It’s a small world after all
Rockets’ centerless unit proves it can compete with Warriors
They don’t give nicknames to lineups that can’t play. Lineups actually rarely get labels at all.
The Warriors’ best-five lineup, four All-Stars and an NBA Finals MVP whom the Rockets coveted, earned its sobriquets.
Call it the “Death Lineup.” Call the collection of Draymond Green, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala “The Hamptons Five.” Since Game 4 of the Warriors’ series against the Pelicans, Warriors coach Steve Kerr has called them his starting lineup.
To P.J. Tucker, the Rockets’ 6-6 (ish), 245-pound answer, the Warriors’ celebrated — legendary even — five-man centerless unit is the second-best small-ball lineup in the Western Conference finals.
“We feel like our small lineup is the best,” Tucker said. “We get what we want on offense and on defense … switch everything. We have guys getting up. We love our lineup.”
The Rockets still keep their center, Clint Capela, on the floor for the majority of the game. He played for 31 minutes in Game 2. But Nene, the Rockets’ backup center, played five minutes in Game 1 and not at all
in Game 2. Ryan Anderson, who played five first-half minutes as a range-shooting center in Game 1, did not play in Game 2 until Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni cleared his bench.
That left much of the remaining time Capela was out to the Rockets’ Tuckwagon Lineup, with Tucker at center, usually on the floor with Trevor Ariza, Eric Gordon, James Harden and Chris Paul. With that, when the Warriors went small, the Rockets went smaller.
The Rockets won the matchup, usually a devastating Warriors hammer, in a blowout.
In the 10 minutes the Rockets’ centerless lineup was on the floor together, it had a net rating of plus 30.2, indicating it was on pace to outscore the Warriors by 30.2 points per 100 possessions.
More stunning than that was the fact that in 22 minutes, the Warriors’ collection of stars had a net rating of minus 35.9, getting outscored in all four of its stints in the game.
“We got outplayed the whole game,” Kerr said. “We're playing a team that won 65 games. They're damn good. We got it handed to us. You can look at it anyway you want and parcel it out into different shifts and rotations and all that stuff, but it didn't matter who we had out there. We got beat.”
Getting beat in general, with the Rockets taking their lead to 28 before the benches were cleared, would indicate any particular lineup was outplayed. But this is almost always a Golden State advantage.
To the Warriors, having even their best-five lineup outplayed was not about the matchup but how they played.
“I didn’t really view it as (about) them going small,” Green said. “I felt like they put the best lineup that they had going, the guys that had it going most out there. That is a direct impact from turning the ball over, and then we had a bunch of defensive lapses that allowed guys to get open looks. Once you get guys confidence, it’s the NBA and one of the best teams in the league. So when guys get confidence, it’s tough.”
Yet as likely as the Warriors are to play much better than they did with the small lineup, they do not seem to have an advantage just because of the matchup.
Curry will almost certainly shoot better than Wednesday’s 1-of-8 3-point performance. Klay Thompson will usually take more than four 3s. But the Warriors will not be able to find an edge just by forcing an opponent to play a group it would rather not.
The Rockets were so determined to get their small lineup on the floor together that D’Antoni altered his rotation, having Gordon check in for Tucker just 3:05 into the game to allow more time for Tucker at center, rather than having Gordon replace Paul six minutes into the game as usual. D’Antoni had Gordon in for Capela less than four minutes into the second half.
Of all the ways the Rockets were built to match up with the Warriors, the small lineups, switching on screens and spreading the floor was always high on the list. D’Antoni often went to them when things bogged down offensively, bringing more range shooting on the floor, often with Anderson at center, to give Harden and Paul more room to work.
He went into the Warriors series planning to finish games with Harden, Paul and Gordon on the floor together, his version of the original “Death Lineup,” when rather than start the game, the Warriors went small for a devastating finishing kick.
That lineup has only gotten better with Durant. But the Rockets believe they have a way to life after “Death.”
“That's our finishing lineup,” Tucker said. “I love that lineup. I get to go to the five. I love doing it no matter who we're playing because I get to take the defense and be the anchor and be able to talk and fix stuff. We get to kind of make other teams go small and have to play the same lineup.”
In Game 2, they did more than that. When both teams went small, the Rockets came up big.