How Jalen Green And The Houston Rockets Exploded To Win Game 2

In what was likely the finest game of his career, given the stakes and the opponent, Jalen Green’s most illuminating moment may have been a nondescript jumper amid a 19-point rout. On the night, Green exploded for 38 points, six assists (two turnovers), four rebounds and three steals to help the Houston Rockets batter the Golden State Warriors, 109-94, and knot the series 1-1. He detonated a highlight-reel dunk, converted a few silky finishes and poured in eight long balls.

But early in the third quarter, with 18 points already on his ledger, Green found himself isolated against Moses Moody in the right corner. He pondered and deliberated about a downhill dash or in-your-eye triple, perhaps emboldened to exercise a bit of freedom the prolific start provided him. Instead, he relented and swung the ball back toward Alperen Şengün before flowing into a dribble handoff, which sprung him free for a rhythmic pull-up jumper.

The entire play felt emblematic of why Green thrived Wednesday night and tilted this series back to even ahead of Saturday’s Game 3. It made clear how he rebounded from a disastrous Game 1 defined by 3-of-15 shooting, erratic, desperate drives to the rim and tsk tsk tsk decision-making. Green played with poise to pursue ideal decisions, received plenty of space-carving picks from teammates and found far more room to operate than Sunday — all of which was evident on the sequence above.

Short on interior size and traditional rim deterrence, the Warriors employ an aggressive scheme encouraging strong-side help rotations with the intention to shut off the rim and generate turnovers. During the regular season, they allowed the league’s lowest rim frequency and finished fourth in turnover rate, according to Cleaning the Glass.

What Changed For Green?

That strategy flummoxed Green in Game 1. He often attacked the lane hoping to score, only to be met my handsy, physical defenses liable to exploit his lack of core strength and dexterous handle. Sunday, he recorded 13 drives, was 2-of-9 from the floor on them, scored five points and didn’t produce any assists on those forays, per NBA.com. Wednesday, he recorded 11 drives, was 3-of-5 on them, scored 10 points and dished out an assist.

The fourth-year guard appeared far more ready for Golden State’s wave of bodies pouncing on his paint touches. Whether it be getting off the ball earlier as a playmaker to locate cutters and spot-up shooters or slowing down to navigate for his own chances, he brought newfound composure absent three days prior.

In general, that composure sat at the heart of his facilitating. While none of his six assists were eye-popping reads — a couple were pretty nice, though — he demonstrated dominion over these possessions in a way he did not to open the series. When he has space, his explosion is such a devastating threat for defenses, even more so against one wired to load the paint, wall off the hoop and mitigate their rim protection foibles.

Despite allowing the lowest rate of shots around the rim this year, the Warriors were just 22nd in field goal percentage there. They recognize the importance of preventing shots inside and defend accordingly. Help will come on paint touches. Green did not maneuver that help well in Game 1. He did in Game 2.

Adjustments From The Rockets

A shift in Green’s internal approach offensively was accompanied by a schematic one from the Rockets. Most relevantly, they prioritized Green’s on-ball usage and initiated his pick-and-rolls from farther out. According to Synergy, he logged seven pick-and-rolls in Game 1 (0.333 points per possession) and 13 in Game 2 (1.556 PPP).

With those pick-and-rolls, they sought to feature Golden State’s non-Draymond Green bigs, who are significantly less mobile than the former Defensive Player of Year and struggled to cover all the necessary ground. The objective was to have Green target slow-footed centers rather than Stephen Curry, who stonewalled and flustered the young guard a few times in Game 1 when hunted in isolation. Houston’s centers typically began sets near the paint and moseyed up toward Green with their towering defenders behind the play, out of position and unable to punctually react or contain the Rockets’ vibrant 23-year-old.

Doing so thrust Golden State’s big men into duties beyond their scope, gave Green a greater runway to leverage his explosiveness and empowered him with more space to survey help defenders before executing wise decisions. Rookie Quentin Post was the primary culprit, but Kevon Looney did not emerge unscathed either. And the Warriors’ tweak to open with Draymond on Amen Thompson in Game 2 rather than again sticking him on Şengün amplified the impact of the Rockets’ adjustments.

A nuclear shooting display certainly made it easy to keep feeding Green the ball, but Houston trusted him from the outset to shepherd its offense and he delivered all night. His touches spiked from 56 in Game 1 to 85 in Game 2, per NBA.com, and he rarely settled for cumbersome, acrobatic midrange looks. Twenty-two of his 25 field goals came at the rim or from deep, compared to just 10 of 15 in Game 1. His 18 3-pointers established a new career-high, while the eight makes tied a career-high.

Green’s shot-making and sound playmaking are imperative for any of these gambits to pan out. But the Rockets also roster a cadre of sturdy screeners like Şengün, Steven Adams, Fred VanVleet and Amen Thompson, all of whom helped him establish mismatches, turn the corner toward open real estate and even bury a catch-and-shoot corner three. Şengün and Adams were the most popular benefactors, regularly enveloping Green’s defender and masking the angle of screens to confuse the trailing big — traits that simplified life for Green.

During the regular season, Houston was eighth in screen assists (8.7) and 10th in points via screen assists per game (21.4), according to NBA.com. Those numbers shrunk to three and six, respectively, in Game 1. Wednesday night, the Rockets returned to their mauling ways. They tallied 13 screen assists and scored 34 points off of them. Through 16 playoff games league-wide, 34 is the second-most points a team has notched in a game via screen assists.

What Does Green’s Performance Mean Going Forward?

As the evening progressed and Houston’s game-plan consistently proved fruitful, the Warriors adapted away from their high drop and at-level coverage. They tried pre-switching Post out of the action or simply switched Post onto the perimeter to keep Green in front. They mixed in a few hard blitzes to coax the ball one away toward lesser offensive talents, hell-bent on preventing short-roll chances behind their traps.

Like most of Green’s most splendid outings, the 3-ball was crucial. Its mercurial nature is central to his topsy-turvy NBA experience. This was an intersection of white-hot shooting and improved decision-making. Golden State will probably bank on a regression to the mean with his scoring and avoid implementing anything too drastic for Game 3.

A pivot to trapping against an inconsistent initiator would hand this creaky offense built-in 4-on-3 advantages, which seems irresponsible and unnecessary. I do anticipate more pre-switching and outright switching on those high ball-screens, though, particularly whenever Post is involved. He drilled four threes in Game 2 and his offensive punch remains a diverse look for the Warriors’ defensive-minded front-court, so trimming his minutes could be risky and is likely not preferable.

Plus, they’ll probably aim to give Draymond more opportunities as a direct ball-screen defender. He seemed far less involved in that manner Wednesday than Sunday. Houston’s limited ing and offensive personnel invite pretty flexible defensive configurations throughout possessions without being burned. The Warriors should capitalize.

Dialing up the point-of-attack pressure to prod at his poor strength and handle, as they did in Game 1, could work. Green was too comfortable flowing into the offense. Although, Jimmy Butler’s injury probably discouraged some of that pressure because it removed an elite help defender on the backline to cover for perimeter breakdowns. His status is, of course, vital for numerous reasons, this one included.

For Green and Houston, meanwhile, the key is sustaining the process of it all. He will not suddenly turn in a bunch of a career-best showings because he can now diagnose and punish Golden State’s help rotations. But he must avoid the capitulation of Game 1.  The Rockets are good enough to win this series if he plays like he has throughout the season — a midpoint of his extremes through two playoff games.

They went 52-30 with his full skill-set of superlatives and warts suiting up each night. They don’t need 38-6-4-3 on 70 percent true shooting from him to snatch three more wins in five tries. They do, however, need a version of Green who reliably sprinkles in the many aspects of that effort. Credible floor-spacing. Shrewd shot selection and ing. Impactful paint touches. Feisty, competitive defense.

The path to that does not demand 38 points and eight threes. But reaching that path does feel necessary for the Rockets to nab their first playoff series in five years. Green is integral to accomplishing it, just as Games 1 and 2 have loudly, contrastingly reinforced.