The Houston Rockets are set to meet the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals. Both teams have laid out their scouting report. Kevin Durant of the Warriors gave a general breakdown of the Rockets’ defense, which has improved a whole lot this season.
As reported by Mark Medina of The Mercury News, Durant noticed that the Rockets do a good job at switching, which messes up the other team’s match-ups and sets. He noted that the key to this is the Rockets’ good communication:
“They do a good job of switching. And when you switch, it takes a lot of teams out of their sets. It takes away the pick and roll… They do such a good job of switching and rebounding the basketball. They’re switching point guards on their centers, doing a good job of exchanging at the backside and getting the shooters out, small guys out of there. They’re communicating well.”
Below is the full clip of Durant:
Kevin Durant breaks down the Rockets defense pic.twitter.com/6GbeEiDRBM
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) May 10, 2018
Durant, is in fact, spot on with his comments. Rockets’ associate head coach Jeff Bzdelik, who’s in charge of the team’s defensive sets, made it a priority to keep his players on their toes for switches. As per Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle, Bzdelik said:
“It has to be done properly,” Bzdelik said. “Switching can’t be a convenience. It has to be used as a weapon. It can be very effective because of the way the game is played. Our rules are, you switch to deny, you switch to force a turnover and you switch to take away a 3.
“When you alternate between switching and different schemes, it keeps even great players a little off-balance.”
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