Smart ball
The genius of Rockets’ offense is how it can win in so many different ways
SALT LAKE CITY — There were the usual James Harden plays, the sort that are as expected from him as facial hair.
There were drives to draw the defense and set up 3-pointers. There were the usual lobs to Clint Capela. Been there led to done that and the Rockets were fine with familiarity. But it took much more than that to unlock the Utah Jazz defense. The Rockets had become convinced Harden can always find another way through, but the Jazz can often take away, or at least limit, the things the Rockets seek most.
By Friday’s Game 3 romp, the Rockets mixed in Plans B and C.
Harden found other ways to facilitate, often with cutters slicing through the few openings in the Utah defense. Chris Paul dropped in midrange jumpers, the shots he calls his layups but were thought to be anathema to the Rockets’ way of doing things. The Rockets put up 70 first-half points, their most in a playoff game since 1987. And they did it against a defense that is not only among the NBA’s elite but seemed to have been built to defend what the Rockets do most.
Beyond even the offensive performance Friday to take a 2-1 series lead, the Rockets headed into Sunday’s Game 4 believing they can find the opportunities even the best defenses allow.
“They’re a really good defense, a great defense,” Harden said. “Obviously, great rim protection from (Rudy) Gobert. We just try to find other ways to be aggressive. They kind of take away my 3s and our 3s as a unit. So we had to find other ways to attack them.
“In the paint, making sure we finish attacking the rim and trying to find other ways in transition to get 3s. It’s still a tough matchup, but we’re trying to do a good job of trying to be aggressive through the entire series.” Finding the seams
Had the Rockets ordered “the usual” they would have had no complaints. But after a few games dealing with the Jazz defense overplaying on the perimeter and defending the 3-point line with the security that comes with Gobert waiting as the last line of defense, the Rockets dipped into Harden’s menu of options. He escaped from the corner to draw Gobert and dish to a cutting Capela. He ran a backdoor cut to take a pass from Paul and set up Capela, again cutting into the lane. He caught the Jazz overplaying him, running a give-and-go with Capela. He twice found P.J. Tucker leaving his usual position in the corner to dash into the lane.
With the Rockets misfiring on the 3s that drive their offense more than any team’s in NBA history (Harden and Paul were a combined 3-of-15 on 3s), they rolled offensively so successfully, that in Harden’s 30½ minutes, they were on a pace to score 131.6 points per 100 possessions.
“Anything you do to a great player, they’re going to figure out ways to attack it.” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “So in the end, that’s who he is. He’s a great player. People have guarded him 100 different ways. People have sent him left, right. People have tried to get in him, back up on him, help from one side. There’s no easy answers.”
Playing against the secondrated defense of the regular season, Harden has averaged 32.7 points and 10 assists in the first three games of the series. But the greater measure of his play is how he has guided the Rockets’ search for solutions.
“He’s artistic the way he plays,” Snyder had said Monday after Harden’s Game 1 roll. “It’s pure. There’s an artistry to what he does on the court. He’s got such an awareness.”
Harden has long said that is his favorite part of his game, much more so than hitting 3s, finishing drives or drawing fouls. The Jazz have made his ability to find openings vital.
“I just try to go out there and find ways to win games, find ways to make an impact on the game every single night, every single possession,” Harden said. “It means a lot. Artist, creator, I’m all of those things.” A shooting star
With that in mind, the Rockets studied the Jazz defense to add to their usual offense. Paul always had the green light to take the midrange jumpers on which he has thrived throughout his career. When told the Rockets took 28 shots in the midrange (hitting on 16), Paul said he must have taken 20 of them. He took half that many but made enough to offer a reminder of what the Rockets lacked against the similar defense of the Spurs in last season’s playoffs.
“Because of the Chris midrange game, we’re better equipped for people that are hanging back in the lane,” coach Mike D’Antoni said.
“That’s my version of the layup,” Paul said, “the midrange.”
The Rockets have been happy to see him take those shots throughout the season. But Friday, they added movement without the ball. Capela was active cutting toward the rim, but he did it more often than usual when not setting the screen and rolling. Tucker was more involved in the lane. Harden was more of a playmaker from the side, rather than coming down the middle.
“He’s so good at seeing the floor a lot of times, we just run things through him and we kind of just figure it out from different matchups and different games and seeing the schemes,” Tucker said. “They were sending guys at him so we can get cutters and just kind of make them make decisions. Just making adjustments as the series goes on.
“I think that’s one of his biggest attributes, how he sees the floor and how he can read defenses and know what the right play is to make. I think that’s probably the best thing he can do, know the game. He makes all of us better by knowing the game so well.” So much familiarity
Some of that also might be from the customary playoff adjustments D’Antoni usually downplays. Even Friday, he said the greatest adjustment was to the Rockets’ attitude. But Saturday, he acknowledged the video study found ways to attack.
“That’s what you have to do,” D’Antoni said. “Every team right now knows everything you run, more or less. You call a play and they go, ‘You go …’ You know what they’re going to do. Within the plays, within the structure you have to be able to read it.
“As you go forward, they’ll even know you more. You rely on trying to find little crevices you can sneak in and get some points. We looked at the film. We just saw areas they overplay us we can backdoor here. They’re going to go help. You need to take the space there. We talk all the time you still have to read it. You have to initiate it.”
When they did, the Rockets rolled. With just a smattering of the usual, the Rockets found layers to the offense they lacked in the past and likely will need again, along with a lead in the series against an elite defense.
“That’s why we have two of the greatest guys that can read and score and figure offenses out,” D’Antoni said. “It’s a big, big part of it.”