Notes from Game One: Houston's Offense needs a Holiday

I don't know when I thought Houston needed someone to hit a 3 most. Probably when they dug themselves into a 23-point hole helped by a halfcourt offensive rating of 50(!!!) in the 1st half. But perhaps even more so when they started chipping away at that deficit in the 2nd half and the prospect of Houston racing into the lead felt tantalizingly close, if only even the most modest of 3-point barrages could follow offensive rebound after offensive rebound.

The defensive effort Houston made in that comeback, keeping the Warriors to just 16 points in 15 minutes of play between the 3rd and 4th quarters (a 51-point pace over a full game) was remarkable. That they were able to reduce the deficit from 23 points to 3 while making only two shots from deep in that entire stretch is equally as remarkable but also raises the heartbreaking question of what if.

Houston’s incredible defense has largely gone ignored in the post-game reviews, such is the stink from their toxic, putrid offense. You might think a big answer to this is needed, something drastic. I don't think so. Steph Curry hit three insane, stupid, bonkers 3s. If he hits two insane, stupid, bonkers 3s the 10-point loss becomes 7 points. Fred VanVleet, who whatever you think of him shot 39% this year on wide open 3s, hit a wretched 2 of 8 such shots in this game. If he goes 3-8 it's a 4-point game. If the Rockets as a team, who shot an NBA-worst 73.8% at the FT line this season, shot an even more NBA-worst 70% in this game rather than the 55% they actually put up, that 4-point game is a 1-point game. These are not big asks. And what I propose as an adjustment for game two is similarly small, both literally and metaphorically.

Enter Aaron Holiday

I’m amazed Holiday didn’t play in game one. Holiday sits perfectly in the Venn diagram of ‘gives some of the offensive firepower Rockets fans crave’ and ‘Ime seems to trust him’, a vector which does not include Reed Sheppard or Cam Whitmore. Let’s make no mistake, Aaron Holiday is no offensive star, he is a role player averaging 5.5 points per game. But he can run the pick n roll, has a floater game, and most importantly he shoots. A lot.

Holiday jacks up 8.2 3s per36 and does so at a 39.8% clip. Over his last 19 games, he shot 48.6%, on a not tiny sample size of 35-72 during a healthy bump in playing time. What’s more, Holiday has had his moments against the Warriors. In February’s 7-point loss he went for 25 points on 10-20 shooting, and he featured in the much-heralded end of regular season win, providing more muted but still important minutes.

Look at these two screengrabs from a couple of offensive plays while Holiday was on the court in that game - where he played in what Ryan Hollins dubbed the ‘Double-Big/Short-Kings’ lineup, sharing the backcourt with Fred VanVleet ahead of Sengun and Adams. In the first below, you have Fred driving and Buddy Hield is helping off of Holiday, but he isn’t helping off strongly enough to get in front of VanVleet at all, likely wary of Holiday’s quick trigger.

And in the screenshot below, Hield is again at the nail but is not being so aggresive off Holiday as to shut down the passing lane, and a few frames later Sengun kicked it out to Jabari Smith for the open 3.

Now watch this play, the first of the quarter as Holiday subbed in. It’s a gorgeous play.

Holiday runs off a weakside stagger screen from Adams and Sengun, flips the ball to VanVleet who takes the handoff into a pick n roll with Sengun who has stepped up, makes a little pass over the top, and Holiday's man digs in to help on Sengun in the short roll. Holiday springs free. Open shot goes down. 

Granted, the Warriors brought two to the ball on this play, which they didn’t do in game one. The first part of this is Jalen Green needs to look for a single second like he can get by Moses Moody and Steph Curry to force the Warriors to have to think. And Fred VanVleet needs to remember that the ball is supposed to go at least near the rim and ideally in it when he shoots. Regardless, what we see is Holiday zipping around and being a threat from deep, qualities that help against any defense.

With his unassuming size Holiday has a habit of losing defenders with off-ball movement. He sets a nice screen here out of the horns setup, runs off to the top of the key and nobody picks him up. But he isn’t just a one-dimensional shooter, he’s a point guard with some decent point guard skills at that. So he attacks the closeout, warps the defense and makes the great kickout to the perimeter.

On another night maybe he takes the 3, and maybe that’s what Houston needs him to do in game two if he plays. On another night maybe he drops in the floater, or maybe Tari Eason hits the wide open 3. Either way, just one or two plays like this would have been like manna from heaven on Sunday night.

One final play here, where Holiday and Jabari Smith come together weakside and motion towards a screening action, only for Jabari to dive to the rim and get the easy layup.

This is bad defense from Podziemski, who allows the blow-by, but these are the sort of defensive mixups which do tend to occur more frequently when a movement shooter is in the play threatening to get open.

Conclusion

Losing to the Warriors is unbearable yet familiar at this point, and can lead to end-times like predictions of doom. But look at the Warriors scoring totals in the past five matchups. 99. 90. 105. 96. 95. Houston is consistently shutting down their offense and will continue to pummel them on the glass. They can win this series without a good halfcourt offense. In fact, they can win this series with a bad halfcourt offense. It just needs to be not historically bad. Consider this - in 2018's game seven the Rockets made more 3s than they did on Sunday, despite MISSING 27 IN A ROW that night. Houston has only shot worse than this once in the past two years, and only by 0.1%. This was their second worst shooting night over their last 168 games. Perhaps they progress to the mean tomorrow night and I won't be begging for Aaron Holiday minutes, but Ime Udoka has trusted him as a role player for the past two years, and he needs to trust him in this series and call his name in times of drought.