing zone. Whatever the case may be, I don't think zone has had a big impact on the NBA.

Josh

Per game average,per team, for the last 10 years.

 2013-14---99.2 -- Based on a very limited number of games.
    12-13---98.1
    11-12---96.3 (strike year)
    10-11---99.6
    09-10---100.4
    08-09---100.0
    07-08---99.9
    06-07---98.7
    05-06---97.0
    04-05---97.2
   
swish

Since I started my post outside has given a much more detailed analysis but for the record here are the last 10 years

Thanks for the info. I'm going to check out the video, that sounds interesting.

Maybe it's the first season I've been watching more of the games in the league, in quite a few years. Got League Pass, and am loving it.

I agree with you about the 3 second rule. And that's definitely interesting about the pace stat.

josh

Just went back to arguably one of the C's most difficult seasons 1969-70, year AFTER Russell retired.......

you would think our scoring would go down as obviously we were missing his rebounding and his and Sam Jones's scoring but even then we still averaged 115 PPG unfortunately we gave up 117.

And note the year before we only averaged 111 PPG so our scoring actually went up without Russ and Sam but that year too we only gave up 105 PPG so the following year w/o Russ we allowed 12 more PPG.

beat

worcester wrote:Obviously defense won our championships.

Meanwhile - off topic - how bout those Patriots!!!

What no one knows is they changed uni's at half time

beat