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The Houston Rockets lead the NBA in win percentage and total wins this season with an enviable 53-14 record. All the doubts expressed by sceptics over whether the acquisition of Chris Paul will affect Harden's rhythm have been emphatically silenced.
When Clint Capela (who's headed towards NBA stardom before too long), Chris Paul and James Harden start together for the Rockets, they have a whopping 36-2 record in those games.
It is easy to dismiss Mike D'Antoni, Chris Paul, and James Harden are regular season machines who falter during the playoffs, but in this article, we look at the evidence from this regular season and examine why the Rockets are a legitimate threat to beat the Golden State Warriors in the playoffs on the way to a Finals run.
#5 Interior dominance
There are no two ways about this: Golden State are short on players who can guard the likes of Clint Capela and Nene. These are two players with the ability to give the Warriors a real walloping in the paint.
Capela's agility, athleticism and ability to finish in traffic gives nightmares to opponent centers on a nightly basis. While he is not playing high minutes in the regular season, he still leads the league in field goal percentage at 65.5%, and his free throw shooting has improved adequately for the Warriors to not resort to Hack-a-Shaq tactics against him.
Nene, despite his advancing age and slowing athleticism, still has the ability to punish most NBA centers on the low block. He is still performing at a career-average level when we look at his per-36 splits for this season, though admittedly he is still playing a career-low 14.7 minutes per game.
With future Hall of Fame guards in Chris Paul and James Harden setting up these two, expect the Rockets to dominate the paint area in scoring and snag enough rebounds to give headaches to Steve Kerr and his coaching staff in a possible matchup.
#4 Greater depth
The Rockets have a plethora of options to get their scoring from and have possibly the deepest roster in the NBA in terms of offensive talent. While their starting five of Chris Paul, James Harden, Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson, and Clint Capela is an intimidating proposition in itself, their bench is really the deepest in the Western Conference.
Eric Gordon was named the league's Sixth Man of the Year on the strength of his 16.2 points per game average last year, and he has now raised his volume to a mean 18.4 points per outing. Gerald Green has found a new lease of life after signing with the Rockets in December and is averaging of 18.9 points and 5.1 rebounds per 36 minutes (he plays over 21 minutes per game).
In addition, the Rockets are integrating Joe Johnson (a clutch performer waived by the Utah Jazz earlier this season), who is slowly starting to hit top gear as he finds his feet within D'Antoni's rotations.
Luc M'bah a Moute and PJ Tucker are two versatile defenders who see significant game time, and are also capable of scoring from long range. As good as they are defensively, the Warriors will not be able to negate this scoring punch for more than a couple of games in a prospective playoff series.
#3 Ability to defend in the clutch
The Golden State Warriors, as good as they are, are a turnover-prone team. In search of the perfect basket, they often cough up the ball multiple times even in late-game situations, as they have demonstrated in a number of games this season.
With the likes of Trevor Ariza, Luc Mbah a Moute, PJ Tucker, and Chris Paul on the floor during money time, the Rockets should fancy their chances against even the dreaded Warriors death lineup.
Andre Iguodala is no longer the scoring threat that he once was, and if Draymond Green doesn't knock down 3-pointers consistently, the Rockets have a real shot at forcing Golden State to go iso and leave their fate in the hands of Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant.
The aforementioned Rockets have lockdown defensive capability, and with Paul guarding Curry while Mbah a Moute handles Durant, expect the Warriors to be tested to the limit if such a scenario does come to fruition.
#2 Ability to blow teams out in one quarter
James Harden has proved over and over again in his career, even in playoffs, that he can take over the game at any given point of time. Unless the Warriors are firing on all cylinders from the get-go, the Rockets have demonstrable ability to create separation from the Dubs.
The Rockets lead the league in first-quarter scoring. While they run a really predictable offense, when Paul and Harden are at full throttle, they can get open looks galore for their teammates to knock down. Time and again this season, the Rockets have made a mockery of a number of good teams in the league with 20-point leads taken in a handful of minutes.
On their day, they are demonstrably better on offense than any other team in the NBA, and can blow out even the likes of the Warriors with scoring bursts powered by their 3-point shooting, paint play, and isolations run by Harden and Paul, who are by far the best in the league this season in points per possession on isolation plays.
#1 CP3 and Harden and their motivation this season
A lot of the flak that Chris Paul and James Harden receive is because of the fact that they haven't led their teams to a deep playoffs run single-handedly. Harden had the worst game of his NBA career in game 6 against San Antonio last season when Houston got blown out by 39 points on their home court.
But the greatest players in the game have the unique ability to turn this external demotivation and dismissive attitude against them into an advantage, and CP3 is one of the few players in the league capable of playing with an extra edge.
Paul has a career stat line of 21.4 points, 9.4 assists, and 2.2 steals per game in the playoffs at an astonishing 3.48 assists/turnover ratio. This season is not when he lets those stats drop, playing alongside the best backcourt partner he has ever had.
Harden, in turn, finally has a player he can combine with on a possession-to-possession basis during clutch time, conserve his energy and knock down open jumpers when the ball is dished to him.
If the duo carries their already apparent synergy into the playoffs, the Rockets are built just perfectly to take the Warriors down in 7 games - particularly if they snag homecourt advantage which they are now in a position to do with 15 games remaining.
