NEW YORK -- James Harden stood up at his locker and his beard might as well have been glowing. Surrounded by media members who watched him demolish and demoralize the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, Harden said it's easier for him to put up superhuman stat lines now that he's playing point guard. He called the 2016-17 Houston Rockets a "special group." He said this is the most fun he's had in a long time.
Harden put up 30 points and 15 assists against the Knicks and it looked easy. Playing Steve Nash's old role in Mike D'Antoni's system, he could be on his way to his first Most Valuable Player award. All his teammates are getting open looks. Most of the attention, understandably, is on Houston's high-powered offense.
The Rockets, though, also held the Knicks to 99 points in a fast-paced game, and that might be just as significant. As forward Corey Brewer said, their "offense is going to be there, we have a lot of guys that can put the ball in the basket." The question is whether they can consistently stop the other team from doing the same.
Last year, a lack of defensive discipline ruined Houston's season. It fell from sixth to 21st in defensive rating, by far the biggest reason for its drop from a Western Conference finalist to a .500 team. Harden's gaffes, looped on Vine, drew the most derision, but effort and energy became issues up and down the roster. Then the Rockets hired D'Antoni, and an anonymous scout told Sports Illustrated that their approach to the offseason seemed to be, "Alright, f-- it, we're going all-in on offense. F-- defense."
That may be the perception on the outside, but it is not the organization's stance. That's why Houston hired Jeff Bzdelik to be an assistant coach and put him in charge of the defense. Rockets forward Ryan Anderson said that everybody knows what they need to focus on -- in practice and before games, they spend much more time talking about getting stops than getting buckets.
"There's a better defensive emphasis on this team than I've felt, really, in a long time," Anderson said.
Bzdelik, the head coach with Denver Nuggets from 2002 to 2004, spent the last two seasons on Dave Joerger's staff with the Memphis Grizzlies. The internal belief that Houston can turn things around starts with him.
"Hard-nosed guy," Brewer said of Bzdelik. "He wants you to do things right. He has schemes, and if you don't know 'em the way he wants, you can't play."
Nobody expects the Rockets to turn into the grit-and-grind Grizzlies. While Harden has shown in spurts that he can compete defensively, a total transformation would be a bigger surprise than a clean shave. As committed as Anderson is to being in the right place at the right time, he's limited by his relative lack of mobility. Both of them will play major minutes and opponents will make them guard pick-and-rolls.
Is it possible, though, for the Rockets to be merely above-average on that end? D'Antoni's Phoenix Suns were always in the middle of the pack, but that was enough to win more than 60 games. Houston's two losses -- the season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers and Tuesday's game against the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers -- weren't particularly encouraging, but there were positive signs in the two wins over the Dallas Mavericks and the rout at MSG. Nene is mobile enough to switch onto smaller players, Eric Gordon looks quicker laterally than he has in some time and the Rockets' young players -- Clint Capela, K.J. McDaniels, Montrezl Harrell and Sam Dekker -- all have athleticism.
At the very least, there is versatility here. After the Knicks game, D'Antoni talked about switching 1 through 5 with Harrell, Capela and Brewer sharing the court.
"How athletic we are at the big spot helps us out a lot in our defensive schemes with pick-and-rolls," Harrell said. "When guards come off, they kind of think it's going to be easy and we're slow bigs and they can just beat us off the bounce but that's not the case. We get down and really move our feet."
D'Antoni cautioned that it will take Houston some time for the team to master the different coverages it needs to use against upper-echelon offensive teams. If it is going to minimize breakdowns, it first has to break some bad habits. In the first quarter in New York, Harden surrendered a fast break by complaining to officials about a non-call. For the Rockets to change their reputation, they will have to prove they have the toughness and togetherness they keep talking about.
"I don't think anybody can tell early in the season who they are or what they're doing," Houston forward Trevor Ariza said. "I think that's something that, your personality of your team grows throughout the year. Right now we're still growing, we're still learning ourselves, we're still seeing what we can do."
The Rockets think they have the makings of a solid defensive team. Perhaps more important, they know that they're not going anywhere if they don't become one. The returning players remember what went wrong last year, and they don't want history to repeat itself.
"It feels a lot different," McDaniels said. "Everybody seems to enjoy playing defense, talking to each other. And it's great just to have another year, be in another season, get an opportunity to do something big."
