James Harden and Chris Paul barely need to dribble to pick defenses apart

James Harden and Chris Paul have only logged 217 minutes on the court together this season, but the early returns are encouraging. In addition to outscoring opponents by an average of 7.8 points per 100 possessions, they have yet to lose a game with both of them in the lineup. The Rockets have only dropped four games so far this season, all four of which came in Paul’s month-long absence following their season-opening win on the road against the Warriors.

While the Rockets actually have a better point differential when one of them is on the court and the other is on the bench, their offense peaks when they’re in the lineup at the same time. The Rockets already have the second best offense in the NBA at a rate of 113.4 points per 100 possessions, and that number skyrockets to 121.5 points per 100 possessions when Harden and Paul are on the court together. Not even the Warriors score as efficiently in lineups featuring Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, although they have a much bigger sample size to work with.

There were questions about how Harden and Paul would fit together heading into the season, but they mostly centered around their willingness to concede touches as opposed to how their skills complement each other. Now that Paul has taken a backseat to Harden, it’s clear they have the tools to pick apart even the best defenses in the league with ease. This particular basket against the Jazz — a team ranked fifth in defensive efficiency — is one example of the difficult decisions the Rockets force defenses to make when Harden and Paul share the court.

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The possession begins with a pick-and-roll between Harden and Ryan Anderson. Knowing how frequently Harden creates for himself in those situations — pick-and-rolls currently make up 39.9 percent of his scoring and he’s coming off of a season in which he scored at a rate of 1.01 points per pick-and-roll possession — Derrick Favors prevents him from turning the corner by hedging. Favors leaves Anderson for a split-second in doing so, but Joe Ingles uses his long arms to delay Harden’s pass.

While Anderson gets a decent look at a 3-pointer, he decides to pass the ball to Paul on the opposite wing rather than shoot when Favors eventually catches up with him. Anderson then follows his pass to Paul to run another pick-and-roll, his second in about six seconds.

Paul is just as good of a pick-and-roll scorer as Harden. He ranked in the 83.3 percentile last season with 0.96 points per pick-and-roll possession and ranks in the 72.6 percentile this season with 0.92 points per pick-and-roll possession. The Jazz therefore choose to defend his pick-and-roll with Anderson the exact same way: Favors steps out to meet Paul on the other side of Anderson’s screen while Paul’s primary defender fights through Anderson’s screen to avoid the switch.

This time, however, Anderson wisely rolls to the basket instead of popping to the perimeter to force the Jazz to rotate in ways they aren’t expecting. (76.3 percent of Anderson’s shot attempts this season have been 3s. He almost always pops when he’s used as the screener in pick-and-rolls). Anderson draws Rudy Gobert away from Clint Capela in the process and capitalizes on the opportunity with a reverse layup.

The possession is incredibly simple, but there’s more going on that what meets the eye. First and foremost, check out how far out Ingles is when the ball works its way into Paul’s hands for the second pick-and-roll:

There are two reasons why Ingles feels the need to follow him out to the half court line. The first is that Harden is an elite shooter. Catch-and-shoot 3-pointers make up 10.4 percent of his scoring this season, and he’s converted 42.3 percent of those opportunities. Had Ingles played him more honestly, Harden may have been able to work himself free for a spot-up 3-pointer following Anderson’s roll because Ingles would’ve likely dropped down to put a body on Capela.

The second is that defending Harden so closely prevents him from getting the ball back. While it would have been more effective last season when the Rockets had Patrick Beverley, Eric Gordon and Lou Williams as secondary ball handlers, it gives Paul — someone who is widely recognized as one of the best point guards of all-time — a terrifying amount of room to operate in his comfort zone.

It basically turns the possession into a 3-on-3 because Ricky Rubio doesn’t want to give Trevor Ariza any breathing room from the right corner, where he has made 54.8 percent of his 3-point attempts this season. With Favors hedging the pick-and-roll, Gobert is the Jazz’s last hope. Leaving Capela sooner than he did may have put him in better position to protect the basket, but Paul buys Anderson an extra second by freezing Gobert with a no-look pass:

The obvious solution would have been to abandon Capela at the elbow because he isn’t a shooting threat, but Capela generates a quarter of his points off of cuts and putbacks. Not only did Capela put himself in position for a putback in case Anderson missed, Anderson could’ve passed it to him in stride to the basket for a dunk once Gobert committed to him. There would’ve also been an opportunity for a high-low pass had Paul chosen to pass the ball to Capela instead of Anderson.

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Either way, the stars of the play are Harden and Paul. If they weren’t two of the best pick-and-roll scorers in a system built for pick-and-roll scorers, they wouldn’t have been able to break the fifth best defense in the league with a combination of three dribbles and two passes once they crossed half court. And to think they are still in the process of figuring out how they can get the most out of each other. If they’re already doing this to elite defenses, it’ll be fascinating to see where they are at the end of the season as long as they can both stay healthy.