Lance Thomas played great defense Saturday night against the Rockets. He's had a few games like that this year. Lance makes the occasional mistake, and on offense he moves as if navigating through shrubs, but the dude is versatile and vivacious as a stopper of all kinds. I have literally a dozen videos sitting on my desktop now of Lance singlehandedly snuffing out Rockets plays, but instead of replaying half the game, let's just focus on 5 very solid Lance moments in the path of James Harden. Harden is clever and elusive and deadly ... and Lance kinda locked him up more than he didn't:
I see great help, I see fighting over screens, I see fast-shuffling feet against a smaller and very slippery ball-handler, and I see decent contests even as Harden crosses over and fades away.