Rockets blast off behind the arc
Coach D’Antoni’s all-in approach is a winning one
When Mike D’Antoni took over the Phoenix Suns in 2003 and started incorporating his plan to blow the doors off of the rest of the NBA, the coach remembers looking at the stat sheet almost sheepishly when he saw how many three-pointers they were taking.
“We’d put up 25 and get scared, like: ‘Oh my gosh, maybe we’re doing too much,”’ D’Antoni recalled this week.
If he only knew then the revolution that he started.
In his first season in Houston, D’Antoni has found the perfect marriage between a coach’s approach and an organizational philosophy. And the Rockets are soaring because of it. They set NBA records with 24 made threes and a staggering 61 attempts in a win over New Orleans on Friday night, then put up the second-most threes in league history with 51 in a comeback win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
The Rockets have won 10 straight games to improve to 21-7, and D’Antoni isn’t about to put any limits on how many threes his team will toss.
“That’s the good thing about being in Houston: They kind of like that. Mathematics have said it’s OK,” D’Antoni said. “So we’re just kind of pushing the envelope as far as we can go. And I don’t know where that will end, but 61 is a good start.”
The Rockets are a respectable 14th in defensive rating and make up for any shortcomings there by embracing modern analytics that put a premium on threes, layups and free throws. They also lead the NBA with 417 threes attempted — 81 more than the splash family in Golden State — and are fourth in three-point accuracy.
James Harden is an MVP candidate again, Eric Gordon is enjoying a rebirth in his first year in Houston and Ryan Anderson is letting it fly.
The efficacy of the approach was apparent in Minnesota on Saturday, when the Rockets hit five threes in the final three minutes to erase a 12-point deficit and force overtime.
“I don’t ever see us out of a game,” Harden said. “We score the ball so easily, so well.”
STAT LINE OF THE WEEK:
Bradley Beal, Wizards, 41 points, 13-23 FG, 6-10 3s, 9-11 FTs versus the Lo Clippers on Sunday.
With apologies to Russell Westbrook, who could appear in this space just about every week, Beal’s stat line against the Clippers was one of the most encouraging lines of the week. The surprise win over Los Angeles was the Wizards’ third in a row and fifth out of six games.