How the Houston Rockets spoiled LeBron’s Lakers home debut
By T.A. Mock
PJ Tucker has officially taken over as the Rockets defensive ace
We’ve discussed it before, as have countless other media sources. The Houston Rockets experienced a ton of personnel turnover this offseason, including two of their defensive aces that made this defense great last year.
Trevor Ariza signed a huge one year deal with the Suns and expressed some frustration in his departure. Luc Mbah a Moute left this squad after one year and returned back to his former team, the Clippers, who the Rockets will face next in Los Angeles.
That led many to believe the Rockets defense would take several steps back and be nowhere near the level they played at all year long last season. They tried to prevent this by adding James Ennis and explored several trade options though none came to fruition. Fortunately, the guy they needed was on the roster all along. PJ Tucker was ready to step up and take on those near impossible assignments.
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His first assignment of this type was last night against the Lakers. Tucker was tasked with guarding LeBron from the word go. Before we get further into this, guarding LeBron is virtually impossible as he can do anything on offense, drive and dunk, spot up from deep, I mean anything.
Fortunately, Tucker is uniquely equipped to guard an offensive attack like this. He isn’t super tall but he is stout so he can grind in the post. He is also extremely quick and agile so he can hang on the perimeter as well. He did a phenomenal job limiting LeBron.
LeBron had 24 points but it took him 22 shots to get there. He also attempted seven threes but only made one of those. So the basic counting stats look fine but he was wildly inefficient and you can attribute a lot of that to the hounding defense Tucker played all night, including shutting him down in the fourth quarter…