The Blazers won 63 games in the regular season in 1990-91, then reached the finals again in ’91-92. Portland ranked among the NBA’s top five scoring teams in each of Adelman’s first three seasons, but Drexler said Adelman never got his due for how well he coached defense.

“That’s why we won so many, we created offense from our defense,” he said. “Most teams never knew what hit them.”

Adelman has led five teams in his career that finished regular seasons ranked among the top five in scoring defense. Drexler said Adelman liked building a roster with “interchangeable” players, giving him more versatility to match up with teams, particularly at the defensive end.

With the Rockets, he’s lucky to have Shane Battier, who gamely guards each opponents’ best individual scorer, and Dikembe Mutombo, still a shot-blocking presence at age 41. He also has energetic forwards Luis Scola, Carl Landry and Chuck Hayes grabbing 17 rebounds per game.

At the start of this week, the Rockets ranked fourth in scoring defense (91.7 points per game), trailing only Boston, Detroit and San Antonio.

“As a team, they truly believe they all have a stake in this team winning,” Adelman said. “No one’s been down. If they haven’t played, they just keep playing. Sticking together as a team is about as true as you can get with this group.”

Adelman built the same team concept in eight years in Sacramento. He tweaked his motion offense with the help of former Princeton coach Pete Carril, but gave his players the freedom to improvise, like he did in Portland.

Houston point guard Bobby Jackson, who played in Sacramento from 2000-05, said the offense gave everyone a chance to score and that Adelman benched players who didn’t take advantage. The Kings led the NBA in scoring three straight seasons and reached 50 wins in five straight.

“His plays are not set for one player, they’re set for all five guys on the court,” said Jackson, who averaged 15 points per game in 2002-03. “And if you’re not shooting the ball, then you’re coming out of the game.”

Jackson came to Houston in a trade with New Orleans last month. Adelman hadn’t changed a bit.

“Sometimes, I don’t want to play point guard all the time. Sometimes, I need to be free, so I can be more aggressive,” Jackson said. “He gives me that freedom. He’s not like, ’No, this is my way.’ He adjusts. If his players say something isn’t going right, he’ll listen and make that change. That’s why players like him so much.”

The Rockets took a while to grasp Adelman’s system. They dropped six straight games in November and never won more than three in a row before the end of 2007.

Adelman kept promising his players that the offense, similar to what he ran in Sacramento, would eventually click.

“It’s not too hard for me to remember the way it was,” he said. “We were shooting very poorly, we were playing very inconsistent, we had a really difficult schedule, so we were just up and down, all over the place.”

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