Are the Houston Rockets going to figure it out?

The first two months of the season have been a rollercoaster for the Houston Rockets.

James Harden and Chris Paul both missed time early as the Rockets went on to win just four of their opening ten games. Carmelo Anthony was the scapegoat. His position in the team was under question from day one, but he wasn't the main reason for Houston's slow start.

Winning five of their next six with Anthony out of the lineup, the Rockets thought they had found the answer. They hadn't. Looking back, it was really just a well-timed homestand that acted as a post-Melo honeymoon period.

The same issues of poor shooting and even worse defense soon reared their ugly head again, and Anthony wasn't there to blame for the 2-7 run.

The early-season question of "when should we start worrying about the Rockets?" officially moved to "how worried are we about the Rockets?" when they fell to 11-14 for 14th in the West 25 games into the season.

But Harden has changed that.

Whether you despise his flailing and often frustrating style of play or not, he's doing it at an MVP level and dragging the Rockets back to relevance.

On the back of 37.6 points, 6 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game shooting 48.4% from the field, Beard has put the Rockets on his back for six wins in their last seven games. The last without a now injured Paul.

🚀 @JHarden13 tallies 35 PTS, 9 AST, fueling the @HoustonRockets 5th consecutive victory! #Rockets pic.twitter.com/JlNMBAUY2W

— NBA (@NBA) December 20, 2018

The discussion has now moved to whether or not the Rockets have fixed themselves and found their mojo.

It's difficult to say the Rockets are back when Harden has to do so much for them to win. The numbers he's produced over the last seven games aren't sustainable. He needs help, and it's on the defensive end where his teammates can assist him most.

It's on that end of the floor that things have turned sour following a strong defensive 2017-18 season.

What's different?

The Rockets finished with a 114.7 offensive rating in 2017-18. It's the 12th highest rating in NBA history. They played better than the NBA record 115.6 offensive rating the 1986-87 Los Angeles Lakers played with right up until March.

Last season's 65-17 Rockets were one of the best offensive teams ever.

Houston's offensive rating is still up at 113.5 this season, good for 4th in the league. The issue is that their defensive rating is 113.0, a measly 25th overall.

Unlike last season in which the Rockets played with a 106.1 defensive rating (6th), their defense in 2018-19 isn't good enough to make up for those off shooting nights.

Houston's 75% defensive rebound percentage finished 4th in the league last season. It's tumbled all the way down to 69.5% for 29th this season. Their opponents defended field goal percentage was a league-average 46.2% last season. It's risen to 47.5% this season to be the fourth-worst in the NBA. Opponents effective field goal percentage, free throw rate and offensive rebound rate are all up on last year.

It's not all on him, but Clint Capela hasn't made the improvements the five-year $90 million deal he signed over the summer suggested he might. His individual defensive rebounding percentage has dropped from 30.8% to 25.2%, block percentage from 5.7% to 5.3%, and his defensive box plus/minus has been cut in half from plus-2.9 to plus-1.4.

Needed now more than ever with a 33-year old Paul playing with the worst DBPM of his career (minus-0.6) before being sidelined with a hamstring injury for 2 to 4 weeks, Capela hasn't been able to hold down the Rockets defensively like he needs to for them to succeed.

The Rockets played with a 103.8 defensive rating with Capela on the floor last season. They need him to sit to get anywhere close to that number so far in 2018-19. With Capela on, the Rockets play with a 110.6 defensive rating compared to 104.6 in the minutes he sits.

A lot of Capela's struggles can be put down to the departure of Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute. The two-man lineup numbers tell a compelling story of how much better the Rockets are when Capela is paired with an elite defender on the wing.

With Mbah a Moute playing alongside Capela, the Rockets played with a 100.3 defensive rating. When he had Ariza out there, they played with a 104.2 defensive rating.

It's only a small sample size, but Gerald Green is the only guy Capela has been able to pair up with to come close to the defensive numbers he put up with Mbah a Moute and Ariza. Their 97.4 defensive rating is impressive, however, the next best is alongside Paul at 107.2.

Capela is the anchor, and while he doesn't have the support around him that he did last year, he's the one that can bridge the gap between the elite defense of 2017-18 and the defense that is currently crippling their championship credentials.

He's going to need to start producing as along with the weak defense, Houston's off shooting nights have been a lot more regular this season too.

Like 2017-18, the Rockets lead the league in three-point attempts with 41.1 per game this season. However, they've not been able to match what was the league average 36.2% three-point percentage. In fact, the Rockets are amongst the worst three-point shooting teams in the NBA right now connecting on just 33.9% of their attempts.

A team that approaches offense the way the Rockets do are always going to be susceptible to a poor night. We all remember their 27 consecutive misses in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, after all. When you put so much stock into three-point shooting and don't stop hoisting them when they aren't going in, shooting below the league average is going to hurt the Rockets more than it does others.

Last year they had the defense to grind out wins despite a poor night from beyond the arc. That hasn't been the case to start this season.

Moving Forward

They can still shoot with the best of them as evidenced by their NBA-record 26 made three-pointers against the Wizards. However, the games in which they've shot under 32% (12 games) have been all too regular.

The Rockets set an NBA record with 26 THREES made in a single game! 😱 pic.twitter.com/vAObK8QTaL

— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) December 20, 2018

While it's taken Harden to play out of his mind to get the Rockets back on track, there's enough there on the defensive end to think they may have turned a corner.

Their 108.4 defensive rating over the last five would rank 4th in the NBA if it sticks. Capela's individual numbers have improved which has seen the overall team defense move closer to the 2017-18 version. Houston's defensive rebounding percentage is up at 74.8% over the winning streak which has dropped their opponents second chance points from 13.6 to 11 per game.

As encouraging as it is to see the defensive improvements, teams are still shooting exceptionally well against the Rockets. In fact, their opponents' 54% effective field goal percentage over the last five games is worse than their 25th-ranked 53.6% average over the whole season.

The Rockets are starting to find their groove and are finally relevant as a Western Conference contender. 

Even before Paul sustained his injury, we couldn't say the Rockets were "back". Not with Harden needing to put up godly numbers throughout a homestand similar to the post-Melo honeymoon.

We can't sign off on a return of the Rockets until the defensive improvements appear sustainable. Until then, it's all on Harden which, as we know all too well, isn't enough on his own to compete with the elite teams in the West.

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