How the best Houston Rockets defensive duo compares to the NBA’s best - Space City Scoop

Houston Rockets P.J. Tucker Robert Covington (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)

The Houston Rockets’ signing of Robert Covington created one of the NBA’s most versatile defensive duos, so how do they measure up with best in the league?

When the season first began, the Houston Rockets didn’t quite have an identity. The team was always toward the top of the league in various offensive categories and toward the middle or bottom on defense. Behind James Harden and Russell Westbrook, the Rockets held their own but still didn’t have a calling card.

Sometimes Mike D’Antoni would have Danuel House in the starting lineup. Other times, Eric Gordon would get the nod. After some injuries, Ben McLemore even got some time as a starting guard. All along, Houston was playing a variation of small ball that was being partially canceled out by the talented, yet tall, Clint Capela.

The result was a jumbled lineup that could do a little bit of everything on both ends but not exceptionally well. The moves Daryl Morey and the Rockets made at the trade deadline, however, changed all of that.

By bringing in Robert Covington, DeMarre Carroll and Jeff Green, the Rockets effectively tripled down on small ball and haven’t looked back since. By letting their 6-10 center go for a 6-7, 3-and-D swingman, Houston essentially told the league “this is who we are now.”

While many initially thought Houston would struggle with bigger teams and would have to adjust, it’s been opponents that have been unable to adjust to their swarming defense, brilliant spacing and fiery hot shooting. The Rockets’ versatility at all times has allowed them to thrive in team defense, but still, two defenders stand out from the pack.

P.J. Tucker has always been a defensive powerhouse capable of staying in front of smaller guards while also not allowing bigs to push him around inside. While Tucker has strength and toughness, Robert Covington has demonstrated amazing anticipation, speed and ability to recover on what seem like easy drives past him.

The two have skill sets that go together perfectly for a Rockets team that needs all hands on deck to stop quick guards like Ja Morant as well as big centers like Rudy Gobert. While they’ve only been able to play together for eight games, the promise they show as a duo tells me they could become one of the deadliest defensive duos in the NBA very soon.

Since ultimately basketball is still a team sport, I looked at the top five defensive teams in the NBA when sorted by defensive rating, which were the Clippers, Celtics, Lakers, Raptors and Bucks (sorted from fifth to first). From there, I wanted to get an idea of who the top duos were defensively for each of those teams when it came to their combined defensive rating.

To filter for outliers like Alex Caruso and JaVale McGee having an 82.9 defensive rating (they’ve only played 89 total minutes together), I made the requirement for these purposes that any given duo on these teams must have played at least 700 minutes together this season.

This is more of a statistical breakdown and not necessarily my opinion, however, I can’t argue much with what resulted from the research either way. Here’s how it all shook up: