Houston Rockets: Kevin HcHale’s Coaching is Key to Success

For a few years, the disparity between conferences has been a running narrative in the NBA. While West teams winning 45+ games don’t make the playoffs,the East bring forth one or two sub-.500 teams to the party every year. The West is as top-heavy as ever this year, and the Houston Rockets are one team that’s vying for supremacy.

The question is whether the Rockets can win this year despite what looks like even stronger competition. There are people who believe they are being overlooked. Tom Ziller and Paul Flannery of SB Nation titled their Rockets preview “The Rockets can win the NBA title. Seriously.”

There are also some people who don’t believe they are capable.

The Rockets certainly have their fair share of sexy names. However, the use of those names is the biggest key. if the Rockets want to win the West, the keys include the contribution of Ty Lawson, the health of Dwight Howard, and the dominance of James Harden.

The biggest key, however, is Kevin McHale‘ coaching.

McHale isn’t among the best in the league, but he is a solid coach who certainly can win a championship if given the right team.

The big addition of the offseason is obviously Lawson, who the Rockets acquired from the Denver Nuggets for spare parts. Lawson trouble’s with alcohol make him a personal question mark, but when he’s on the floor and motivated, he’s a very good point guard who puts up numbers. He can attack the rim, space the floor, and run pick-and-roll.

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This is great news for Harden, who seems amiable to not being the highest-volume isolation player as he was last season. The fact is that Harden was the Rockets’ only really good creator for himself or teammates. Defenses, especially ones led by a great coach like Ron Adams with the Warriors, could smother him with great isolation defenders and cut off his passing lanes.

Lawson being on the floor makes that a bigger risk. Defenses have to watch for two guys who can make plays for themselves each other, or other teammates. They can’t cheat off Lawson like they could Beverly, and they can’t just flood the strong side when Harden has the ball.

The fact that Lawson and Harden can trade spot-up roles like this will be the stuff of nightmares for defenses.

The Rockets starting lineup is perfectly constructed around these two guys. Trevor Ariza is always a lurking spot-up threat, and if defenses rotate to help on drives from Lawson or Harden, they can kick the ball around to Ariza.

This is the first possession from the Rockets’ first preseason game, and it is exactly what they should be looking to do in every possession after.

It has everything. The Rockets can initiate a pick-and-roll from either or both sides of the court, and they can kick to Ariza who can either make the corner three or draw a rotation that leaves another guy open. I mean, if your offense is running well enough to make the other team forget about James freaking Harden, you’re doing something right.

This is where McHale’s coaching becomes big. The Rockets moved the ball well last season. They were ninth in team assists per game and 10th in percentage of field goals assisted. The task for McHale is to try to push that number up. Developing a more movement-orientated, sophisticated offensive style would help their roster reach its full potential.

I refer to this play with the Atlanta Hawks often as a good isolated example of what spacing and ball movement can do. The Rockets should look to function in a similar way. Lawson and Harden can both attack off the dribble and make this same kind of outlet pass.

McHale needs to make sure that he’s making everyone play unselfishly and that guys will make those passes along the perimeter. Of course, the Hawks and Rockets are very different teams, but the principle remains the same. The Rockets want to swing the ball around the floor and make sure everyone is getting to take shot sometimes and create for others at other times.

This seems basic, but it looks like an adjustment for McHale. Despite their success in recent seasons, the Rockets offense has never been elegant or  sophisticated. McHale’s playbook was a Post-It note that said, “Give James Harden the ball.”

OK, fine. That’s not true. The point is, introducing another guy who can make plays like Lawson can gives the Rockets a much more creative offense. McHale has to appropriately adjust the way he organizes his team’s scoring attack.

Another big question related to Lawson is how to split his minutes with Patrick Beverley. Beverley is a good perimeter defender and reliable spot up shooter. McHale has been smart in being non-committal over who starts between the two. As he said to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle:

"“We’ll find out. Can we play them together? Maybe. We’ll put them out there. We had 28 days of camp. We’ll decide who will get the lion’s share of the minutes. One will and one will be a backup.”"

The real question is not who starts necessarily, but who plays when. Lawson, for all his talents, is small and doesn’t play lock-down defense. However, Beverly can’t create shots for himself or others the way Lawson can.

McHale will have to be very good at allocating minutes based on the situation, because who closes games will be a perennial problem. Lawson could provide game-swinging offensive output, but Beverley’s defense can also be a major difference-maker.

There’s not a universally right answer to this question. It is very dependent on matchups. McHale has to get that decision right a majority of the time for the Rockets to really compete in the West.

The other thing McHale has to do is adjust his usage of returning players, particularly Dwight Howard. Howard isn’t a good post-up player, and McHale continues to try to bang his head against the wall.

Howard posted up 49.5 percent of the time, the third-highest mark in the league. He averaged 0.75 points per possession in those situations. Conversely, he was used as the roll man 10.3 percent of the time, averaging 1.35 points per possession there.

There’s some things that factor in there, such as a vast difference in the amount of possessions. Still, it certainly seems like McHale would be better off making his offensive usage less one-dimensional. Especially because he fails at that dimension.

Now, Howard can still be a strong player on the low block. He has the moves and the size.

The issue is that year 12, oft-injured Dwight Howard cannot do that consistently throughout 82 games and three or four playoff rounds. The development of Donatas Motiejunas‘ post game and the improvement Clint Capela has shown gives McHale other options. He doesn’t have to rely on Howard’s dwindling post ability.

Howard’s also not a good passer out of the post and has no jump shot. In their preseason game, the Rockets used Howard in the offense in an interesting way. Howard initiated the set in the half-court, holding the ball near the three-point line, made a short pass and then set the screen.

If McHale keeps doing that, and Howard can be healthy enough to hold down his rim protection responsibilities, the Rockets could unveil a very interesting lineup of Lawson-Harden-Corey Brewer-Ariza-Howard. The spacing of that lineup would give Howard easy looks on the pick-and-roll.

If Howard sets screens at the top of the floor like this, Lawson or Harden has a lot of room to cut to the basket.

It goes back to McHale’s coaching. Howard may not be the force he once was, but McHale has more tools that can help him adapt to that. Motiejunas was quielty a very effective offensive weapon for the Rockets before he got hurt. Terrence Jones and Capela can also provide frontcourt offense.

McHale has a challenge ahead of him. Ty Lawson’s recent comments on Stephen Curry and his alcohol rehab to Adrian Wojnarowksi of Yahoo! Sports suggest he is still quite a confident, strong personality.

"“I thought Steph was just chillin’ on defense – and then going crazy on offense. He looked like he was just putting shots up and not working so much on the defensive end.”“There were people who were pushed into [the rehab facility] by family, and then me, who was court ordered. “"

That’s not inherently a bad thing, but it does affect chemistry, especially with other outspoken guys like Howard. Add to that that McHale has to decide how to stagger minutes between a great playmaker and a great defender at the point guard spot. Add to that the fact that Dwight Howard’s health is a question mark and role needs to be adjusted.

Add to that every other personality management and personnel decision McHale has to make.

While he may not be counted among the best of the coaches in the NBA, the Rockets can certainly win a title with him at the helm. It just depends on him making the right rotation and scheme decisions and managing the workplace well.

Of course, to some extent the same can be said for any team. Good coaches are a large part of making good teams. The specific combination of players on the roster make McHale’s coaching performance especially crucial.

He has to manage two guys who creating with the ball and balance that with several other guys who take spot-up shots but don’t do much else offensively. He has at least two young bigs who have seen improvement in their games but don’t have a real niche yet. His defensive anchor may be on the cusp of a career fall or a career renaissance.

His depth is made up of young talent with lots of potential but little experience.

Oh yeah, and he has to best at least two of the Warriors, Clippers, Spurs, and Thunder in the playoffs if he wants his team to play in the NBA finals for the first time under his tenure. This season is big for the Rockets and McHale, whose improving roster puts increasing pressure on him to porve that he is the correct manager for it.

Next: 25 Best Players To Play for the Houston Rockets

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