It’s no secret that things are not going very well for the Houston Rockets this season. The West’s No. 1 seed from a year ago is off to a 4-6 start 10 games into the year, and they’re being outscored by six points per game.
Houston’s offensive drop-off has been steep and is undoubtedly concerning. But it also seems eminently fixable, given the personnel and coaching staff on hand. The Rockets’ defense, currently ranked 20th in the NBA, is perhaps a greater concern. Houston last season perfected its switch-everything system, riding it all year to a top-10 defensive mark and even frustrating the Warriors for much of the conference finals series.
That system has largely failed them this year, and nowhere was that more apparent than on the first few possessions of their blowout loss to the Thunder on Thursday. Steven Adams post-ups killed them on each of the first three possessions, and that’s just something we never really said a year ago.
In this week’s edition of Last Night, In Basketball, we dig into exactly what happened.
Last Night, In Basketball is a video breakdown series from the basketball mind of Jared Dubin. You can see the videos for free on Twitter and YouTube, but if you enjoy the work and want to see more, you can pledge your support on Patreon.
