Losses rise on bad fast-break defense
Not getting back has led to allowing average of 118 points in past 8 games
Back before everything changed, when the Rockets had won seven of eight games, when they had a winning record for the last time this season, their defense was among the NBA’s best.
When looking back to early February, so much about the Rockets seems like ancient history. Only four players who competed the night of their Feb. 4 victory — when Christian Wood sprained his ankle, leading to a nosedive marked by a 20-game losing streak — were part of Saturday’s 125109
road loss to the Warriors. And in keeping with the way so much has gone in the months since, one of them — Sterling Brown, who has been their hottest shooter for weeks — went out after four minutes with a sore knee.
The Rockets left Memphis that February night with the second-ranked defense in the NBA, allowing 106.2 points per 100 possessions through 22 games.
In the 31 games since, they have ranked second-tolast, giving up 117.3 points
per 100 possessions.
“It’s just about effort, effort and taking pride and guarding your man one-onone,” guard John Wall said. “Also, as a team, being in help position in case somebody does get beat and make the extra effort. We show glimpses of that, and when we do, we’re a good team because it gets our offense going. When we don’t, our offense is bad, and our defense is bad.”
It can be difficult to win when that’s the case.
As much as the Rockets have improved in other ways since gaining an influx of veterans, the defense has not. Teams routinely force switches and exploit mismatches. The Rockets are regularly beat off the dribble, often forcing help that leaves shooters open. Most of all, the transition defense has ricocheted from bad to worse, perhaps never as bad as in Saturday’s first half.
“We gave up 22 points in transition in the first half,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. “Getting back and getting our defense set is first and foremost.”
For the Rockets on Saturday, that came last. They allowed 17 fast-break points in the first quarter, more than three points more than Golden State averages per game and more than any team averages per game.
The Suns, whom the Rockets face Monday in Phoenix, had 26 fast-break points when they played the Rockets last week, their most this season.
Phoenix also will pick apart a shoddy defense, finding weaknesses to exploit. As different as the Suns’ and Warriors’ offenses are, both had their best scorer take apart the Rockets when the game was close, Stephen Curry in the third quarter Saturday, Devin Booker in the fourth last week.
“This team we played tonight, they are cutting, and Steph is giving it up and rotating out, and you have to be on it,” Silas said Saturday. “We were not on it tonight, whether it was the back-toback or whatever. The defense has to be better. And a lot of it has to be on the individual fortitude to stop the man in front of you and not necessarily worry about what the scheme is and whose help it is and all that stuff. It’s just bearing down and getting stops.”
The Rockets have not executed defensively in weeks, with the exception the effort in Wednesday’s 102-93 win over Dallas in which they played multiple defenses, contested shots and benefited from having Luka Doncic misfire from the perimeter.
That, however, was an aberration. In the eight games since the Rockets’ March 27 win at Minnesota, they have allowed at least 118 points, roughly the league-leading scoring average, in seven of them. They won the one game in which they allowed fewer points and lost the rest.
The Warriors posed a particularly difficult challenge when they went to their traditional small lineup while the Rockets played two centers. Kelly Olynyk and Christian Wood each had 18 points, and the Rockets needed to play them to have the scoring to mount a comeback. But they also tried going with Wood and four guards for a stretch to try to put more defensive quickness on the floor.
“As far as the small unit they had and our ability to switch and contain the ball or blitz and rotation, when they’re small, that’s a hard thing to do,” Silas said. “( James) Wiseman went out early, and we had to deal with small (lineups). At some level, there was a tough cover.”
Still, nothing demonstrated the way the Rockets’ defense has slipped as much as the lack of determination to get back to stop fast breaks.
Curry and Booker can go on runs against any team. The Clippers, who beat the Rockets by 17 on Friday, are on pace to be the best 3point shooting team in NBA history and on Saturday moved past the Nets to own the top-rated offense in league history. But everyone is scoring on the Rockets.
They were not smashed by the Splash Brothers Warriors on Saturday, despite Curry’s phenomenal play this season and spectacular run in the third quarter. They gave up 125 points to the 22nd-ranked offense in the NBA, in part because they did not run back to stop it.
“They were getting out and running on us,” Silas said. “It wasn’t just the fastbreak points. It was our frustration with us missing shots, frustration with the referees and all that stuff, and not running back in a way we can get matched up. So now there are mismatches. There are cross matches, which lead to defensive breakdowns, which we can’t allow to happen and I can’t allow to happen.”