The Rockets nearly shocked the basketball world last year by taking the Golden State Warriors to the brink of elimination. And despite losing a few pieces in free agency, they made some new additions as well and are gearing up for another run at a championship.

Chauncey Billups thinks their defense will be replaced by new additions like James Ennis and Michael Carter-Williams, but Paul Pierce isn’t so sure.

“They’ll be great offensively again, but I do think they take a defensive drop. The guys that left or went somewhere in free agency were pretty good defenders,” Pierce said. “It’s going to be all about individual defense. They lost two great individual defensive players.”