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How the Lakers Shut Down All Three Keys to the Rocket’s Analytics Offense!

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Everybody knows Daryl Morey, Mike D’Antoni, and the Houston Rockets went all-in on analytics-driven small ball with five players under 6′ 7″ with layups, free throws, and 3-point shots being their blueprint for scoring.

Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers took the Morey and D’Antoni Rockets to school and put on an elite clinic on how to shut down the three scoring keys Houston’s small ball offense relies upon to destroy opposing defenses. After a first half shootout, the Lakers doubled and forced Harden to give up the ball, hounded and chased Houston’s shooters off the 3-point line, and protected the rim without fouling with a swarm of mobile shot blockers.

The result was a second half where the Lakers’ defense shut down the small ball Rockets’ offense, holding them to just 38 points on 13 for 37 from the field (35.1%), 6 of 16 from deep (37.5%), and 6 of 6 from the line (100%). This was against a Houston team that boasted the third best second half offense in the NBA during the regular season, averaging 56.8 points while taking 44.5 shots from the field, 23.3 three-pointers, and 13.2 free throws.

The usual defensive strategy in the NBA is to take away what a team does best and force them to do what they don’t do best. In the second half, Frank Vogel’s strategy was to take away everything the Rockets are built to do. They limited Houston to just 16 3-point attempts versus their average of 23. They allowed them to make just 1 of 11 on layups and blocked 5 of them. And they defended without fouling allowing the Rockets only 6 free throws.

It will be fun to see what changes D’Antoni will make to counter the moves Frank Vogel’s made to shut down Houston’s offense in what is a must win game. These are the chess games where great coaching comes into play. So far Mike D’Antoni won the first game and Frank Vogel has come back to win the last two games. Morey’s and D’Antoni’s future with the Rockets may be on the line tonight so look for new winkles tonight against the Lakers.

If the Lakers win, this series is all but over. If the Rockets win, then all bets are off and we’re likely to see a Game 7. I still have the Lakers in 5 but we’re going to need big games from Playoff LeBron and Playoff Rondo to do it.

Frank Vogel’s defensive genius versus Houston

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1. Cut the head and the body will follow

We know very well that James Harden is the fulcrum of the Rockets’ offense. Without him this small lineup would not exist. The whole team would not exist

Harden had 21 points in the first half because Frank decided to not double team him until halftime, maybe to spare his players the huge expenditure of energy that doing it the whole game entails. The Beard scored just 12 points in the second half when LA began double-teaming him again. As for Westbrook, we will see later why its performance is not to be overrated.

2. Reacting to the double teaming

Playing without bigs gives the confidence to know that it will not probably be a player alone in the middle of the area. All the Rockets station around the arc, which means the risk of a lower percentage shot. You prefer leaving that alone. You can leave with it.

What has been most remarkable of Vogel’s plan, though, is that he remained cool. He did not panic rushing into changing approach. He stayed the course. Because such a drop was expected. It is part of the idea that at some point they are going to make those threes but it is not going to last forever, and they will not be enough to even the missed ones that allowed the opponent to build its lead.

3. Mixed defense

While after every basket the Los Angeles Lakers would play man-to-man (obviously, the rule is switching on every screen), after a missed shot or a turnover their defense would shift to a 1-2-2 zone.

Reminding of Game 2, Vogel also went on a hint of Box-and-One on Eric Gordon at the end of the first quarter, when Harden was on the bench, and also a 3-2 zone in the last seconds.

4. He was counting on Russell Westbrook

The idea was that by double-teaming Harden and consequentially rotating, the Los Angeles Lakers could afford to leave Westbrook alone on the arc. And in fact, he did not disappoint, going 1-for-7 from three in Game 2. He also turned the ball over seven times, finding the area filled when he

5. The final stroke

For the grand finale Vogel had one more ace up his sleeve. The unexpected move that took the Rockets by surprise throwing them off balance. Putting Rajon Rondo on a full-court pressure on Harden.

6. The unforeseen

Even Frank Vogel did not predict it. This was the unexpected component of the Los Angeles Lakers’ game. LeBron James’ defensive effort is out of the charts. For the series, he is averaging 2.7 blocks.

At 35 years old he is flying in the area like he was in his twenties, rejecting opponents shots with emphatic home-run blocks in key moments of the games. In Game 3, he had four huge blocks, going short of the fifth because his finger got entangled in the rim.

Run Houston’s shooters off 3pt line is good strategy for LA.

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Could that lead to Complacency? I wil be very worried if the team does not take every game seriously simply by thinking they could repeat. No team is going to hand them out anything for free and there is no such thing as cake walk. Every win must be earned. Infact, didn’t we remember teams use the Lakers as their measuring stick most of the time? When it comes to the Lakers every team give it their all. So the Lakers must always come out ready to play.

However, I completely agree with LeBron the team could repeat, if not three peat.

How Lakers are messing with NBA’s best one-on-one superstar

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On lots of possessions, the Rockets no longer had to run

plays for Harden — no longer had to engage in things we used to know as basketball. They began to view picks, one of the game’s fundamental building blocks, as a hindrance.

“We used to talk about the screen as an escort for a double-team,” Daryl Morey, Houston’s GM, told ESPN last season. “Why even give the defense the option?”

…

But as I wrote in reference to the battle between Donovan Mitchell and Jamal Murray, the correct leaning might be toward amped-up pressure in the back half of the shot clock — pressure that makes it so the superstar surrenders the ball without time to get it back. It is not manic pressure for the sake of it. It is aggression designed “to make everyone else beat you” under time pressure, with the shot clock acting as a sixth defender.

The Lakers’ timely traps have deterred James Harden from his usual basket attacks. Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports
And it is how the Lakers have contained Harden and the Rockets in wresting control of this series in Games 2 and 3. Houston has still scored 111.6 points per 100 possessions over those two losses. That’s good! It would have ranked ninth or 10th in the regular season. Harden had 60 points on 17-of-35 shooting combined in those games. But those numbers are manageable for the Lakers now that Frank Vogel has loosened the spacing for LeBron James and Anthony Davis on offense by mothballing his centers. (Playoff Rajon Rondo soaking up a lot of those center minutes has been huge.)

Much of the talk surrounding this series has been about how that lineup adjustment might provide oxygen for the Lakers’ half-court offense, but this team made defense its bedrock all season. The Lakers ranked third in points allowed per possession, and No. 1 in the Western Conference. LeBron bought in from day one, and the rest of the team followed suit. Credit Vogel for reinforcing this culture, and Vogel and his staff for crafting a killer game plan after Houston snatched the opener.

I can imagine the Lakers’ mantra for its trapping defense might be: Defend one pass. If you can snuff that first catch-and-shoot opportunity out of the trap, you have a chance to reset your defense and force Houston to manufacture a worse shot — often without further involvement from Harden.