Houston Rockets Preview

 Three weeks ago I wouldn’t have bothered with a Rockets preview, it would have been too short ‘Rockets stink, if the Cavs show up they win’.  Winners of 8 out of 10 since then, including against Brooklyn, Chicago and Charlotte they deserve more attention than that.  The big shift that everyone and their mother has noted is that the wins started on day one without Jalen Green and have continued to an extent (3-2) without KPJ.  So is Jalen Green that bad?  Has he been holding back an otherwise talented squad?  


Sort off.  The Rocket’s +/- skyrockets to +7.8 in 1400 possessions without Jalen Green on the court and is still a solid +3.9 per 100 over almost 1000 possessions without either Green or Porter, but there is a ton of unsustain in this group.  First the games which Green has missed dominate these mins and those games include matchups against OKC (2x), Orlando and NOP, and 7 of the 10 have been at home, and they traveled twice (to OKC and back) during that 7 game winning streak.  Even their win against Brooklyn came without Durant seeing the floor, leaving only their win vs Chicago as notable.  Three point shooting has been favoring them as well, they are taking 43.5% of their shots from 3 and running at 39.3%, and really pulling from above the break.  They are doing some other good things, a really good FTr and a decent oreb rate and their shot profile makes you think James Harden is still running things (16% of all shots from mid-range).


Defensively they are getting better than expected results from opposing threes as well.  


Monday’s win in Atlanta highlights this discrepancy, with Houston getting 54 points between Gordon and Augustin on 11/15 from 3 with the teams 19 made threes on 41% shooting against Atlanta’s 15 makes on 38% being the 6 point difference in the game.  They played at pace and took a lot of threes against a bottom 6 defense to win the game.


This is not the sort of team the Cavs should lose to, especially not with Gordon out tonight. So I guess that is the preview after all, the Rockets aren’t very good and the Cavs are at home, without travel with a practice day.  Even without Mobley they have a size advantage, a depth advantage, defensive advantage and should take care of business.  

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