Houston Rockets May Be Unwatchable, but Ugly Style Is Only Hope for Survival

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers have solidified themselves as the NBA's answer to Triple H, heels turned against the tide, at least as far as normal decorum is concerned.

The yelling, the whining, the complaining, the yammering—mostly toward the referees but occasionally in the direction of the fans, owners and mothers of the opposition.

But the Clippers, to their credit, haven't been quite as flagrant toward the officials in this year's NBA playoffs. And for all their extracurricular foibles, between the lines, L.A. is among the league's most fun teams to watch.

The pace, the movement, the lobs, the dunks, the lobs...have I mentioned the lobs?

Stylistically speaking, the Houston Rockets may be the heel to the heel, The Rock to L.A.'s Triple H. They're the ones supposedly bending the sport to their will, by way of the rules and the math of the game—and not necessarily for the better.

The Rockets don't play ugly so much as they play, well, boring and predictable. Where the Clippers thrive on high-flying dunks, the Rockets feast on threes and drives...and fouls, free throws and frustration.

That was as evident as ever in Game 2. L.A. had its way with the pace of play in the first half, racking up 65 points on Houston's helpless defense.

After the break, though, the Rockets took control. They shot a whopping 43 free throws off 26 Clippers fouls in the second half. The 40 fouls Houston drew for the game were the fifth-most in NBA playoff history, their 64 free throws the second-most.

Granted, part of that was the product of Doc Rivers' own in-game tactics. Of the six intentional fouls taken, five were the Clippers' own doing.

On the whole, though, the way the Rockets have played in this series specifically, and in the playoffs generally, lines up with what they did to score 56 wins during the 2014-15 regular season.

That is, with one notable exception: Houston seems to have swapped some three-balls for freebies, much to the chagrin of those observing.

"I don’t love that, obviously," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said prior to Game 3. "I don’t think anybody does."

The same probably applies to most of the basketball fans who are just now tuning into the team Houstonians and League Pass subscribers tracked throughout the campaign.

Any extended peek at Houston is bound to feature handfuls of James Harden. He's the one around whose talents the Rockets have built their style of play. Like Houston as a whole, the MVP runner-up does his damage from beyond the arc and in the lane, with fouls drawn on drives supplying much of the remainder.

The formula worked distinctly in the Clippers' favor in Games 1 and 3, which L.A. won by a combined 41 points while holding Harden to 11 free-throw attempts. Harden nearly had that many (10) during the second half of Game 2.

"Whenever he has big games, he gets to the free-throw line a lot," Blake Griffin said after Game 3. "Just playing good defense on him, which he's done a great job, and guys shrinking in and helping and just forcing him to make shots over the top is big for us. But it just allows us to play a little bit more physical because when you're not in the bonus so early, not every foul they're going to the line."

The more frequently Harden can slow the game down with his parades to the line, the better the Rockets' chances are of emerging victorious. Conversely, the better the opposition does to keep Harden from setting up shop at the stripe, the worse Houston's odds of success become.

That dependence on whistles, by both Harden and Houston, is rife with risk. For one, the people making the calls don't wear Rockets uniforms. Referees are hardly the most reliable point guards, yet the Rockets seem to need more than a few assists from those neutral participants to succeed.

By and large, the Rockets haven't been able to pick on the Clippers by drawing personal fouls left and right. In Game 3, L.A. went out of its way to avoid the sorts of infractions that have become Houston's lifeblood.

"Tonight, I was just happy that we didn't have the silly ones," Rivers said afterward. "They drive, they attack, and it's such a temptation to reach. And the fact that we're doing a pretty good job of pulling our hands back has been really good for us."

And really bad for the Rockets.

When those calls don't come, Houston struggles to keep up. That was the case in Game 1, when L.A. outshot the Rockets at the line, 30-24, and came away with a 117-101 win, despite playing without Chris Paul. The same held for the first half of Game 2, with the Rockets owning a modest 21-15 edge in trips to the stripe.

And if Game 3 was any indication, anything less than a glaring gap in free throws simply won't suffice if the Rockets are to upend the Clippers—even with Paul nursing his gimpy hamstring on the court. L.A. made quick work of Houston on Friday night, 124-99, despite shooting eight fewer foul shots than the visitor. 

As a result, the Rockets find themselves down 1-2. They're fortunate not to be down 0-3, on the verge of a sweep, though not so fortunate as to draw a lesser opponent, like they did with the Dallas Mavericks in Round 1.

So if the Rockets really are ruining basketball and offending the masses with their analytics-driven approach, they may not be doing so for long. Likewise, if Houston's style is, indeed, the future of the game, that future may have to wait a bit longer. 

That is, unless the Rockets are able to turn back the clock by a few days, starting with Game 4 on Sunday at Staples Center.

"[We have to] do what we did in Game 2," said Dwight Howard, who went 4-of-11 at the line in Game 3.

For the sake of the sport, let's hope that turnaround, if it happens, doesn't entail the usual rash of fouls and free throws.

Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.

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