HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- Tuesday’s game against the Brooklyn Nets provided a unique challenge for the Rockets defense. They want to take away the paint, but they faced an offense that generates very little production from that spot of the floor.
The Rockets allowed a league-high 53.2 points in the paint on their way to finishing with the NBA’s worst defense a season ago, so improving that mark was a priority heading into this season.
“We were giving up too many layups, dunks, fouls at the rim,” Rockets head coach Stephen Silas said. “We wanted to make sure that we were cutting off the paint and forcing teams to shoot above the break threes, which are obviously a tougher shot.”
Silas’ team has made good on that goal. The Rockets allowed 29 shots from inside the restricted area last season, third most in the NBA, and opponents converted on 68.5 percent of those attempts, the league’s second highest mark. Teams are shooting a slightly higher percentage against the Rockets at the rim this season, but they are surrendering five fewer attempts each game. Along with limiting shots from inside the restricted area, the Rockets are giving up more than 30 above the break three-point per game, most in the league, and four more than last season.
“Now, we have to get to our close outs and close out to those guys and make it tougher, but, one, we wanted to make it a little bit harder for teams to score on us, but two, protect our five men at times, so the guards aren't just lining them up and going downhill at them,” Silas said.
The Rockets have done a poor job of closing out on shooters, so despite the shot profile looking the way Silas had envisioned before the season started, the Rockets defensive rating has gotten worse by close to two points because the team is allowing the opposition to shoot 37.2 percent on those above the break threes, the fourth highest mark in the league, up from 34.8 percent during the 2021-22 season.
Sometimes luck plays a factor when a team allows a high three-point percentage, but Silas was not willing to make that excuse even though some might.
“It’s the close outs and the sprint to the close outs,” he said. “If you ask analytics people they’d say it’s shot luck.”