House looks right at home in lineup
Forward’s play gives D’Antoni another option
A Danuel House Jr. 3pointer with just over 10 minutes remaining gave the Rockets a 17-point lead in what would be a 129-112 win over the short-handed Golden State Warriors on Wednesday.
Spurred by another double-figure performance, House has continued to impress
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni. Even if Eric Gordon is able to return from a sore hamstring for Saturday’s game against the Chi
cago Bulls, D’Antoni will consider keeping House in the starting lineup.
“I’ll definitely think about it,” he said. “I want to do what’s best for the team and I think Eric’s fine either way — he said he was. And if it’s better that he comes in off the bench, then that was the plan earlier so that’s the best way to go.”
House has started in seven of the team’s eight games this season. His performance against the Warriors (17 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist) was his fifth-consecutive double-figure game.
“I just like his energy and his athleticism. He just gives it everything he’s got,” D’Antoni said. “He’s made some rookie mistakes where he might force one or two but you can’t get mad at that.”
D’Antoni is content with House’s defensive contributions. He likes the way House runs the floor and that energy has helped him become the team’s fourthleading rebounder (5.4 per game) so far.
As House continues to develop in the league, D’Antoni expects his defensive awareness will grow with him.
“(House is) doing all the things he can control,” he said. “As he gets older in the league, he’ll learn guys’ tendencies a little bit better, but I love Danuel, I think been good for us.”
To make more of an impact on both sides of the floor, House spent the offseason getting quicker and stronger.
“I’ve been training in the summer to get laterally quicker to guard multiple guys and strong enough to take a beating if I switch onto the post and (a player) does a nice little post-up move, that I’m still able to extend to give him some resistance or even contest his shot.”
Eight games into this season, House is part of collective effort to improve the
Rockets defense, which is rated the third-worst in the league, two spots higher than Golden State.
But the Warriors relative lack of quality doesn’t diminish any positive takeaways for House.
“A game like this … is always a good feeling,” he said.
“Nothing’s stopping us (from performing like we did on Wednesday), it’s just … we just came from an allswitch system to now. We kind of changed certain things defensively so we’re still trying to get back used to it and we’re working through it. The good thing about it is guys are having a positive attitude working through it versus being angry or upset.”
For D’Antoni, the team’s first two-day break of the year presents an opportunity to mend some of that.
“We’ve played every other day since the opening of the season and now backto-back (Sunday-Monday vs. Miami and Memphis) so it’s good,” he said. “We should have a little spike of energy coming out of here.”