The Celtics are fresh off their latest “best win of the season,” in which they pulled away from the “yes they’re shorthanded but still pretty damn good” OKC Thunder. But that was last night, and tonight they have to figure out a way to beat a Houston Rockets team off to a weirdly sub-par start. If the Celtics want to make a big statement and win this back-to-back, they’ve got to follow this plan:
1: Let ’em shoot
What? The let it fly Rockets?
Yes.
Of course I don’t mean be lazy and let them shoot. What I mean is this Rockets team loves to take jumpers, and right now they’re so cold, they’re collectively reversing the global warming trend. Here, see for yourself:
The only spot where their percentage isn’t down is at the rim, so let’s not let them get there. Here’s a more stark version of this via the heat map.
James Harden is the main culprit. He’s taken 96 3’s, 33 more than the next guy on the team, Trevor Ariza. He’s only made 4 more.
So here’s the deal. You give Harden the Westbrook treatment as best you can. The team as whole is cold but its Harden who’s the coldest. That heat map shows he still loves getting to the rim, though, and he leads the NBA with 11.9 free throw attempts, and 10.3 free throws made per game. It’s a tall task, but if there’s a way to keep Harden out of the paint and off the line (keep his free throw attempts to about 6, let’s say) and that alone might be enough to win the game…. provided these guys don’t suddenly remember how to shoot the 3. The Celtics are defending the 3 very well this year, though… so that should inspire some confidence.
2: Keep Dwight Howard in the game
Not as crazy as it sounds, especially if you want to slow the Rockets offense down. Houston’s offensive rating is 99.2, which is in the bottom half of the league right now. Their rating with Howard on the court is 98.9. And with Howard off the floor?
104.3.
104.3 would be good for 5th in the NBA right now. He drags their offense down so much with his attempts to be a post player that I encourage him to try to back down players he supposedly has a mismatch against.
The more Howard tries to take over the game offensively, the less the real meat of the Rockets offense, their shooting, can get into any kind of rhythm. If the Celtics want to throw some double teams at Howard, consider sending a guard down off Ty Lawson, who is really struggling hard offensively, to try to strip the ball away from Dwight as he dribbles.
Meanwhile, opponents boast an offensive rating of 107 with Howard on the court and 110.9 with him off the court… which really bodes well for the team right now because Howard is not really playing the “stopper” role, so the starters will have better opportunities than you’d expect. And then when the teams go bench vs. bench… the Celtics might have a pretty good chance to do put up some points.
3: Exploit Harden’s disinterest on D and rebounding
James Harden isn’t going to defend anyone. Beyond that, he’s not going to box anyone out. You can go here for plenty of video evidence that Harden isn’t doing a damn thing on the floor unless it involves him scoring… so whichever Celtics sees the beard in front of him should just crash the boards and try to steal a few points. Like I said yesterday, the offensive rebound isn’t as high a priority in today’s NBA as it might have been, but this is a unique situation for the Celtics. If they can send a free man to the rim for some putbacks, let’s go for it.
Defensively, run Harden off pick and rolls all night long. The Rockets are a bad defensive team right now, and Harden is their worst wing defender. Attack that early and often. Even if Dwight Howard comes out to challenge, the Rockets will be slow to rotate. The Celtics shouldn’t panic when they see Howard helping… in fact they should welcome it and try to draw him out a bit to give a cutter some space behind him for layups. Houston is 25th in the league giving up field goal attempts in the restricted area…. those layups will be there.
4: Use the depth
There are always weary legs coming off back-to-backs, but the Celtics can try to lean on their vaunted depth tonight to try to combat some of that. Jonas Jerebko played 6 minutes last night, but should see plenty of court time tonight against that bad Rocket’s D. Kelly Olynyk should get a bunch of time after playing just 17 minutes. Get Tyler Zeller in there for a while too… even if he’s just going to use up his 6 fouls on Dwight Howard…. but I think he can do more than that. And I’d even throw RJ Hunter out there for a go at this defense and see if he can get a few clean looks.
Throw it all out there tonight and take advantage of Houston while you still can. The Rockets are in disarray right now, and if the Celtics can do these four things, they could do something no one would have guessed coming into the season and looking at this schedule… beat OKC and Houston on back to back nights.
Graphics via NBASavant.com. Stats via NBA.com & Basketball-Reference
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
