The NBA’s (totally awesome) second season is finally upon us. Now that the 16 postseason teams are officially set, we have a chance to further examine the craziness that sure to lie ahead. In our playoff preview series, we will take a look at some of the more intriguing questions surrounding these first round matchups.
Golden State Warriors (1) vs Houston Rockets (8)
1. With such longshot odds to win, should the Rockets commit to extreme lineups in an attempt to find an edge?
The most used Houston lineup against Golden State in the three games between the two teams was -30.0 per 48 in 21 minutes, according to NBA.com data. Granted it’s just 21 minutes, but that about sums up what Houston is up against this series. Facing such long odds, the Rockets have nothing to lose if they go way outside the box in their approach to this series.
And interestingly enough for Houston, they have the personnel to take it to the both ends of the extreme -- going either super small or using an oversized frontcourt. If they choose the former, they could roll out a lineup featuring Trevor Ariza...as a center. Then flank him with the quartet of James Harden, Corey Brewer, KJ McDaniels and Patrick Beverley. The idea behind such a lineup is simple -- switch everything on and off the ball, front the post, trap aggressively and play a high variance style of turnovers and transition offense. It could lead to a massive blowout, but it also could lead to a couple chaotic affairs that the Rockets sneak out wins.
And with such an interesting combination of personnel, Houston could basically use Harden however they wanted and probably engineer whatever matchup they wanted by baiting Golden State into switches of their own. Want Steph Curry on Harden even though he’s guarding Beverley? Have Beverley screen on the ball and force the Warriors to navigate a tricky coverage or ease into a switch. There also wouldn’t be a great spot to hide Andrew Bogut as even the non-shooting threats -- Brewer and McDaniels -- can outrace him in transition or use some off-the-dribble punch to beat him in the halfcourt.
Now there are obvious flaws to this plan. Helter-skelter styles versus teams that move the ball and have shooters can get absolutely decimated. And obviously, such a small lineup could get destroyed on the glass -- something a team already ranked 27th in the league in defensive rebounding (and even worse than that with Dwight Howard off the floor, per NBA.com) has issues with already.
Speaking of Howard, the other route is to go big and ride a three-headed monster of Howard, Clint Capela and Donatas Motiejunas in the frontcourt. Howard and Capela are actually the Rockets best two-man combination at +8.3 per 48 (min. 300 minutes), per NBA.com. The Howard-Motiejunas combo isn’t a little further behind, but still solid, at +4.8 per 48 in 380 minutes. Given the Rockets are a .500 team, such per 48 numbers are obviously a huge improvement.
Obviously those numbers work in context and aren’t taking into the account the matchup problems Houston would have against Golden State, especially when the Warriors shift Draymond Green to the 5. Yet the whole idea of entertaining such a lineup commitment is because the Rockets know they would live and die with crushing the offensive glass -- something the Howard-Capela combo is outstanding at. Defensively, Houston would do whatever they needed to do not to get totally slaughtered, then have an offensive focus centered around driving the ball into the paint, getting off shots close to the rim and letting their bigs clean up for easy putbacks, fouls and “and-1’s” -- similar to how Kosta Koufos and Kenneth Faried operated when George Karl was using the dribble-drive to raise a star-less Nuggets to new heights.
There are obviously huge drawbacks to fully committing to either of these routes, but when you’re a .500 team facing a historically great juggernaut, playing it safe will guarantee an early exit.
2. Will the Warriors chase for 73 wins extend the series longer than expected?
You can certainly file this under “reaching” when looking for ways for the Rockets to have a chance in this series. That doesn’t mean, however, there isn’t any merit to it.
The chase for 73 was a stressful and taxing route mentally and physically, something Steve Kerr publicly stated. It’s only natural for Golden State to perhaps suffer a little bit of a let down after achieving such an improbably great feat. It’s certainly not something to cost them the series, but if it causes them to come out flat in Game 1, maybe the Rockets can steal a game early and….well probably just avoid a sweep.
3. How many wins can James Harden will the Rockets to in this series?
While his field goal percentage wasn’t great -- 37.9 percent on 58 shots -- Harden was surprisingly productive during the regular season against a Warriors team seemingly designed to make his life miserable. Harden shot the ball well from beyond the arc (12-of-30) and averaged 10 trips to the free throw a game, something that’s probably not too surprising given Golden State commits the 8th most shooting fouls per game, according to NBAMiner.com.
Harden was also a monster down the stretch, shooting 49.3 percent from the field on 23.3 attempts, an absurd 51.7 percent from 3 on 9.7(!) attempts while averaging 34.8 points per game. Those are the type of numbers he’ll have to keep piling up if the Rockets are going to have any chance to competing with the league’s best team.