A tale of two double-teams

I hand-tracked the Lakers' and Rockets' double-teams in Game 2. Here's what I found.

It was the best of strategies, it was the worst of strategies.

If you’ve watched any of the Lakers/Rockets series so far, you’ve seen the double-teams on Kevin Durant and LeBron James. They’ve flown fast and furious around the two aging-but-still-super stars, the twin suns that everything else in the series orbits around.

Analyzing Game 2 (Durant missed Game 1), I was struck by some high-level similarities in the defensive game plans of both teams and even more struck by the differences in how those teams responded.

First, the logic. It makes sense to double Kevin Durant. Durant views the double-team as an affront to the spirit of basketball, something that lesser beings do when they can’t meet him on his level. Guess what? He’s right! But that doesn’t make it any less of a useful strategy against a score-first player like Durant, particularly when he’s surrounded by an ineffective supporting cast.

Houston is heavily dependent upon Durant for dribbling and initiation (the absence of injured point guard Fred VanVleet has been keenly felt); only Alperen Sengun (whose limitations these two games have been another story) can be considered even an above-average positional passer or ballhandler. And the Rockets’ coach, Ime Udoka, starkly refuses to play the only other really good shooter on the roster in Reed Sheppard. (Sheppard, the #3 pick in the draft just two years ago and a guy lacing 39% of his triples on huge volume, played just 11 minutes in Game 2. He scored 17 points on 5-for-14 shooting from deep in Houston’s Durantless Game 1.)

Lakers coach JJ Redick knows all this, and I’ve been impressed with both the Lakers’ defensive gameplan and their crisp rotations. The double, after all, is only the first step. A successful pass out almost guarantees a 4-on-3 situation for a moment, and defenders need to move like they’re tied together in a foosball row to close any gaps. Watch how the Lakers send two at Durant not once, but twice, in this excellent defensive possession:

You can smell the rubber burning as Durant tries to process what is happening. Even with Sheppard, Houston has a ton of non-shooters the Lakers can play off of, which makes the resulting rotations much shorter. The LA communication is on point, and no good opportunities emerge.

Sure, the Rockets score, but it’s only because a deflection from Marcus Smart actually helps Houston’s Josh Okogie get a clean run at the basket (and the ensuing offensive rebound). That play goes down as two points, but there’s no chance Houston viewed that as a successful possession.

On the other side of the coin, the Lakers spent much of Game 2 hunting Sengun in the pick-and-roll. Udoka decided in the second half to send an extra body at James, allowing Sengun to retreat back to the paint. Even on the occasions the Lakers didn’t score, it felt like LA had a clean look:

I hated both the strategy and the execution. The Lakers surround James with guys like Luke Kennard, Rui Hachimura, and Smart. Those players are limited in many ways, but Kennard led the league in three-point percentage for the third time in his career this year, Hachimura has shot above 41% from deep for all three of his seasons with the Lakers, and Smart is, at least, a very willing shooter who went 5-for-7 from beyond the arc in Game 2. Kennard and Smart are capable enough ballhandlers and passers, too.

In other words, these are hard players to shut down if they have a numbers advantage.

Speaking of numbers, I rewatched Game 2 and hand-tracked every possession that featured a double on James and Durant.

LA doubled Durant a whopping 26 times. Two of those resulted in kick balls, which I excluded since they reset the possession without giving either side a major advantage. The remaining 24 possessions generated 26 points, or 1.08 PPP. That’s not as ghastly as you might expect, but the numbers were way worse earlier in the game. 10 of those 26 points came on the final four doubles in the last few minutes of the game, when the Lakers were nursing a lead.

By comparison, the Rockets doubled James seven times, and the Lakers scored 11 points on those possessions — 1.57 PPP.

These are exceedingly small sample sizes, but it’s worth noting how much harder the Rockets had to work to score. In addition to the Smart deflection to Okogie, Houston notched points on a different deflection that ended right in Sengun’s hands. They also had several buckets that came off offensive rebounds, which count, but aren’t always indicative of clean offense.

In addition, the Rockets only made one three-pointer in those 24 possessions. The Lakers generated two in their seven possessions.

From Houston’s point of view, I don’t understand why they felt the need to double-team LeBron at all. Sure, James can score on Sengun. But the King is old enough to remember when the California redwoods were saplings. Can he do it over, and over, and over? If I’m Udoka, I want to see if James has it in him to score 45 points. That beats the alternative of watching Kennard and Hachimura and Smart bomb wide-open threes, doesn’t it?

Part of the disparity is that LeBron has a larger word count in his passing dictionary than Durant. Look at this laser beam to Hachimura:

Durant can’t consistently make reads like that, and frankly, his bricktastic teammates are unlikely to make the shot, anyway:

The Rockets had limited success passing to players like Sengun, Okogie, and Thompson at the free-throw line for burrowing drives to the basket, but those just as often ended in aimless passing around the perimeter or blown contested layups.

The double team is hardly a new or novel strategy. There are counters. In fact, LA has done the same thing to Houston all season, and the Rockets have actually used adjustments in the past! Like, for example, playing Sheppard, who averaged nearly 26 minutes in three contests against the Lakers in the regular season.

Udoka’s distaste for his guard is clear, but he doesn’t have many other options to invigorate a rusty offense. Of course, Sheppard needs to make his shots, but just the threat of Sheppard should lubricate some of the parts.

By contrast, look at what Redick is doing with Luke Kennard, a bigger but arguably even worse defender! Reddick has successfully hidden Kennard away from the action on guys like Okogie and Eason, while the former Dukie has obliterated the Rockets with his shotmaking. Even when Kennard gets caught up in things, he’s done an admirable job of rotating to and away from the double team when required.

Besides just playing their best shooter more, the Rockets need to leverage Durant in more creative ways. They had a beautiful Horns set early in the second that had Durant set a screen for Sheppard, forcing Kennard to switch onto Durant. Amen Thompson roared up from the corner to set a screen on Kennard. Marcus Smart, guarding Thompson, instinctively moved toward the flaring Durant, which opened up a rolling lane down the middle:

That’s a nice use of Durant’s off-ball gravity! Unfortunately, after that one time, I didn’t see a play like it again. Houston devolved into running the same pin-down screens for Durant to come up to the top and get the ball over and over, which allowed the Lakers to keep doubling. The lack of variety absolutely killed the Rockets, who posted the second-worst half-court offensive rating of any team in any playoff or play-in game this season (behind only Orlando from Wednesday night!).

This series isn’t over yet. The Rockets are younger, more athletic, and desperate, and they were in Game 2 right up until the end. Playing at home should give them a boost.

But Udoka will have to bend on principles that he holds dear. It kills him inside to watch various Lakers torch Sheppard in isolation, but he’ll have to swallow and bear it. He’ll need to live with Sengun guarding LeBron James. He might even need to do more on offense than push the “Kevin Durant, do something” button over and over again.

That is a lot of mental grappling and self-reflection required in the 72 hours between Game 2 on Tuesday and Game 3 tonight. But Udoka is coaching for his team’s life, and perhaps his head-coaching career. If not now, then when?