I bet you didn't realize that the Houston Rockets are currently sitting in second place in the western conference after 21 games with a thrilling win over the first seated OKC Thunder on Sunday they've launched themselves into contention by building on last year's Improvement under eeme udoka and the question is how did they currently become one of the best teams in the NBA [Music] of course the headline is that Fred Van vet lit the Thunder up for 38 points and he did it with his usual brand of tricky footwork on the drive after the ball screen
while it looked like a travel you can see he ended his dribble here with the left foot down and then takes his legal right left into the jump and Bank on the way down since he's usually the shortest guy on the floor he's got to use his body in more creative ways like hitting a pound dribble into a subtle change of angle to cause contact into a Defender who is not in legal guarding position that then quick releasing off the left foot before Wallace can block it and at that speed and body angle it would
have been hard to finish traditionally off the glass so he flips it up and directly into the bucket for the and one the trickiest one he had was changing the pace on his legal steps to completely throw off the defense and it was important for the Rockets to get some good finishes at The Rim because as a team they struggle mightily in the restricted area currently they ranked six in field goal attempts at The Rim which is great from a process standpoint but their field goal percentage here ranks a mere 29th and that played out
in this game as we saw a number of shots at The Rim get blown either under heavy duress from the defense or a lack of focus all the way through the shot and in a weird parallel they ranked fifth in field goal attempts per game from the mid-range and also ranked 22 in field goal percentage from that distance which is extremely concerning since these are the shots that most teams want to avoid while Jaylen green is the biggest culprit on the season in terms of percentage you can see they've got a number of high volume
midi Shooters out there with almost none of them shooting well enough to Merit these decisions when you factor how bad they are in these two areas you might think to yourself well they must be shooting the three ball at a high clip to make up for it hence all those quality wins nope they're 26 in 3 point percentage but at least they don't take that many and they certainly didn't catch fire from behind the ark versus OKC except for van Le whose moonball desperation triple in the fourth was just about the gamewinner and we know
in the modern NBA that you can't sustain winning for too long if you're going to get out scored from the three-point line every night in this game they tied the Thunder for three-point makes to keep the game even until the very end all of this explains why their offensive rating is so low but how is it possible they've won over 70% of their games then one way is by drawing fouls on the defense they ranked sixth in fouls drawn per 100 possessions led by shanon's fancy footwork down low in the post and jayen Green's four
Rays to the rim that can border on off-balance shots that when the whistle doesn't come turn into bad misses and continue to lower the team's restricted area field goal percentage the fact that they can generate so many shooting files is a necessity because they don't shoot them that well ranking 23rd in free throw percentage but because they are second in makes per game from that high volume it helps mitigate the fact that they simply cannot Shoot Straight from anywhere on the floor the other way they overcome their brickin is by getting the offensive boards they
lead the league in that category which isn't really surprising considering how many shots they missed from all over the floor and rank fourth in Second Chance points which helps their offense tread water just enough so they can rely on the other end of the floor obviously if the offense is broken then you'd better be a lock down unit and that's what they've been doing so far with a stifling third rank defense and stops like these will always give a team their just rewards much like the rewards you'll get from built rewards built is breaking ground
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only Built members can access so if you're not earning points on rent my question is why not start earning points on rent you're already paying by going to join built.com bball make sure to use my URL so they know that I sent you start earning points on your rent payments today the Rockets defense can blow up the offense with great switchin screening off Aman Thompson with tar E's man doesn't do anything since they just switch and lose almost nothing at the point of attack also notice how Jabari Smith won't go with his man on the
exchange so he can be another long and athletic help defender in the paint which also allows Thompson to hover near the dotted line to show a united front against SGA who gives up and settles for a contested three physicality and effort are two qualities the Rockets use to great effect in their team defense een moves his feet very well to erase the Williams Drive watch Van Vleet use his body on his man before switching and getting a little handsy on the cutter Smith plays no middle defense to prevent any drive into the paint with Van
vet hovering Thompson bumps down to stop kenrich Williams from getting the layup before closing out to prevent the shot now the good shot F could have been devastating but the Rockets rotate over and Van bleet fights around to get a hand up and influence the Miss amen Thompson is just a disruptor on this end as e refuses to be screened off Thompson can help one pass away because he is so long the pass back to his man has made that much harder plus he's cat quick and can close out to prev vent the three-point shot
he plays this perfectly showing his chest to the ball handler and cold eliminating the drive leaving them with a non-shooter bricking this three the Thompson harassment is real and will cause teams to Simply go away from him the more they realize how hard it is to screen him off the ball watch how he turns and runs no defensive slides out here he cuts the drive off and forces the shooter into a ridiculous shot but it's not just Thompson they've got another disruptor in Dylan Brooks after Thompson does the impossible by stopping an sgaa Drive check
how he crosses the right leg in front of the left while stabbing at the dribble Brooks is there to pounce in the midi pullup and canest it into a miss when you're good enough at defense you can violate certain rules like helping one pass away like Brooks does a little bit here in support of the Jay dub ball screen van bed can chase the shooter off the line because he knows he's got shenon behind him and when green gets beat slightly on the middle Drive there's Brooks again to disrupt with his hands while then closing
out quickly enough to forward a shot shot before showing good footwork to stay in front of Alexander and inviting a very inefficient shot tar een is yet another tough Defender who reads the offense like a book Shen gun can step up on the drag screen to force it out of sga's hands knowing e is back there ready to pounce and knock the ball away into a steel then watch how he comes from nowhere to leave his man to impossibly block this Runner I mean what shenon is a very mobile big man that offers good Rim
protection ranking 15th among centers in holding Shooters around the rim to lower than expected percentages notice how he jumps backwards to avoid illegal contact with the shooter before blocking the ball cleanly out of williams' hand into a stop the pieces all fit together well when Brooks can use his strength and body to keep sgaa off balance check how Javari Smith communicates his help from all the way across the floor green has been consistent with his energy on Closeouts to chase Shooters off the line and Shen gun displays real dexterity to jump sideways alongside the shooter
so he doesn't foul but forces the Miss and that led to this possession at the end of the game after winning the jump ball they had no time on the shot clock and sometimes you have to make your own look with this contested 33f footer of course any game with Dylan Brooks has a high likelihood of a physical standoff and this aggressive pursuit of the ball led to a lot of players getting involved despite it being good clean basketball clearly Brooks loves what he can get under the opponent's skin l like this and when done
properly can really give the Rockets a competitive Advantage it's not surprising that a team struggling this much on offense would turn in a stinker of a possession like this one in crunch time as hartenstein pulls the chair out and shenon ends up on his wallet in the lane for a lot longer than 3 seconds but finding Brooks for a clutch push shot just before the shock loock buzzer went off the Rockets benefited from some blunders by the Thunder coaching staff he didn't need to call a timeout after the Brooks shot and then they run a
pick and roll with Thompson and een on defense when they e easily could have screed with Van leits man to force a switch e again comes up huge with aggressive defense at Force SGA to double pump the 17-footer into a Miss more problems with the OKC bench as they can't relay their instruction to follow the Rockets the Thunder foolishly wastes 21 seconds before Thunder coach Mark Daniel is forced to cross the midline and step on the court to signal for the foul technically this should have been a technical foul which would have really ended the
game early but either way the Rockets hit the two free throws and when the Thunder are able to keep it close to the last second instead of having another timeout left they're forced into an impossible shot and the rockets Come Away with a huge victory of course they turn around and lose to the struggling Kings on the road shooting slightly better than their average from three but shot what would have been last in the league in restricted area percentage and an even worse one for 12 on paint shots outside the restricted area to beat the
good teams without needing luck from bad decisions down the stretch from their opponents they need to be able to shoot a lot better than they're doing right now and it's unclear to me how they magically improve this after a quarter of The Season's worth of evidence but if they can continue to be among the league leaders in limiting three-point attempts with their good Closeouts and limit the ma shots their opponents do get from behind the line they'll be able to compete just don't expect a deep playoff run this season
