Houston Rockets' Suddenly Stout Defense Is Very Much for Real
It's OK to be skeptical about the Houston Rockets' abrupt leap from good to great on defense, especially after watching them take a beating at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies on Nov. 17.
But know this: The Rockets' improved stopping power, hard to believe as it is right now, is here to stay.
After ranking 12th in defensive efficiency last season, Houston now sits atop the league, allowing an ultra-stingy 94.3 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com.
What's changed? And why will Houston's new defensive dominance stick?
James Harden Making an Effort
As low bars go, the one James Harden set for defensive effort in 2013-14 was practically subterranean. We've all seen the gag reel. And the harsh treatment Houston's shooting guard suffered at the merciless hands of NBA Twitter was, most agreed, pretty well deserved.
Things are different now.
"James' biggest improvement has been on the defensive end,” Rockets head coach Kevin McHale said, per the Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen in a piece for B/R. “He's been solid for us. He's out there defending.”
This is more than lip service. The numbers show Harden's early-season defense has been better.
Opposing shooting guards have amassed a player efficiency rating of just 10.3 against him, according to 82games.com, which looks positively microscopic when you compare that figure to Harden's own PER of 30.8 at shooting guard.
And the Rockets, as a whole, have posted a defensive rating 1.5 points per 100 possessions lower with Harden on the floor, per NBA.com.
It would seem negative reinforcement actually works. Harden could only sit through so many compilation clips featuring him losing cutters, standing straight up, watching the ball, generally being inattentive and, ultimately, hurting his team before realizing he had to make a change.
The Trevor Ariza Upgrade, and More!
Mr. Plan B in Houston has earned an A grade.
Trevor Ariza wasn't an offseason priority for the Rockets until swings and misses on bigger targets made him one. Now, it's becoming clear that Houston's backup plan should have been its No. 1 option all along.
Responsible for handling the best opposing perimeter player, Ariza allows Harden to hide much more than Chandler Parsons ever did. The result: Houston allows nearly 10 fewer points per 100 possessions with Ariza on the floor.
Parsons was long and athletic, but he was never more than a break-even defender. Ariza, on the other hand, has a real track record in the shutdown department. He has extinguished concerns about his post-contract-year effort level as quickly as he snuffs out his wing matchups.
Houston isn't just getting more on D from Ariza than it got from Parsons; it's also shifting point guard minutes from the departed Jeremy Lin to the ferocious Patrick Beverley and the not-too-shabby Isaiah Canaan.
The former has missed time with a hamstring injury this year and has actually logged fewer minutes per game than he did in 2013-14 so far. But whenever he's been on the floor, Beverley has been a complete monster.
He's probably the most intimidating on-ball point guard defender in the league, and it's difficult to fully appreciate just how disruptive his personal brand of mayhem can be to an offense's flow. If an opposing ball-handler has to fight for every inch getting the ball over half court, there's a trickle-down effect on the rest of the possession.
Things get panicked, passes come a half-beat too quickly or too late and whatever set was supposed to be run deliberately becomes a rush job.
To be fair, Beverley was the same author of on-ball havoc last year. So we probably shouldn't get carried away attributing too much of Houston's defensive growth to him.
Dwight: Back for the First Time
No more beating around the bush. No more pointing to the peripheral contributors like Harden, Ariza and Beverley.
Dwight Howard is the reason Houston is playing elite defense right now. And he's the reason it'll continue to do so.
Fully recovered from the 2012 back surgery that sapped his legs and mobility, Howard now looks like he was plucked straight from his dominant days as the Orlando Magic's defensive destroyer of souls. The Rockets' defensive rating goes from 90.0 to 101.6 when he's off the floor, the largest on-off split of any rotation player on the team, per NBA.com.
He's the variable that matters most to Houston's defensive success, and it's not particularly close.
This is the guy the Lakers thought they were getting two years ago, the guy Houston only saw flashes of last season. Dwight, finally healthy, is once again a transformative defensive force.
He cleans up mistakes, allowing his perimeter teammates to be more aggressive. We may not ever see the seemingly impossible, sky-high swats again (Dwight's almost 29 after all), but the lateral movement and timing look as good as ever.
Dwight's back, and the Rockets are suddenly a terrifying defensive squad. Sometimes the simplest explanations are the best ones.
Here to Stay
Perhaps the most worrisome knock on Houston's strong defensive start is that it's come against a soft schedule. The Rockets have already played the Philadelphia 76ers (who rank dead last in offensive efficiency) twice, not to mention the Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves, both of whom are bottom-half offensive teams.
At the same time, Houston has held quality offenses in Utah, Boston and Golden State under the century mark in the early going, and Howard missed that Dubs game with the flu. The schedule hasn't been brutal, and it'll get tougher. But Houston's defense seems built to last.
Think about it; the Rockets ranked 12th last year, which isn't altogether terrible to begin with. They added an elite wing stopper, shed two middling defenders in Parsons and Lin and are now getting better effort from Harden.
Those tweaks alone would probably have been enough to earn Houston a defensive rating somewhere in the top seven or eight. Toss in Howard's resurgence and you've got a recipe for a comfortable top-five finish.
The Rockets' defense is legit.
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