Houston • The Houston Rockets have made one of the most unique bets in NBA history this season.
Rather than just going small-ball as much of the league has, with only one big man, they’re spending all 48 minutes of every game with no bigs whatsoever. At the deadline, they traded Clint Capela away in a four-team, 12-player deal, getting Minnesota wing Robert Covington in return. That means they’re completely out of centers. Call it micro-ball.
That’s by design, though. It turns out the Rockets score a ridiculous 118 points per 100 possessions without a big man out there, per CleaningTheGlass, which would be the highest offensive rating of all time if they were able to keep it up. Now, yeah, they get beaten on the glass when they play micro-ball, with the worst rebounding differential in the league. And nope, their defense hasn’t been all that stout, allowing a 114 defensive rating with those lineups.
“The whole thing comes down to trying to maximize really the talents we have and what they do well,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said.
But they’re better in those lineups than they have been with Capela on the floor, where they’ve only been a mediocre team this season. And with the addition of Covington — making his second start for the Rockets against the Jazz on Sunday — they think those micro-ball lineups have a chance to be elite. Given Covington’s ability to shoot the ball and all-around defensive effectiveness, it’s a reasonable bet.
It means some strange defensive matchups, though. For example, D’Antoni plans on having James Harden guarding most centers, at least to start half-court possessions. While that seems a little out there, Harden’s core strength has actually allowed him to be a tremendous post defender over the past couple of seasons. However, because they have such homogenous players, the Rockets switch every pick-and-roll action, so it really can be anyone down there guarding the league’s big men.
“That’s the whole thing," D’Antoni said. "Can we can be versatile enough to where you can guard your little guys, and a pick-and-roll comes in and we’re switching, and can you battle? Can you box out or you can rebound enough?”
For the Jazz, it’s one of the hardest defensive schemes to deal with. The Jazz are reliably one of the league’s biggest users of screens, but when the Rockets switch, it neutralizes the advantage their guards get off the dribble.
“It’s a different look from a defensive standpoint, they’re switching more and even more effectively,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said.
But because it’s so unique — before starting the 6-foot-8 Covington, the Rockets’ starting lineup that featured five players under 6-6 was the first time that had happened in the NBA since the 1960s — the Rockets’ wild experiment has the chance to change the league.
D’Antoni’s not doing it for the innovation points, though. He has a pretty simple explanation for his team’s moves.
“We’ve played better, this way we’re playing. It might not be good enough, but we do things better than what it was,” he said. “And if it is, we’ll have a chance to win it all.”
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