The Houston Rockets have started operating under a new philosophy on offense. How far could this new look take them? Apparently not to a win over the Milwaukee Bucks on the second night of a back-to-back. Nonetheless, the team has been playing terrific basketball and its trajectory looks terrifying for the league.<\/p>\n
The Rockets under head coach Ime Udoka<\/a> have had a distinctly defense-first<\/a> identity. His arrival coincided with those of defensively-minded veterans such as Fred VanVleet<\/a> and Dillon Brooks<\/a>. The team’s only major trade acquisition<\/a> was the universally inoffensive Steven Adams<\/a>.\u00a0The overhaul from the Stephen Silas<\/a> coaching era brought a 19-win improvement. They narrowly missed out<\/a> on the play-ins in 2023-24. Unfortunately, the team’s allergy to letting the ball through the hoop affected them on both ends of the court.<\/p>\n The 2023-24 Houston Rockets offense was something to sneeze at. They had an offensive rating ranking 20th<\/a> out of 30 teams. They were 18th in made threes<\/a> and 23rd in their percentage at 35.2%<\/a>. Their overreliance on VanVleet’s stewardship<\/a> of a pick-and-roll offense assured them the fourth-lowest turnover<\/a> rate in the association but also contributed to having the fifth-lowest<\/a>\u00a0effective field goal percentage.<\/p>\n A major accelerant for this allergy was the questionable utilization of the teams’ most talented offensive creators<\/a>, Alperen Sengun<\/a> and Jalen Green<\/a>. Both players were frequently overloaded by opposing defenses. Udoka’s typical adjustment to resultantly poor performances was consigning either or both players to the bench.<\/p>\n The Rockets started out this season exhibiting much the same symptoms. When teams doubled Sengun<\/a> in the low-post or the pick-and-roll, the offense floundered. So, what was the remedy? They stopped putting Sengun in the low-post or the pick-and-roll… or at least stopped doing it so much.\u00a0The Rockets have finally started running hand-offs. They act the same as a pick-and-roll but give the guard the advantage of not having to maintain a live dribble during navigation and allow the big to act as a driving threat if the defenders overplay the action.<\/p>\n As a result, Sengun recorded successive triple-doubles, including in the Rockets’ NBA Cup victory<\/a> over the Clippers. To do it, he and the Rockets took a page from the Sacramento Kings’ playbook. Since his arrival in Sacramento, Lithuanian big man Domantas Sabonis<\/a> has been the offensive hub for the Kings’ offense while his teammates buzz around him as shooting threats.<\/p>\n The Rockets can replicate that even lacking the Kings’ level of marksmanship across the roster. The Rockets scored 143 points against the Chicago Bulls<\/a> despite making only 10 three-pointers. Besides relying on the athleticism of the Rockets’ wings, Sengun has a trick of his own.<\/p>\nSeason 2 of “The Offense” (Houston Edition)<\/h3>\n