The Houston Rockets need to play defense.
Red94 has written about it. Everyone who covers the Rockets has written about it. The underlying narrative for this season has been the collapse of the Houston Rockets’ defense, epitomized by James Harden.
It was not like that tonight. The Rockets and Harden played defense. But on the second game of a back to back, J.B. Bickerstaff decided to borrow from the Mike Brown offensive playbook and just dump the ball to James Harden over and over again down the stretch. The same James Harden who has a bum ankle and played 40 minutes last night.
It did not work. The balanced attack which the Rockets used to grab an 18-point lead over Utah in the first half faded away in favor of “Harden, do something.” And with that, the exhausted Houston Rockets and their offense came to a sputtering halt, and the Utah Jazz seized a critical win and punted the Rockets into the lottery.
14th pick, here it comes. Technically it would be the 12th pick given the better Eastern Conference, but whatever.
Why Brewer?
One of the weirdest things about this season has been Bickerstaff’s continued usage of small-ball lineups, and especially his constant use of Corey Brewer at the 4 slot. It is not surprising. We should remember that Bickerstaff was Kevin McHale’s assistant, and McHale never met a small-ball line up that he did not like.
But in a season where Donatas Motiejunas is looking better and Michael Beasley is a pleasant surprise, it is infuriating to see Bickerstaff keep hurling that Beverley-Harden-Ariza-Brewer-Howard lineup out there ( a lineup which has a negative net rating). Yes, Brewer’s boxscore stats of 9 points on 4-6 shooting are better than what Beasley and Motiejunas did tonight.
But it misses the point of what those two bring. Both Motiejunas and Beasley can serve as secondary offensive foci. They take the pressure off Harden and force the Jazz defense to do more than track Harden and the occasional three-point screen. Brewer cannot do that outside of transition. In a half court set, he just stands there, launching a three every now and then.
And throughout the fourth quarter, the Rockets just dumped the ball to Harden, and the Jazz attacked him. And even when Harden passed the ball out to someone else, they would just pass it back a few seconds later. This occurred even with Beasley on the floor, as everyone just defered to Harden.
It does not work, especially when Harden is not fully healthy. And using Brewer is even more problematic because of the problems of small ball. Utah shot 40 percent from the field and gave up 22 turnovers, among their worst offensive performances of the season.
And yet they did win, partly because they grabbed 48 rebounds ( and 13 offensive) to 32 rebounds from the Rockets. This is not a new problem. The blasted Brooklyn Nets won games against the Rockets in the beginning of the season because Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young just outhustled and outrebounded everyone else. And with only 10 games left in the season, this problem has not improved at all.
It is the same thing over and over again. When Howard or Capela come over to help on defense ( and the two did a very good job at this tonight, with some fantastic blocks), they leave the ball open, which then falls to a cutting defender or the ball gets loose to a nearby Jazz bigman. And the fact is that at this point, there is really nothing that can be done. No team meeting is fixing this broken team now.
Two-way players
As Rockets fans look back on this disaster of a season and think about what lessons need to be learned, perhaps it is the importance of having Swiss Army knife type players. Guys like Chandler Parsons or Terrence Jones as we envisioned him, who could do a little bit of everything and shore up any weaknesses.
But we have the total opposite. There are Rockets who can score but whose rebounding and defense are questionable, like Beasley. There are Rockets who can rebound but cannot score like Montrezl Harrell. There are Rockets who can score in certain situations and defend but not rebound like Brewer.
No matter who Bickerstaff plugs, he has players who cannot do some fundamental things, and opposing teams use these weaknesses to pound the Rockets again and again. And as good as James Harden can be, the team must have an offensive strategy beyond giving the ball to him and getting out of the way.
This burden on Harden has not only cost Houston this season, but could impact his long-term health with that ankle. Perhaps, as the Rockets face the choice between a humiliating lottery pick or a short series against the Warriors or Spurs, it may be time to bite the bullet and get this horrible, terrible, and just plain boring season done with. At minimum, Bickerstaff need to stop riding Harden into the ground so that he can keep his job.
It’s not going to happen anyways.
