Why are the Rockets abandoning their switch-everything defense?

The 2017-18 Houston Rockets came into the season with one mission — a goal they pursued throughout the entire season, at the expense of all other goals: defeat the Golden State Warriors. To do so, the Rockets built an anti-Warriors ecosystem designed to make Golden State uncomfortable. It damn near worked.

Houston spent the entire regular season doing two things that it felt would help in a potential series against the Warriors.

First, they ran as many pick-and-rolls for James Harden and Chris Paul as humanly possible, only the goal of those pick-and-rolls were largely designed to force switches and generate isolation opportunities for their star guards. The results were spectacular, as Harden and Paul led the Rockets to the most efficient isolation season in history.

Among the 30 players who finished at least two plays out of isolation per game, according to Synergy Sports tracking on NBA.com, Harden and Paul finished first and second in points per play. The Rockets’ army of shooters — Eric Gordon, Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson, P.J. Tucker, even Luc Mbah a Moute — sniped away from outside whenever given the opportunity, which mostly came when the defense bent itself too far toward Howard or Paul in isolation in an effort to prevent an even easier hoop. The result of this strategy was the NBA’s best offense, one which poured in 114.0 points per 100 possessions.

On the other side of the floor, the Rockets essentially installed the Warriors’ defense. Defensive coordinator Jeff Bzdelik led the charge with a scheme that called for Rockets players to essentially switch everything, on or off the ball. Doing so allowed Houston to cut off driving lanes before they opened and, far too often, bait teams into hunting mismatches that weren’t really mismatches, like a big man posting up Harden or Paul down low. The guards are surprisingly stout post defenders given their reputation (Harden) and size (Paul), and the Rockets would more often than not live with a center trying to back one of them down and burning seconds off the shot clock. Again, this strategy worked about as well as possible, and the Rockets finished the season with the NBA’s seventh-best defense, one which allowed 105.6 points per 100 possessions. (Just a half-point per 100 possessions outside the top five.)

During the Western Conference Finals against the Warriors, the switch-happy defense worked better than the Rockets could likely ever have imagined — at least, for the first five games. Houston held Golden State to nearly four points per 100 possessions worse than their regular-season average during the first five games of the series, taking a 3-2 lead while frustrating the Warriors by baiting them into playing isolation basketball — the Rockets’ strength. All the switching led to repeated attempts to post up against Harden or Paul or Ariza or Tucker, and those guys did an admirable job of forcing tough shots. Golden State broke out some counters in Games 6 and 7 and got back to playing Warriors basketball, but Chris Paul was also out for those games, a major blow for a team essentially already playing without Mbah a Moute due to the effect his late-season shoulder injury had on his ability to contribute to a functional offense.

It sure seemed like the Rockets had the right strategy and the right personnel to execute it, so the widespread expectation heading into the offseason was that they’d retain all the relevant players and bring them back for another run at the champs. That only sort-of happened. Houston re-signed Chris Paul on a near-max deal fairly quickly, but just as quickly saw Ariza and Mbah a Moute leave for the Suns and Clippers, respectively. (Capela eventually re-signed on a discounted deal later in the summer.) They responded by signing James Ennis, Michael Carter-Williams, and later, Carmelo Anthony, and trading defensive liability Ryan Anderson and second-round pick De’Anthony Melton to the Suns for Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss.

Throughout the offseason there was talk about how Houston would struggle to replicate last year’s defensive prowess. When Bzdelik retired shortly before the start of the year, that talk grew louder. Late Friday night, after the Rockets’ fifth game of the season, Mike D’Antoni announced that his team would take the next two practice days to change their defense and work on not switching quite as often.

Paul said the Rockets need to go back to the drawing board and figure out the best solution for this version of the team.

Considering the Rockets have a 1-4 record and the NBA’s 25th-ranked defense, perhaps that’s not a surprise that they’re prepared to junk things already. It seems even less like one when you consider how often their aggressive switching has worked against them so far during this young season. During their season-opening loss to the Pelicans, for example, the Rockets’ repeated switching of off-ball screens presented Anthony Davis (and Julius Randle) ample opportunity to seal off much smaller defenders in the post and create easy baskets.

Davis finished with 32 points (on 13-of-21 shooting), 16 rebounds, and 8 assists. According to Second Spectrum’s tracking, Davis poured in 10 points on 26 possessions where he was guarded by players other than Capela or Tucker. New Orleans as a team scored 126.9 points per 100 possessions on those plays.

A week later against the Jazz, they repeatedly let Donovan Mitchell engineer switches so that he could isolate on the perimeter against Carmelo. Again, this worked to the Rockets’ disadvantage and Mitchell had a monster night: 38 points (on 14-of-25 shooting), 5 rebounds, and 7 assists. Mitchell had six points and two assists on seven possessions where he was guarded by Anthony. Utah scored 200 points per 100 possessions on those plays.

The common thread here is that unlike last season, the Rockets’ hyper-aggressive switching now provides far too many mismatch opportunities against minus defenders. Last year, the closest thing to a mismatch anybody got was a post-up against Harden or Paul (which Houston was fine with) or an isolation for a guard against Anderson in space. D’Antoni essentially excised Anderson from the rotation mid-season in order to avoid the latter. That left him with a rotation consisting only of defenders capable of switching absolutely everything. Tucker, Ariza, and Mbah a Moute, in particular, were comfortable switching across five positions and holding their own.

Replacing Ariza and Mbah a Moute with Anthony, Carter-Williams, and Ennis provides opponents with two extra places to attack that the Rockets did not have a year ago. MCW can provide ball-pressure due to his height and length, but he is often lost off the ball and he’s not stout in the post. Anthony goes hard after rebounds but he has long been a liability in space and just does not have the chops to keep up in pick-and-rolls. The system is not viable with those two players playing such large roles within it.

The Rockets’ quick decision to abandon or at least tweak what worked so well for them last season sheds additional light on the recent report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that they are willing to offer the Timberwolves as many as four first-round picks in a trade for Jimmy Butler. Adding a defender of Butler’s caliber would essentially allow them to replace Ariza and Mbah a Moute with one player, who also happens to be a far superior offensive player to both of them.

Doing so would put the switch-everything defense back on the table, but also allow for a more traditional style where Paul, Butler, Tucker, and Capela serve as the backbone for another potential top-10 unit. Four first-rounders is an absurdly high price to pay for almost anybody — especially if they’re all unprotected. But Houston, as constructed, does not have the defensive chops to get where it wants to go. And for Daryl Morey, that’s unacceptable, especially after how close his team came a year ago.