After James Harden sent Wesley Johnson to the floor with the crossover-heard-’round-the-world Wednesday night, he stared straight at Johnson at the three-point line. He did so for two seconds, but it felt like we lived entire lives within those couple ticks. Harden finally relented, gathered himself, and hit a three-pointer to complete one of the most disrespectful basketball plays of all time.
The Rockets were a grand experiment last year. This year, they’re so much more.
Houston keeps pushing the boundaries of basketball, and it doesn’t look like the rest of the league is catching up anytime soon.
Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
“I was trying to figure out what he was doing,” Harden said in explanation after the game.
When it comes to Harden’s red-hot team, that question has mostly gone the other direction this season. Pardon the corny transition, but Trying to figure out what they’re doing accurately defines how the league is looking at the Houston Rockets, who have the best record in the league over the Golden State Warriors. In games with Harden, Chris Paul, and Clint Capela all available, the Rockets are 31-1.
Houston fan?
Check out our Rockets blog!
I viewed last year’s Rockets as a basketball experiment born from the analytics that general manager Daryl Morey helped revolutionize. Coming off a down season and offseason questions, “experiment” felt acceptable, even though Houston finished with the third-best record in the league.
This year, the Rockets are breaking basketball even more blatantly ... but this is no experiment. Houston knows damn well what it’s doing. It’s the rest of the league still trying to figure it out.
That this team is where they are right now — atop the entire league, nearly unbeatable when fully healthy — allows them to be cocky, particularly towards the only team they truly see as a rival. In January, Capela said the Rockets are “better” than the Warriors. On Thursday, Harden issued a not-quite-as-bold proclamation: “This is the year.”
Golden State has noticed. They responded to Capela’s claim earlier this year, and in a Sports Illustrated interview on Thursday, Draymond Green elaborated:
“As it has been highly publicized, their team is built to beat us,” Green said. “Noted. Right. We’ll see y’all soon.”
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Why do the Rockets feel so confident?
It’s not because they beat the Warriors twice in three meetings this regular season. It’s not because they’re slightly ahead of them in the standings. No, what Green said was correct: This team has come together with the specific purpose of beating Golden State.
Compare last year’s problems to this year’s fixes:
- PROBLEM: Harden fell apart in Game 6 against the San Antonio Spurs, something since blamed on a too-heavy workload. (“Only James Harden knows,” Morey told ESPN’s Zach Lowe. “My understanding is we put too much on him.”)
- SOLUTION: Houston traded for Chris Paul, an equally great passer and a strong isolation scorer, to take responsibilities off Harden. That pairing has blossomed.
- PROBLEM: When Nene went down injured against San Antonio, the Rockets’ poor depth was exposed. They played a seven-man rotation for Game 5 and most of Game 6, which just wasn’t enough.
- SOLUTION: Houston almost has too many good veterans now. Their bench consists of Nene, Eric Gordon, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Ryan Anderson, Brandan Wright, Joe Johnson, and Gerald Green. Since the team has injury-prone players, extra depth is crucial. “Getting Mike (D’Antoni) to play more than seven guys is a challenge,” Morey told Lowe. “But he literally likes 11, 12 of our guys.”
- PROBLEM: The Rockets finished with the No. 18 defense in the league last year, which was better than expected, but still not good enough. Too many players were defensive liabilities.
- SOLUTION: Houston signed Tucker and Mbah a Moute last offseason, two versatile wing defenders who can each guard virtually every position on the court. More importantly, they haven’t lost any offense while playing those two: in 787 minutes with both players on the floor, the Rockets are averaging 113.6 points per 100 possessions while giving up just 96.5. Their overall defense is top-10, and Anderson’s move to the bench last month is preemptively preparing the team for the postseason.
Again, the Rockets are a long ways off from playing the Warriors in the conference finals. They will have to get through a grueling Western Conference that might include star-ladened teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves. Look at the standings, and you’ll realize one of those teams might even be an opponent in the first round.
But these concerns that we had about last year’s Rockets have largely been rectified. There are still questions, namely surrounding Harden and Paul’s abilities once they reach the postseason. Both have historic disappointments in their pasts.
But this team feels different.
Houston’s experiment is now just a lifestyle.
I wrote this last season when I spent a week with the Rockets.
The Rockets are not just the league’s most surprising team. They are a basketball laboratory conducting bold experiments beyond the boundaries of modern offensive efficiency. These are boundaries, mind you, that the Houston franchise has played a part in establishing over the past few years. This season’s Rockets have shattered three-point records and eschewed mid-range shots even more than years past. The league has been trending in this direction for years, but the Rockets have taken the movement and fueled it with nitrous.
That paragraph could, almost word for word, describe this year’s team. The only word this team might take exception to is “experiment,” because is it an experiment when this was already proven to work?
Here are a couple statistical feats that just feel impossible, yet Houston’s pulling them off.
- Houston is on pace to attempt more three-pointers than two-pointers for the first time in NBA history. Before 2010, there had only been two games in league history where a team took more threes than twos.
- Harden is on pace to become the first player to ever attempt 10 two-pointers, 10 three-pointers, and 10 free throws per game. That means Harden is averaging 1.5 points per shot for the fifth time in his career, something other guards (taking 15 or more field goal attempts) have only done three times combined in NBA history.
Harden is the anomaly that allows this to happen. There has never been a guard quite like him. At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Morey called him the best isolation player in NBA history. It’s hard to adjust that for the environment that Harden plays in — is Morey really saying Michael Jordan wouldn’t have evolved to the three-point era, too? But still, even if Harden’s not that, he’s damn close.
All this is allowed by D’Antoni.
The famed seven-seconds-or-less conductor actually lets the Rockets play against his instincts: Houston only posts the 11th-most possessions per game in the league, staggeringly low for D’Antoni teams. Frequently, possessions devolve into Harden — or Paul, when Harden needs a break — sizing up a defender on a perfectly spaced floor and going to work. Harden can beat almost anyone one-on-one, and he’ll beat you with the pass if you double team him.
It works so well that D’Antoni allows it, even if the pass-adverse, slow-developing style allows the shot clock to tick far too low for his liking.
The Rockets are new-wave pioneers approaching basketball without any established norms getting in their way. No one has ever taken more threes than twos? Screw that. Isolation ball isn’t efficient enough for the modern NBA? It is in Houston. Two ball-dominant players can’t coexist? Damn right they can.
So far, the league still hasn’t figured it out.
See More:
