At our last Rockets’ Round-Up, the Houston Rockets were just hours off of a narrow loss to the top-four seeded Utah Jazz. Christian Wood hit a pair of threes, including a buzzer-beater to force overtime, in one of his best performances to that point. Key phrase: to that point.
In the week since the Houston Rockets have played great basketball. Sure, they’re not piling up wins like the 65-win 2018 team, but this team is outperforming the level they played at the previous five months of the year.
Before diving into what’s gone well, a note: growth this season was expected. Houston has five guys under contract born after Y2K. That doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to see or exciting, but it does mean that some of this was “expected.” Further, watching a teenager become a pro is different from watching a mature player settle into a system. Both are good, but criticisms of both will probably be different.
Green Light
A Tale of Progression: Jalen Green before ASB v. after ASB.
— Zeke | in houston ima GUY (@itzjustzeke) March 10, 2022
Can you say the vibes is immaculate!#Rockets #LightTheFuse ???????????????? pic.twitter.com/CujnNBwccw
This entire Houston Rockets season has and will be judged (fairly or unfairly) on the growth of Jalen Green. That is the pressure of being a number two pick for a franchise that has hit the reset button. Other guys Houston drafted in the top 5? Elvin Hayes (1st, 1968), Rudy Tomjanovich (2nd, 1970), Bobby Jones (5th, 1974), John Lucas (1st, 1976), Rodney McCray (3rd, 1983), Ralph Sampson (1st, 1983), Hakeem Olajuwon (1st, 1984), and Yao Ming (1st, 2002). That list accounts for half of all retired numbers in H-Town and all of the retired jerseys that were drafted by the club.
For better or worse, that’s the pressure that’s been thrown onto the 20-year-old Californian. But since the All-Star Weekend? Green has surpassed every measurable expectation. He’s scored in double figures in each game since mid-February and scored over 20 in all but two. He’s finding spots to attack the basket and thus able to use his speed to get to the rim and he’s getting loose in transition. Those are things all Houston Rockets fans assumed would happen. But what’s been accelerated? Green has become an efficient shooter above the break from beyond the arc. Further, from the right-wing? He’s shooting 39% from three. That’s incredible growth from his pre-All Star numbers when he shot 31% from the same area.
Expected?
Some of his expedited growth has to come from being professional a year ago. While the G League bubble isn’t quite the same as a year of NBA basketball, it clearly is different than playing against college kids after Econ 101. Playing a year for the G League Ignite prepared Green for this moment. We saw the same growth from Kevin Porter Jr. a year ago, in his second season and after a stint in the same bubble. That it’s happening this early for Green? Scary.
Green’s mode of attack isn’t even necessarily different from the previous five months. He still makes a double move to get his defender guessing, chooses a 45-degree angle off the hip, and attacks. But everything, from his body lean at the start to the finish at the other end, is clearly more aggressive.
In a previous iteration of Rockets’ Round-Up, we discussed how Dennis Schrӧder was having a positive impact on Green. But even in games without Schrӧder, never mind just lineups without him, Green’s playing visibly different.
Rooks Round-Up
History made.
— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) March 10, 2022
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, last night’s game was the second time in NBA history that a team had three players 20 or younger score 20+ PTS in the same game.
⭐️ Josh Christopher (21 PTS)
⭐️ Jalen Green (32 PTS)
⭐️ Alperen Sengun (21 PTS) pic.twitter.com/rbdw0SNZNt
It’s a shame so much of #NBATwitter hands out things like Rookie of the Year in December, because Houston’s three healthy rookies have become must-watch television. Fans have clamored for lineups featuring the “all-21-and-under” club: Alperen Şengün, Kenyon Martin Jr., Josh Christopher, Porter Jr., and Green. With key guys like Christian Wood, Jae’Sean Tate, and Schrӧder out, (and Eric Gordon not playing in back-to-backs) Houston’s done just that.
The all-youth lineup has plenty of flaws. They frequently miss rotations defensively and give up dunks and lay-ups. When they don’t? They over-rotate, don’t “help-the-helper,” and give up second, third, and fourth opportunities on rebounding. While that may be relatively oversimplified (the orchestration of a defensive coverage is hyper-specific in each situation), Houston is undeniably worse in situations where they play the young guys.
But offensively? The youth lineup has energy. All five guys move the ball well, four can score in isolation. The one that isn’t an iso guy, KJ Martin, is a Tasmanian devil in the dunker spot. He hits t-ups and back cuts, emphatic putbacks, and pokes the ball from bigger defenders. And, in a recent revelation, Martin has shot over 50% from three in six games since the All-Star break. While Usman Garuba hasn’t been healthy enough to show out, the Rockets’ rookies are clearly each an impactful part of a phenomenal draft class.
Josh Christopher is a long, stout guard that creates offense selflessly. Porter Jr. has successfully transitioned into a “combo-guard,” and the Green-Şengün pairing looks like some version of teenage Kobe-Pau: an explosive scoring guard paired with a strong big man who thoroughly enjoys throwing a pretty assist.
(Brief) X’s and O’s
It appears that Houston has figured out an effective way to spring both Green and Şengün (and sometimes Porter Jr. and Wood) free simultaneously. Head Coach Stephen Silas is known for all of his actions he runs off of the double-drag. It’s what Dallas did with Luka Dončić, it’s what Houston did last season with Kelly Olynyk and Wood, and it’s what made Houston look to get Daniel Thies as a second big. But it isn’t what worked best for Jalen Green. So things have shifted, somewhat dramatically.
Houston has run empty-side pick and rolls with off-side action more and more. What this has allowed is Green to get the entire right side of the floor, with the ball in his right hand, moving right. On the opposite side, you’ll have some sort of action freeing up a shooter like Gordon in the corner with Porter Jr. or Schrӧder on the left wing to create in secondary action. So if Green attacks and there’s nothing, he can flip the ball to the big. Wood has operated in isolation from deep, Şengün forces his way deep.
Point Porter Jr.?
When Porter Jr. is initiating the offense, Houston’s sets have also shifted. Instead of running him off of the double drag, they’re moving it over similar to a pistol set. Then they can run Green, Gordon, or whomever off of it. They’ve even run it with Porter Jr. as a scorer while Schrӧder runs the point guard.
Off of that action, you see the screeners involved in the types of actions that Silas ran so effectively in Dallas. Alternating pops and rolls, flairs (in this set, to the corner). Isolation at the top for Porter Jr. or Green.
Much like the growth of the young players, growth in Silas is worth commending. His hesitancy to be over reactionary aside, that Houston is running different sets than earlier this calendar year is important. Silas is less than two full seasons into being a head coach, and his first month at the helm was as chaotic as it could possibly be.
It’s also important in showing what could come. Houston will, eventually, move on from Eric Gordon, and reportedly could move on from Chrisitan Wood. These newer sets favor the next generation of Rockets. Testing things out down the stretch could have major implications on the Rockets’ summer moves.
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