Last Thursday, the Houston Rockets were eliminated from the playoffs from a Kawhi Leonard-less San Antonio Spurs team in six games. While the Rockets had a potent and free flowing offense that featured a multitude of shots from deep, their defense, like a lot Mike D’Antoni teams, lacked effort on the defensive end. Subsequently, D’Antonio has some high aspirations for their defense moving forward and think they will improve.
Following from Jonathan Feigen of Houston Chronicle.
“The offense starts off, we just had one layer in, and it was pretty good, but we can add to that. Defensively is where we are going to make our most strides and, again, we are talking about being a top 10 (defense). That is the key.
“I guarantee we will get better.”
“You are selling trust,” D’Antoni said. “We developed a bond between the players and the coaching staff. (Assistant coach) Jeff Bzdelik has done an incredible job. In case you hadn’t noticed, we aren’t a very defensive-minded team, but Jeff is creating habits and that takes a while. That’s our next big step, and we will get better at that next year.”
It’s clear D’Antoni will use their second round elimination as a learning experience and improve upon aspects like defense that hindered them in the postseason.
