Since Ime Udoka\u2019s arrival on the Houston Rockets, we’ve seen an emphasis on the defensive end of the floor. Unsurprisingly, as Udoka leans heavily towards applying maximum effort on that side and getting stops.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s how he led the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals as a rookie head coach in 2021-22. The Celtics ranked second in defensive efficiency and had the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year in Marcus Smart.<\/p>\n
It was also Udoka\u2019s calling as a player.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year’s Rockets rank eighth in defensive efficiency, which has been a slight regression from last season’s fourth-best defensive finish. Unsurprisingly, when considering Houston’s roster construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rockets have long, defensive-minded wings up and down the roster. Think Amen Thompson and Tari Eason. Not to mention Josh Okogie, who has been a valuable role player for this ball club.<\/p>\n
Dorian Finney-Smith has that same player profile and player archetype, although he’s largely been a shell of himself this season. Kevin Durant has been a very good defender for Houston this season, and has been an underrated defender for the bulk of his career.<\/p>\n
Just last season he ranked as the league’s best isolation defender. And he’s proven capable of being a formidable help-side rim protector during his days with the Golden State Warriors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Durant explained the key to his stellar defensive season to Vanessa Richardson, the Rockets’ sideline reporter from Space City Home Network.<\/p>\n
“Just being a versatile group. Being able to switch, protect the rim, we’ve got multiple guys that can do that, so it makes my life easy.”<\/p>\n
Durant also explained the key to the Rockets’ chances of contending for a title and\/or making a deep postseason run, noting the scoring prowess of Houston\u2019s best players.<\/p>\n
“I mean, we can go to the moon. When we’ve got 3 guys scoring over 20 points and guarding up that way, it’s tough to stop us. We need that consistent effort like that every night.”<\/p>\n
Durant is right here. The data backs it up.<\/p>\n
The Rockets have gone 7-2 when Amen Thompson, Alperen Sengun and Durant himself have all scored at least 20 points this season.<\/p>\n
Jabari Smith Jr. is also a major part of the equation, as he’s easily capable of scoring 20 points on any night, as evidenced by his 11 games of scoring at least 20 points this season.<\/p>\n
Houston’s depth could be key during the playoffs, especially depending on the matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since Ime Udoka\u2019s arrival on the Houston Rockets, we’ve seen an emphasis on the defensive end of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11],"class_list":["post-660997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116238295025777336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}