Sometimes It’s Best To Be Lucky
Sometimes it’s just better to be lucky.
The Rockets played the Eastern Conference leading Cleveland Cavaliers tonight, the first of a home and home series that will conclude Saturday with a game starting at 6:30pm CST. (Cleveland will play a game in the interim (in Philadelphia on Friday), while the Rockets will not.)
This game looked to be a test for both teams, but the Rockets started the exam poorly. They spent the opening minutes of the game missing close in shots, turning the ball over, and generally looking out of sorts. Cleveland started off shooting very well, and did most of what they wanted for half the quarter. At roughly the halfway mark in the first the Cavaliers lead 23-12. The Rockets would go on a run from that point, spurred in part by a “Wall of Athletes” lineup, where the Rockets at one point had Jalen Green, Amen Thompson, Tari Eason and Cam Whitmore all in the game. Cleveland, which is many things, but not overall especially athletic, was forced to pick their poison. They picked Cam Whitmore, and by the time the quarter ended, the Rockets lead 39-32.
The second quarter might be described as a defensive struggle, with neither team breaking the 25pt barrier, after a brisk first quarter of scoring for both. The Rockets managed 22 points to Cleveland’s 21. The Rockets lead by 8 points at halftime 61-53, and it seemed like they could hang with the beasts of the East.
The Rockets kept the pressure on the Cavs in the third, with Jalen Green recovering a bit from a poor shooting first half, Fred VanVleet continuing to make shots, and Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson and Tari Eason joining the party. The Cavaliers found their offensive footing in this quarter behind a surge from their 1-2 scoring combination of Donovan “Utah” Mitchell and Darius Garland.
Around this time Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson switched the Cavs into a 2-1-2 zone defense. Now, if you’ve played or coached any level of organized basketball you’ve probably seen at 2-1-2 zone. It requires you have a good defender in the middle of the zone, which is basically set in the paint in front of the basket. Cleveland, as it happens, does have a great defender in Jarrett Allen, to handle this role.
There are ways to break the zone, the main one of which is attack or pass into the paint, draw defenders, then pass off, usually on back cuts or baseline runs into the space vacated by the collapsing back defenders. Or you can screen for shooters at the perimeter. Or you can overload a side of the zone for more shooting screens. Or you can attack the zone very quickly on offense, before it can get set, get the defenders moving to cover holes in the zone, at either shoot against defenders who aren’t set or pass to attackers in the space vacated by scrambling defenders. There are a lot of things you can do, having likely seen this defense since middle grades at least.
The Rockets did basically none of those things (except for Fred VanVleet’s efforts late in the game) with any consistency. They mostly stared dumbfounded at the zone, and either threw the ball away, or took terrible shots. The Rockets gave up 19 straight points to the Cavs, who weren’t scoring a crazy number of points, but were in fact scoring while the Rockets continued to be astonished and dismayed by the 2-1-2 zone defense.
The Rockets lead the game 98-85 at the 11 minute mark of the fourth quarter. The Cavs lead 101-98 at the 4:40 mark. The Rockets managed to tie the game at 104-104 on two made threes from Fred VanVleet at 2:51 remaining. From there, Darius Garland would make a three pointer, giving the Cavs a 107-104. An Amen Thompson steal, but Cleveland foul, lead to him making one free throw 107-105.
The Rockets managed to get stops, and steals, and Alperen Sengun made a basket to tie the game at 107 all, but the play was reviewed by the refs because Sengun shoved Allen (hanging all over him on the play) and Allen, like all the Cavs tonight, flung himself at the hardwood with alacrity. (Cleveland may say it’s an “ethical” team, but these so called members of the nobility should face close philosophical inquiry into how a team that head-whips and throws themselves at the floor with such regularity can be entirely ethical.)
Alperen Sengun was fouled on a rebound by Jarrett Allen and managed to hit both clutch free throws. 109-107 Rockets, with 4.1 seconds remaining.
Cleveland had the ball, after a timeout, at mid court, and inbounded the ball to Darius Garland for what appeared to be an open look. Tari Eason jumped into him on the shot. It was clearly a foul, on a three point shot, with Garland a 90% free throw shooter coming to the line. Even worse, the call was ruled a flagrant one, with Eason jumping into Garland’s landing space.
These calls were both, in my opinion, correct.
It seemed all was lost. But Garland, who’d shockingly missed free throws earlier in the game, missed the first two. 109-108 Rockets leading, but Cleveland had a timeout, and of course, possession of the ball due to the flagrant foul. Somehow the Rockets had survived the free throws, but would they survive one more look at the basket?
They would. Donovan Mitchell missed a decent look, and the game ended, somehow, favoring the Rockets.
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky.
It would be better still to not be bumfuzzled by a zone defense, and score more thant 15(!) points in a quarter.
In the end, the Rockets survived, and escaped with a win. Hopefully some time in the next two days before the next matchup with the Cavs will be spent on zone breaker plays. The Cavs were missing Evan Mobley, but the Rockets were missing a starter as well, and a key part of their defense, as well, in Jabari Smith. That might not be the case on Saturday. In any event, the Rockets lucked into a win they should have had through skill, but a win is a win.