Houston Rockets: Size is still not an issue after impressive start in the bubble

For the Houston Rockets, size is still not an issue

The Houston Rockets continued their pursuit of a championship at this year’s trade deadline by going all-in in a bold way. Trading for Robert Covington and trading away their starting center Clint Capela meant that the Rockets were going all-in on a small-ball lineup.

Led by the team’s MVP backcourt of Russell Westbrook and James Harden, executive Daryl Morey pulled the trigger that put the Rockets completely over the edge for their 3-point heavy analytical strategy. The result was a starting lineup of Westbrook, Harden, Danuel House (for the injured Eric Gordon), Covington, and P.J. Tucker.

In that lineup, no Rockets starter stands taller than 6-foot-7 and many questioned how Houston’s latest experiment would work. Sure, the offense would be good with two ball-dominant MVPs getting plenty of isolation looks and tons of shooters surrounding them, but what about the defense? How would they stand up to taller players and bigger teams in the league?

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Thanks to the hiatus, we really didn’t get any of those answers before the restart. Houston’s small attack only got 15 games under their belt before the hiatus, which is still such a small sample size to truly consider.

In the NBA’s restart bubble, a lot of eyes were going to be on Houston and how they would handle taller players and interior defense. The test came right away with the Rockets’ first two opponents being the Dallas Mavericks and Milwaukee Bucks.

Against two of the league’s best (and biggest) stars in Kristaps Porzingis and Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Rockets gave a lot of answers to how they would handle bigger players and the results were positive.

How the Houston Rockets handled the mismatch

In their first two seeding games against bigger star opponents, the Rockets are 2-0. They have shown that even though other teams might have taller players that can tower over a lot of Houston’s roster that they won’t be stopped by them especially when they’re engaged defensively.

In their first game against the Mavericks, the Rockets beat Dallas in what was a historic offensive night winning 153-149 in overtime. Now many of you might be wondering what’s to learn about the Rockets defense in such a high-scoring affair especially one where Porzngis puts up 39 points on them?

Well, even though neither team showed much care for that end of the floor in that game, Houston showed a bit of their strategy in that game for their approach to taller opponents. What the Rockets did for much of their game against Dallas was they actually deliberately let Porzingis be the go-to scorer.

A bold strategy but in letting Porzingis get whatever he wants in the paint, the versatile perimeter defense of Houston was able to focus on stopping 3-point shots. The result being Houston beating Dallas because while Dallas was consistently scoring 2-point shots, the Rockets hit 3’s.

Of course, this strategy wasn’t run completely to perfection as Dallas’ other star Luka Doncic and shooters like Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke still lit up Houston, they flashed their philosophy of stopping the 3-point shot and then making their own 3’s as a way to build deficits.

In the team’s 120-116 against Milwaukee, they used much of that same strategy. In that game, the Rockets let Giannis and center Brook Lopez pretty much do whatever they wanted on the inside while putting the focus on the Bucks surrounding 3-point shooters.

Don’t act like the Rockets completely ignore their interior, however, in crucial moments of these games, the Rockets used smart techniques to get valuable stops against these bigger players when needed.

They primarily used the defensive strategies of fronting the post and gap defense to prevent scorers from around the rim when needed. With fronting the post the team placed their defenders in front of players like Porzingis and Lopez when they were looking for post-up opportunities resulting in teammates not being able to get clean entry passes into them forcing the offense elsewhere.

Meanwhile, for a threat like Giannis, the Rockets knew that they didn’t have anyone who could match up with him directly if he got to the rim so the Rockets used a gap defense around the paint to shut down driving lanes for the Bucks’ star forward. This concept worked much like a defensive line in football clogging lanes that an offensive line makes for a running back.

Moving forward

What Houston has shown so far during the restart is that size won’t be the reason why they lose. The Rockets have their own philosophy and when engaged they showed that even with smaller heights they can shut taller players down.

Much like their gap defense, their team is running with a strategy that is much like a football team. Three points are more than two points so the Rockets look to force their opponents to score at the rim while they shoot 3’s much like a football team looks to hold a team to field goals while they score touchdowns.

Yes, there are flaws in this strategy some that we already saw on display against Dallas. The game-breaker to Rockets is when a team has excellent high-low scoring combinations. Porzingis was able to wreak havoc in the paint while Luka Doncic showed that he can create his own space against even the best perimeter defense to get 3-pointers off.

With the right matchups though, Houston could be dangerous. Potential first-round matchups for the team like the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder have a great interior presence but their teams are not built on long distant shooting. In a series against either of them, it could be possible for Houston to shoot their way into the second round.

Where it will get tricky will be if Houston needs to match up against one of the top two seeds currently. Those teams being the Lakers and the Clippers. Houston right now feels like their built to take on the Lakers because though the Lakers have the size and LeBron James they don’t have that true shot-creator from the perimeter.

With the Clippers though, Lou Williams, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard have shown that they can all create from themselves at the perimeter, and they have the talent on their roster to beat the Rockets with height or with their own medicine by using Pattrick Patterson as a stretch-5.

Houston’s playoff path is still unclear but it’s definitely something the team is thinking about and one thing’s for sure even though their small they’re not going to get bullied by bigger teams.