Defense may determine season’s success
Silas goes back to basics in scheme amid rebuild and youth movement
GALVESTON — For most of five days of training camp, the Rockets emphasized nothing as much as rebuilding their defense. They have little idea about how it went.
That is in part by design. With a busload of rookies and young players, the Rockets went back to the most fundamental basics to start, only adding some pick-and-roll coverages late in camp.
They know what they want, with a desire to hit before they are hit. They know what is possible, with length and quickness, and even depth they lacked last season when they often struggled to piece together enough healthy and available players to play a game. But when starting from scratch, there is a long way to go.
“It’s hard to tell now,” center Daniel Theis, the free agent expected to have the greatest impact on improving the Rockets’ defense. “We’re definitely athletic, talented on defense. But the preseason games are going to show us how it’s going to go. Practice is different. Playing against each other, everybody knows what we’re running. A real NBA game, or preseason game, we’re going to see where we’re at.”
Nothing will better determine the sort of season the Rockets can have more than how they defend. They have strong defensive options, particularly with Theis, David Nwaba, Jae’Sean Tate, Eric Gordon and, in some matchups and schemes, Christian Wood. But the Rockets are determined to play their young players, particularly Jalen Green, Kevin Porter Jr. and Alperen Sengun, who face a steep learning curve.
“We have the people, the length, talent to be better defensively,” guard Dante Exum, a standout defensively in training camp, said. “It’s just a mindset. That’s what we’re trying to teach here. It’s a mindset that if we do what we have to do on the defensive end, the offense becomes easier.”
That was the message the Rockets happily repeated through their best stretch of last season, when they won seven of eight games immediately before Wood’s sprained ankle triggered the 20-game losing streak. As they spent the rest of the season scrambling to find enough healthy bodies, the defense collapsed.
The Rockets had the NBA’s second-ranked defense on the February night in Memphis when Wood wrecked his ankle 21 games into the season. They were last in the NBA defensively the rest of the way.
That led not just to the 1755 record and roster overhaul but also to a training camp that started with the very beginnings of defense. Eventually, Rockets coach Stephen Silas will have to balance the schemes his young players are ready to play with those he wants them to grow into. Training camp was about building a foundation.
“Right now, it’s the basics and the things I know they should be able to do,” Silas said early in camp. “But as we layer on top of that, it’ll be more complex.
“The basics would be basic positioning on the floor. Them learning the terminology. Them understanding on a baseline drive, where am I supposed to be and what am I supposed to do are the basics of individual defense. As far as ball pressure, how close do I need to be, when do I start my chops as I approach a closeout. Those sorts of things are the basic, basic, basics.”
By Friday, he installed pick-and-roll coverages. Preseason games, beginning Tuesday against Bradley Beal and the Washington Wizards, likely will not move too far into gameplanning.
The Rockets will need to see how they want to use their new options. Pairing Theis and Wood should immediately improve the interior defense from the lateseason struggles. Theis played roughly 19 minutes per game on Celtics teams that were in the top six deholes. fensively in each of his three full seasons in Boston.
Manning the center position with the Rockets could allow Wood to play more on the perimeter, but Theis also has been effective away from the basket.
“He switches better than I thought he would be able to,” Silas said. “He’s very good in switching. He’ll be able to do the other things as well.”
The Rockets had no chance to build a strong, or even passable NBA team while players were spinning through a roster revolving door last season and could not even consider holding the sort of practices it would have taken to shore up With the roster revamped around young players, they had the chance to go back to the beginning.
“We’re still very basic with the defense, but we added a pick-and-roll package, which involves coverage on the ball but also involves protection behind the ball,” Silas said late in training camp. “That is a big step to take. The first few days, it was just kind of individual defense and help defense. Then you add the pick-and-roll defense, which is everything in the NBA. You have to be super organized behind that.”
Many of the details are still to be determined, though extensive use of switching is likely, as has become essential throughout the NBA. But the hope is that outstanding length and quickness can make the Rockets’ defense far more forceful.
“I want to be disruptive,” Silas said. “I want to take things away from opponents. Last year, at times, we were very reactive instead of proactive. As deep, young, quick as we are, we can kind of get after it more than we did last year defensively.”