An upgrade over last season?
Bar was set high, but this team might clear it
Coach Mike D’Antoni described how the Rockets had gone from what they were in the first two months of the season to the last two, citing roster changes and even escaping the “hangover” from last season that prompted a stumbling start long before their fast finish.
They had not yet begun Wednesday’s second consecutive blowout of the Utah Jazz to open the playoffs, but the question once unthinkable had risen to viable and perhaps even unavoidable.
Have this season’s Rockets become a better team than last season’s Rockets?
That team won a franchise-record 65 games. It moved to the
Western Conference finals with consecutive 4-1 marches through playoff series. It was a half-game (and perhaps a Chris Paul injury) away from the NBA Finals, in which it would have been a heavy favorite.
In many ways, it was the unspoken bar for this season’s Rockets to clear in the pursuit of something greater. Is a team that finished tied for third in the Western Conference and entered the playoffs as the fourth seed better than that?
D’Antoni uncharacteristically paused, weighing a response. Five seconds passed. He thought perhaps of key players now elsewhere whom he did not want to disrespect or of all that remained to be done to eliminate the Jazz and advance to another presumed showdown with Golden State.
“I think James (Harden) is having a better year than he did last year,” D’Antoni finally said. “I think Chris is healthier. Yeah, I think we definitely can be better. We haven’t proved it yet. But yeah, I think we can be better.”
In the two hours that followed, they were. After taking a 32-point win in Game 1, the Rockets led by
28 in Game 2, winning by 20.
With a great deal still to prove, the Rockets have shown themselves to be a deeper, more versatile team, with a bench bolstered by the additions (Danuel House Jr., Kenneth Faried, Austin Rivers) brought in when injuries gashed the rotation but who now give D’Antoni more options.
Faried provides the bench production at center that the Rockets tried to add last season with Brandan Wright, only to have him go out after one game. After the season’s run of injuries that kept Eric Gordon, Paul and Clint Capela out for long stretches, the Rockets reached the postseason fully healthy and on a 20-5 run in the final 25 games. A year ago, forward Luc Mbah a Moute was out with a shoulder injury and never got back to full strength.
“We’re different,” Gordon said. “I think we can use more guys. They’re used to playing, being starters, like Faried, Austin and Shump (Iman Shumpert). Even Danuel House has been here and played. I think that’s the difference from last season.”
It is not, however, just the reserves who make the Rockets seem better than when they were shorthanded a year ago. Though greater tests will come, with the Rockets expecting them beginning Saturday in Salt Lake City, they have rarely looked more in sync with one another and their philosophies on both ends of the floor.
“They’re playing at an unbelievable high level,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “It’s difficult to make those comparisons, but I do think there is a level of continuity you have, especially with James and Chris having been together for a year. They’re focused and determined. There’s just the consistency
of focus that they’re playing with.”
That could be the product of the time spent together. For all the roster changes in the offseason and through this season, this season’s five starters were in the top six (along with Trevor Ariza) in minutes played last season, the first with forward P.J. Tucker and Paul on the team.
Ranked first offensively last season, the Rockets were second this season but with an average of 114.8 points per 100 possessions, slightly better than last season. Since the All-Star break, they have been slightly better defensively this season than last.
“That’s just us being together for a bit now,” Tucker said. “Our core, Chris and James, when they get to getting us going, when they’re pushing (and) when they’re aggressive, they make it easier for all of us. So then me, Clint and Chris can really set up defense. We communicate well in our first unit. We all fight, argue, talk all the time. But in the end, we all get an understanding, and that’s made our defense really good.”
If nothing else, this season’s Rockets sound like last season’s Rockets. They had generated so much attention for openly proclaiming their confidence, seeming to back it with their play and the series, if ultimately unsuccessful, against the Warriors. It took most of the season, but the same level of confidence has been rebuilt.
“When we do what we do, I don’t think anybody can beat us,” Tucker said. “It’s a fact. I don’t care. We come out every night, we talk, we communicate, and when our two guys get going and are aggressive, we’re tough.”
None of that can be entirely proved at home. The real tests come on the road, particularly in the sort of environment expected in Salt Lake City and against a team sure to be desperate to rebound. But there is something familiar about how the Rockets are playing and sounding a season after they demonstrated so much promise not quite fulfilled.
“Obviously, we are confident,” D’Antoni said. “I thought we were confident all year. Even when we were 11-14, they were confident. They were driving me crazy, but they were confident. ‘Oh, we’ll get out of it.’ They’ve always had the belief once they get healthy — they lock in. And we’re as good as anybody if not better than everybody. It’s a good level.”