One quarter into Houston's first preseason game against Washington and it was pretty clear that the defense is going to be a work in progress all year. Obviously this Rockets team is pretty inexperienced with playing with each other, but it's also important to remember that poor defense isn't uncommon for young teams in the league. The only thing that can prepare you for the speed and physicality of the NBA is game reps.
“Yeah, it’s mostly defense today,” head coach Stephen Silas said of Wednesday's practice. “We went over pick-and-roll defense. Like our basic help and recover principles. Closeouts.”
If a lot of this stuff sounds basic, it's because it is. The Rockets spent the bulk of their training camp teaching their group common NBA terminology, running drills that veteran players may find tedious, and learning the fundamentals of pick-and-roll defense. Silas felt it was important to stick to the basics with their young group, so the coaching staff emphasized more of the same on Wednesday.
“It was short,” continued Silas. “I think the film session was probably the longest part. But we have to do a lot of technique stuff and we have to keep repeating how we’re going to play defense. A lot of it is effort and energy like we showed last night. Some of it is technique and being in the right spot.”
Houston has obviously worked on offense in these practices, but they've primarily focused on defense. Currently, the coaching staff is comfortable with where the group is offensively. Defensively, while veterans are having little issue grasping schemes and coverages, the younger players are naturally a step behind. A large part of it is due to communication.
“It’s all about communicating,” reiterated center Daniel Theis. “Mistakes happen, but we got to be there and cover for each other and then talk it out on the next dead ball or timeout or whatever it is.”
The Rockets allowed a lot of easy points near the basket and most of it was due to poor help defense. Bigs like Theis and Christian Wood were having to play high up on the ball in pick-and-rolls and guards weren't picking up the left behind big men. A lot of it is simply confusion as the guards try to apply the coverages they've learned in training camp while also adapting to the situation in real time.
“Mistakes are going to happen” said Theis. “Like we have to respect calls. If we do one coverage and the big calls a different one, we all got to be on the same page.”
The most impressive stretch of defense was probably when Josh Christopher, Usman Garuba, and Alperen Sengun shared the floor together in the fourth quarter. The group competed hard, were flexible in their coverages, and understood timing pretty well.
“We had some smaller groups that we switched and got into them,” said Silas. “[Alperen Sengun] was better defensively than I thought he would be. Garuba did a good job defensively. Theis is a very good pick-and-roll defender. So there’s the coverage that’s on the ball, but we have to make sure that our protection is solid and sound.”
Houston plays their next preseason game Thursday against the Miami Heat and it should be a good test to see how much they've cleaned up.
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