The Houston Rockets Are a Real Threat

It's easy to call the 2016-17 NBA season a two-team affair. With the addition of Kyle Korver and the up-and-down play of the Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics, the Cleveland Cavaliers don't appear to have a serious challenger in the East. The Warriors—in a perfect storm of free agency and a skyrocketing salary cap—added Kevin Durant to a 73-win team while also keeping their three all-stars. But despite this, dangerous teams are lurking, most notably a refurbished Rockets squad that's coming closer and closer to resembling first year coach Mike D'Antoni's seven seconds or less Suns teams of the mid and late aughts. With their record over the past 21 games a scintillating 19-2 (including wins over the Warriors and Clippers), it's time to stop relegating them to second-tier status among the league's elite.

First off, they have the frontrunner—with latter day Oscar Robertson, Russell Westbrook, as the other—for league MVP in James Harden. The Beard is averaging 28.2 points (No. 3 in the NBA), 11.8 assists (No. 1) and 8.2 rebounds per game. That's just a couple boards every game from matching Westbrook's Herculean feats through most of the season's first half. And he's doing it with a lower usage than Westbrook, too. Harden's 40, 11 and 10 against Toronto—the second-best team in the East—on Sunday night wasn't the first time he's exploded for a triple-double double this season (it was his tenth of the year), but his performance put Harden alongside LeBron James and Michael Jordan as the only players since the 1983-84 season to record a triple-double with 40 points while also recording a pair of steals and blocks. And let's not forget that earlier this season Harden recorded the only 50-point, 15-assist, 15-rebound triple-double of the modern era. (Yeah, Wilt Chamberlain's the only one besides Harden to do that.)

Harden on his 40,10,10,2,2 moving him with LeBron, MJ: "Those 2 right there are just legends.I just try to go out and do whatever it takes."
— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) January 9, 2017

But Harden's offense isn't the only reason the Rockets have surged to the upper echelon of the league this season. Houston's proud rocker of the pocket protector, general manager Daryl Morey, has finally surrounded Harden with the shooters he needs to run the pick-and-roll game he thrives in. Even scarier? Now that Patrick Beverley is back from injury to act as the playmaker for the second team, Harden—who leads the league in minutes played—doesn't need to kill himself to keep them in games.

The Rockets started the season 6-5 when Beverley was out, but the team totally fell apart every time Harden took a breather. Through those first 11 games, their net rating was -22.4 when Harden was on the bench compared with a +8.3 rating when he was in. But in the 24 games Beverley's played in since his return, they've gone 20-4 and actually have a better net rating— +12.3 vs. +7.3—when Harden sits.

Sunday showed us how. With Harden on the bench, the Rockets overcame a four-point Raptors advantage with a 9-0 start to the fourth quarter to take the lead. The run was spearheaded by Beverley and super-stud sixth man, Eric Gordon. After being drafted by Donald Sterling's Clippers and later traded to the woeful Pelicans as part of the Chris Paul deal, Gordon is finally playing for a team he wants to be on. He signed with the Rockets during his first ever unrestricted free agency last July, and became the perfect compliment to Harden on this Rockets team. Like Beverley, he can run a pick-and-roll when Harden is on the bench, and can also act as a floor spreading catch-and-shoot threat alongside Harden when they're both on the court.

But Beverley is the perimeter pest every team in the NBA would be lucky to have. While he's made strides on the offensive end, developing into an elite three-point shooter (41.6 percent on four 3-point attempts per game) and a decent pick-and-roll playmaker who protects the ball, it's Beverley's irritating effort on the defensive end that waylays many driving guards. The modern NBA is about getting into the teeth of a defense so it's forced to collapse, then finding open shooters along the arc. But Beverley doesn't concede ground like the usual matador defense we've come to see in today's no-hand-checking NBA. Digging down and playing solid on-ball defense is an underrated skill, and Beverley excels at it.

In a lot of ways Beverley balances out Harden's sublime offense and middling defense, but Harden's defensive warts have again reached the point where they've become overblown (he played some solid defense in the 2014-15 season after hearing the catcalls the season before). And it's obvious from how he acted on Sunday night that he's annoyed by the internet's continued contempt for his play on that end.

After Harden hit a three-pointer to cut Toronto's lead to four at the end of the third quarter, he reacted as nonchalantly as most of us would after pouring milk into our cereal without spilling.

Contrast that with his reaction on the other end. When Harden rotated and planted himself outside the restricted area to draw a charge on a rolling Patrick Patterson with the Raptors seeking to reclaim the lead late in the fourth, he pumped both fists while supine on the court and even did a little shimmy as he celebrated with teammates.

DeMar DeRozan was torching Houston in stretches, but Harden got two blocks on him in the second half, including holding his ground and going up to block DeRozan's patented pull-up when he got switched onto him late in the fourth:

This might be empty rhetoric on his part, but Harden seemed more exuberant about the blocks than the 40-point triple-double, too.

I asked Harden if he preferred the 40-10-10 or the two blocks on his buddy, DeRozan. Huge smile ensured. "Two blocks, for sure. Key plays."
— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) January 9, 2017

The Rockets are right in the middle of the league in defensive efficiency, ranking 16th in points allowed per possession after Sunday's win. That's more surprising than their scoring prowess, bested only by the historic Warriors and Raptors. They know how to gets stops in a pinch—just look at the run to close out the third and start the fourth in Toronto—even with 6-foot-8 Montrezl Harrell (who shot an incredible 12-of-13 from the field on Sunday) or Nene acting as their big following Clint Capella's broken fibula.

The Rockets are going to have issues getting stops even with Beverley's defense—Harrell has a 7-5 wingspan, but it hasn't translated into rim protection just yet—at least until Cappela comes back some time in early February. A lot can change between now and the real season in April, but Harden's seeming commitment to defense and overall offensive genius with all these shooters, Beverley's onerous presence for opposing guards, and Eric Gordon's role off the bench has Mike D'Antoni's squad looking like one of the biggest obstacles in the way of a third straight Cavs-Warriors Finals matchup.