Capela savors playing top center
Matchup vs. Embiid offers chance to face a post-up specialist
Many players don’t admit to mentally circling dates on the schedule. Many don’t concern themselves with opponents and matchups. Every game counts the same and all that.
Rockets center Clint Capela does not pretend. He especially enjoys the challenges, the nights against the biggest and best big men, particularly those who get the ball often and challenge and test him the most.
None inspire him to break out his mental magic marker quite like the 76ers’ Joel Embiid.
This is the matchup that could be the toughest, making it the challenge he wants most.
“Always,” Capela said. “Embiid is the most exciting one, especially (because) I didn’t get to play against him last year. I was hurt,
and he was. That one is pretty special.”
If NBA players can be fans of NBA players, Capela could be considered an Embiid enthusiast. Their jobs could hardly be more different, with Embiid a low-post focal point, his team’s leading scorer, while Capela’s evolving offensive duties almost entirely exclude post-ups.
Yet that makes the matchup exhilarating for Capela and important for the Rockets as they face the Sixers on Friday at Toyota Center.
“I like the way he plays,” Capela said. “He’s the main guy on his team. That’s the team that puts the ball in the post the most. He’s definitely the one that gets the ball the most. It’s pretty exciting the way he plays and the way he makes himself efficient. I like it. It makes it exciting to me.”
League leader in post
Embiid’s 10.3 post-ups and 7.7 points scored per game in the post lead the NBA. Philadelphia’s 19.3 post-ups and 11.9 post-up points per game are far more than any other team’s totals. (The Rockets average one point per game on post-ups, though they average almost the same number of points in the paint and within 10 feet as the 76ers.)
With Capela getting few lowpost touches, his role in the Rockets’ offense, while changed, has not diminished in its importance.
He is averaging about five fewer frontcourt touches per game than last season. Capela does not receive pick-and-roll passes as often as in the past, averaging just 2.3 per game (down from 3.7 last season and 3.9 the year before). But he remains central to the Rockets’ offense either with dribble handoffs or as a lob target. He even has been used as one of the passers (after Russell Westbrook and P.J. Tucker) when James Harden passes out of double teams.
“It’s been really different,” Capela said. “I kind of have to adjust on that. I just have to be ready whenever Russ gets the ball or that second pass that makes the difference. I have to be able to catch the ball and finish hard on the rim. It’s been quite different, but that’s (because) of the way teams try to play defense against us.”
That was especially obvious when Capela played through heel pain against the Kings and Warriors, especially struggling to finish inside.
“He’s vital,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “Our offense really starts with the center being able to set the timely picks, and the ball goes through him on the perimeter and setting people up. Without him, that makes it tough.”
Slight dropoff in scoring
With fewer pick-and-roll touches, Capela’s scoring is down, from 16.6 points per game last season to 13.9 this season. He is still making 63.9 percent of his shots, ranking sixth in the NBA. His average of 14.2 rebounds per game ranks second.
In the past 10 games, with the Rockets adjusting to the midcourt traps on Harden, Westbrook has increasingly found Capela (and in two of the past three games Isaiah Hartenstein) at the rim to punish teams for devoting defensive manpower to stop Harden.
“Russ is going downhill, toward the rim, which he’s great at,” Harden said. “You have shooters in the corner. Clint or whatever big is in the game at the time is ready to catch and finish.”
It was just a coincidence that Capela returned from his bruised right heel in time to face the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic and Embiid in consecutive games. Capela is far from 100 percent, playing in pain that D’Antoni said will probably linger for several weeks. But after a strong performance in the blowout of Denver that showed how badly Capela was missed when he was out for two games and struggled through the pain for two other games, what he means to the Rockets has become especially clear.
“Everything,” Harden said. “Defensively, he’s our rim protector. He guards guards. He does a little bit of everything. And then offensively, he puts so much pressure (on opponents) when me and Russell drive: lob opportunities, finish opportunities. He’s key for our team.”
That would be especially true against the 76ers, which makes Friday’s game — and matchup of “vital” big men — particularly enticing and, for Capela, undeniably exciting.