By: Paul McGuire
Since dumping Lawson and benching Josh Smith, the Houston Rockets have actually become something resembling good.
They have won four of their last five, with two of them being solid road wins against some of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. The defense has seriously improved as of late, which has enabled the team to win even though they have seemingly forgotten what a three-pointer is.
And while James Harden dropped in a cool 32, the big story from tonight's game was about Michael Beasley. Beasley went nuts in the second half, seemingly scoring at will and leading Houston's bench while Harden took a rest. He finished with 18 points, and Brad Stevens admitted afterwards that Beasley "crushed us."
And now, a splash of cold water, because a performance like this is going to cause some overreaction. If anything, tonight showed what Beasley's fundamental problem is.
I've watched a lot of Beasley over the years due to going to school in Minnesota while he was there, and Beasley's biggest offensive problem is that he is far too dependent on the long two. Far too often, he will get the ball at the three point line, take one or two dribbles as he gets a bit closer, and then take a long midrange jumper. And all of this was back in a league which was less three-point dominant then compared to today. Zach Lowe noted this same problem about Beasley in his earlier games with the Rockets.
And while he scored 18 points and was far more aggressive around the rim than I'm used to seeing from him, he was still doing the exact same thing with those jumpers. Tonight, they went in. But they will not every night, and Beasley really does not have the athleticism to compensate for that by repeatedly slamming into the rim in the style of Harden or Kyle Lowry.
And for all of that talk of an offensive explosion, Beasley took 19 shots to score 18 points. Now, that is somewhat misleading because Beasley had possessions where he just grabbed the offensive rebound, missed, and repeated that process three or four times until he finally scored. And he was a positive in this game and kept the Rockets humming while Harden rested.
But Rockets fans should not expect to see this happen regularly. At all.
And there were plenty of other good things to take away from the game, especially on the defensive end. The Rockets did struggle in transition. This is especially so since Boston is one of the fastest teams in the league, and Houston compounded this problem with really bad turnovers and passes which resulted in 31 Boston points.
But while the transition defense was problematic, the halfcourt defense was good. Ariza, whose defense has taken a major step back for much of this season, did a good job on Crowder. And while Houston could not hit a three throughout the game, they closed on Boston's three-point shooters and held them to about 25 percent from long range. Some of that was just because the Celtics appeared to be cold tonight, but it worked well enough.
Tonight was not exactly an exciting win, as this game was filled with missed shots galore, some physical play, and not much halfcourt offense from either team. But boring is good. The Rockets pulled off a solid, boring win in the second half after being behind early on thanks to the aforementioned defense and a combination of work from Harden, Beasley, and Dwight Howard. And that is good enough.
The Rockets are now back over .500 again, have passed Dallas to take the 7th seed, and are just half a game behind the Portland Trail Blazers. While most Rockets fans know that this team's likely fate is a short first-round defeat to one of the true Western contenders, I do think this team has a puncher's chance against the Thunder as opposed to the Spurs and Warriors.
Tomorrow's game against the Charlotte Hornets will serve as a continued test of how well this offense can function with a new rotation. And who knows? Maybe Michael Beasley will end up proving me wrong this season.
