James Harden’s outrageous talent has powered the Houston Rockets so successfully this season that he seems a lock for the MVP award.
Here’s a common sequence of events in a Houston Rockets game when the team has the ball and the shot clock is on. The play is initiated by a hirsute gentleman wearing a Mohawk. If it isn’t, his teammates ensure the ball is quickly passed to him while they run to the corners, except for one ‘big’ who lurks in the paint.
The Beard, for that’s how the gentleman is affectionately known, dribbles the ball up-court and sizes up his defender at the three-point lane. If his defender seeks to contest him one-on-one, the Beard unleashes a few crossovers or behind-the-back dribbles in quick succession, perhaps a few shoulder fakes thrown in. Soon, the defender is outmatched and the Beard is hurtling toward the basket, full steam.
Then, if the opposition’s center approaches, the Beard easily sidesteps him to move to the basket or coolly passes to his team’s center — invariably French big man Clint Capela, for an easy basket. If the defensive ‘big’ sticks close to the basket instead, and doesn’t show the instincts of a good shot-blocker, the Beard simply gallops to the basket, twists/turns his body, hides the ball, invites contact, and still gets a layup and, many a time, an and-one (a foul shot to go with the basket).
If the Beard is double-teamed by a wing defender who moves in, he simply whacks a pass to a teammate on the wing, now free to attempt a three-pointer with set feet.
And if, in the first place, the Beard isn’t engaged by his assigned defender, the southpaw simply steps back and sinks a three (and does it at a high clip).
The Rockets’ offence seems all so simple: give it to the Beard and let him do his magic. The team scores more than 80% of its baskets as two-pointers in the paint or three pointers, and eschews the mid-range game.
This kind of play, based on the one-on-one skills of a unique talent, is called ‘isolation’. It had seemed passé in a league that emphasised ball and player movement and shared scoring (a la the Warriors).
But the Beard and his team, coached by Mike D’Antoni – himself an attacking basketball savant – have outperformed the defending champions and have the best record in the league. D’Antoni has always known to empower his point guards, and he has done it splendidly with the Beard.
What is surprising, however, is that D’Antoni has moved away from his high-speed, quick-possession philosophy (exemplified by his mid-2000s Phoenix Suns, known for its seven-seconds-or-less offence) to focus on ‘isolation’ and decisive passing. The Beard has been the lynchpin of this strategy.
It was not expected to be this good for the Beard. He was similarly dominant last season, but ran out of gas as the playoffs went deep. The Rockets could not solve the defensive adjustments made by the San Antonio Spurs, who simply cut the three-pointer and directed their ‘bigs’ to contest every attempt diligently at the rim while giving an easy path to the mid-range shot. This strategy threw the Rockets out of gear. The Beard himself came a cropper, flopping in a must-win Game 6.
The Rockets have solved this problem since. While they have doubled down on their three-or-two-in-the-paint-outcome offence, heavily dependent on the Beard, they have surrounded him with versatile, defensive-minded role-players. Luc Mbah a Moute and PJ Tucker, in particular, have taken a lot of his defensive load as wings. The Rockets also added a stud in Chris Paul. The diminutive point guard has shared the Beard’s offensive responsibility, adding a different, efficient dimension, especially useful when Plan A is tackled.
As a result, the Beard is within touching distance of immortality. It seems very likely, with just ten games remaining in the season, that the Maurice Podoloff Trophy for the Most Valuable Player will go to the Beard, James Harden.
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