The Houston Rockets lost 111-99 to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night. The standout matchup of the evening was Spurs “center” Victor Wembanyama guarding Rockets “guard” Amen Thompson. Thompson was unable to punish the assignment because of his lack of a three-point shot. Does the issue spell doom for Houston?
Do Houston Rockets Have a Wemby Or a Thompson Problem?
Thompson’s stats on the night, for the most part, don’t look too bad. The six-foot-seven wing/guard hybrid was Houston’s leading scorer with 25 points on 11-of-23 shooting. He also had seven rebounds, four assists, four steals, a block, and only two turnovers. Despite that, the Rockets went -15 in his 36 minutes of action. Partly, that’s due to his very telling 0-for-0 from the three-point line.
But Thompson doesn’t normally take a lot of threes at just 1.8 per game. And of those he does attempt, he converts on just 19.3% of them. And yet he still averages 18.3 points per game on decent efficiency (thanks to a starkly contrasting 80.2% from the free throw line). Even against Wembanyama, Thompson was enjoying success as a pick-and-roll ball handler with the oft-forgotten Clint Capela, of all people, as the roll man. But Wembanyama was defending the play as a traditional drop big.
The Spurs made the strategic adjustment to put their alien superstar center on Thompson directly at the end of the second quarter. That is, to nominally have Wembanyama on Thompson, but mainly so that he could ignore him and act as a roamer instead. Thompson was left wide open on the perimeter but couldn’t make San Antonio pay. It resulted in an immediate stop, and they stuck with it for the second half. As a result, Thompson went from a 5-of-7 first half to a 6-of-16 second. Wembanyama (28 points, 16 rebounds) had 4 of his 5 blocks in the second half.
Seen That Somewhere Before
The Rockets have actually seen something very similar before. Spoilers — it didn’t end well for them that time. In 2020, the Rockets had just swapped Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook and were experimenting with “micro-ball.” The whole rotation was six-foot-eight or under. Westbrook essentially played as a center on offense. It worked well and got the Rockets to fourth in the Western Conference. Then they ran into Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Davis was able to roam off of Westbrook and still contain his driving threat on the ball. Westbrook averaged just 19.8 points on 42.4% shooting for the series. That was after a 27.2 points per game on 47.2% regular season. Westbrook was traded that offseason, and Houston’s title-contending window with James Harden was closed. Now, Rockets fans are watching the same thing with Thompson.
Rockets Adjustments To Wemby On Thompson Type Defenses
Despite the Rockets’ ill fortune, it’s worth noting that Wembanyama and Davis are two of the most versatile defensive bigs the league has ever seen. Most teams don’t have a seven-foot-five to eight-foot wingspan center who can also move his feet on the perimeter.
Even so, other teams will still probably try to replicate San Antonio’s strategy. It’s made especially viable by the way that heavyset wings are allowed to defend Houston center Alperen Sengun in the post. Houston’s previous counter to the strategy was to roll out Steven Adams in double-big line-ups. With both Adams and Sengun to check on the offensive glass, there simply weren’t the big bodies to spare to have roaming off of Thompson.
Even if a pure-blooded Plutonian like Wembanyama proves essential for the strategy to function, Houston may still have a problem. San Antonio has been in a slight slump of late that shockingly wasn’t corrected by Wembanyama’s barbershop antics. But despite being 6-4 in their last 10, they’re still second in the Western Conference. The Spurs are a team that the Rockets would possibly have to get through for any serious run in the playoffs. With the devastating impact of the Wembanyama-Thompson matchup, that could be tough.
But the Rockets’ problem is probably less to do with Thompson or Wembanyama specifically and more that they only have two genuinely respected shooters on the roster. On top of that, one of them is Reed Sheppard, whom head coach Ime Udoka doesn’t seem to know, or want to figure out, how to use.
Houston’s best shot at adding much-needed dynamism to its offense would be a trade before the deadline. So far, there’s no sign it will happen. Going back to the question, then, Houston might just have a front office problem instead.
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