PrintComing Through In Crunch Time
Rockets' half-court execution a work in progress
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Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff Writer
HOUSTON - Good teams don’t win close games – they avoid them.
That was the message from Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey after watching his club fall short on the road against Sacramento on November 13th. His point: since tight ball games tend to be 50-50 affairs, the best teams avoid those situations as much as possible, blowing out their opposition instead and subsequently leaving precious little to the unpredictable whimsy of chance. That helps explain why point differential is such a powerful predictor of future success.
Of course, over the duration of an 82 game season, every team – be it elite, mediocre or cellar dweller - is bound to find itself in a certain amount of white knuckle, edge of your seat, down to the wire contests. The key to emerging victorious in such situations: get stops, hit free throws and execute in the half-court since the pace of those games tends to slow to a crawl – or at least a leisurely stroll - during the final few minutes.
When the Rockets measure themselves in those areas, they realize there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Free throw shooting has not been an issue, as Houston currently sits 6th in the league, knocking down 78.8% of its shots from the charity stripe. Defensively, however, the Rockets rank as a middle of the pack club from an efficiency standpoint through their first 14 games. And despite making a remarkable transformation into one of the NBA’s best teams in transition – a metamorphosis which has turned the Rockets into a top-10 club on the offensive end – Houston’s half-court offense remains a work in progress; a reality at least partly responsible for the Rockets’ 3-5 record this season in games which have seen one team owning a lead of 6 points or fewer in the final two minutes.
That last point should come as no surprise given the radical changes the Rockets have made - and been forced to make - in such a short amount of time. Houston has gone from a team which recently relied upon Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady running pick-and-rolls, to one requiring all five players on the floor to contribute. Youth and fresh faces are everywhere. That Houston has managed to undergo such a significant transformation while still remaining competitive is nothing short of astounding; a fact which speaks to the quality of its players, coaches and management. But the Rockets aren’t content with the status quo. They want more. They expect more. And they understand that part of the process of elevating their status begins with better execution late in close games.
“Offensively, we have to do a better job late in games with movement,” says Shane Battier. “Moving the defense around and then going into a pick-and-roll or a post-up. We have some pretty good post-up players in Luis Scola and Carl Landry – they’re two of the league’s best in my opinion – and Aaron’s one of the best pick-and-roll players in the league, but it’s so difficult against the really good teams to line those guys up and say, ‘OK, take on the defense and go score.’ We have to put those guys in situations after moving the defense around and making the defense react.
“You just keep harping on the same points: motion, motion, motion and patience. Hopefully one day it will click. Hopefully we can have a game where we really execute well and have great motion in the fourth quarter and we can say, ‘Guys, we have to do this every single night.’ We haven’t had that night yet but hopefully soon.”
Some of Houston’s late game execution issues simply come down to a lack of experience. With so many new faces, the Rockets are still in the process of figuring out what they want to do and what works best in certain situations. Veteran teams like Dallas and San Antonio – Houston’s next two opponents – know exactly where their bread is buttered come crunch time. The Mavericks are going to run their offense through Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, while the Spurs, when healthy, want the ball in the hands of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili as much as possible.
Bear in mind, however, that this is not a discussion centered on the Rockets' lack of a traditional "closer." If you can pardon the switching of sports midstream, picture it like this: while it's valuable to bring Mariano Rivera out of the bullpen for the 9th inning of a 4-3 game, it's even more valuable to have C.C. Sabathia go the first 8 innings while only giving up those three runs. The point being that the inherent drama of the final inning often causes media and fans to overvalue the guy at the end of a close game versus the player(s) who put the team into position to win in the first place.
So while the Rockets are still figuring out their crunch time strategy - Houston might lean on Aaron Brooks one night, Carl Landry the next, while mixing in healthy doses of Luis Scola and Kyle Lowry as well - their recipe for success or failure late in games is really no different than it is at any other time: whether they win or whether they lose, their fate will be determined by no one individual – it will be determined by the team.
“We don’t have the guy who’s going to stop that momentum, where we can go and put them back on their heels a little bit,” says Rockets Head Coach Rick Adelman. “We’re trying to do it as a group and if we stop doing it as a group, we’re going to be hurting.
“If you only have a couple of guys who have got anything going, then the other team is just going to jump all over you. Like if Aaron’s really got it going and we don’t have anybody else, then they’re going to put a wall up and just attack him and double him. So it’s really important that we have a number of people having quality games. If we can stay consistent with a number of people then we have a chance to be a lot better at the end.”
The good news: the Rockets have proven themselves to be quick learners this season and there’s no reason to think they won’t show similarly rapid improvement in crunch time possessions as well. Just look at last Saturday’s rematch versus Sacramento for evidence of their growth. Little more than one week after that discouraging road loss to the Kings, the Rockets responded by dominating the final four minutes at Toyota Center, allowing Houston to turn a tight game into a 113-106 victory.
“The good thing about our team is we have unselfish guys,” says Battier. “We have guys who can really help the team and have a lot of confidence in their abilities, which is great – you’ve got to have those guys – but we also have to be smart about the confidence that we have and understand what works and why things work, especially for the younger players.
“When I was Carl’s age and Aaron’s age, I didn’t understand why things worked; why the Spurs always score in the fourth quarter, why the Mavericks are great, why Dirk is always in position to score. Now, nine years into it, you sort of understand how you get to those spots. Those are things I had to learn and those are things our young team has to learn.”
Make no mistake: the Rockets understand that being a good team entails avoiding close games whenever possible. But if you're going to find yourself in a nail-biter, you might as well win it while you're there. And right now these young Rockets are learning how to do just that.
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