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00:00All right, it's that time, 440 on a Wednesday.
00:03Brandon Scott is in the building right there.
00:06You hear him all over the station.
00:07He was on yesterday all day on In the Loop.
00:10Him and Reggie was getting it in, and he's on with us every single Wednesday
00:14for his Rockets Report.
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00:26That's right.
00:26All right, B. Scott, what would you say, how would you describe the Rockets?
00:32I don't want to say first half.
00:34Obviously, we passed the halfway point in terms of games, but all-star break.
00:39How would you assess their first part of the season?
00:43I would call it inconsistent.
00:46I would assess it as disjointed, especially on the offensive end of the floor.
00:50I mean, you think about it.
00:51I mean, they've almost had two or three seasons within one.
00:55And just, you know, at the all-star break, right?
00:58You know, you've got the era where Steven Adams is a part of things,
01:01and they even start off with the double-big lineup because they had tapped into that last year.
01:06And then they kind of go away from that a little bit.
01:09Reed Shepard starts to shine some, and it looks like they found something in that.
01:13But then they start to go away from that a little bit.
01:15And so it's really just been, I would say, disjointed, inconsistent.
01:21I mean, they had a stretch there early in the season when they were one of the better offenses in
01:26basketball.
01:27They were, yeah, top five offense.
01:28Now, the thing about it is a lot of that was predicated on them being able to get extra shots,
01:32being able to create extra shots through their offensive rebounding,
01:35which they are not that same type of team anymore, even though they're still pretty good at that.
01:40They're just not special at that in the way that they were before.
01:42And so now a lot of their shortcomings in the half court are being exposed
01:47because they struggle to generate quality shots, right?
01:51Like giving the ball to Kevin Durant in and of itself can be a quality shot, right,
01:56because he's Kevin Durant.
01:57But what happens when they double-team Kevin Durant and you don't have a counter or an answer
02:01or you don't have players that exactly know what they're supposed to do in that situation?
02:06Should they have a counter?
02:07Do you think they have enough out there to have a counter or an answer when the stuff like that
02:11happens?
02:12I think they should have a counter, yeah.
02:14Yeah, no, absolutely.
02:15It's not lack of players or lack of guys they have.
02:18Look, they are lacking some guys, right?
02:21Like they have Fred Van Vliet out.
02:24They have Steven Adams out.
02:25They have Dorian Finney-Smith who's been on like some kind of ramp up for, you know,
02:30almost two months now but has not really lived up to what I think the expectation was for them.
02:36And so, I mean, I've been saying this for a while now.
02:38Everything about the season lies on and relies on this group of young players, right,
02:45starting with Alper and Shingun, the star of them, but then the other four, right?
02:49Like those are the guys that get the bulk of the minutes for them now,
02:52and those are the guys that absolutely got to step up.
02:54And so is it a matter of a question of how good are those guys?
02:58Yeah, that's fair enough.
02:59But those are the guys that absolutely got to step up at this point.
03:01Well, all of them aren't going to step up, B. Scott.
03:03We ain't living that damn good.
03:04Tell me what is – who do you feel like in all of your studies and watching
03:09and analyzing this stuff, who's the one that can step up
03:12and make the biggest change this season sooner rather than later?
03:16Well, I do think it starts with Alper and Shingun because he hasn't been playing
03:19at that level that he was playing at early in the season, right?
03:21Like if you look at one of the major differences between early Rockets
03:25that looked like they were right there with the best in the Western Conference
03:27and the Rockets right now that look like they're kind of second tier
03:30to the best in the Western Conference, I think it's the quality of play
03:33from Alper and Shingun on both ends of the floor.
03:36I mean, he had been hurt, but to his credit, he is not using that as an excuse,
03:40and so I'm not going to try to use it for him.
03:43He absolutely just has to play better, and to his credit,
03:45I think he was playing better a little bit there toward the end of the break,
03:48but the free throw shooting is down.
03:50Pretty much everything with Alper and Shingun is down except for the rebound, right,
03:55which has been pretty consistent throughout the year.
03:57But everything else, shooting percentage, any of the nerd numbers that you want to find,
04:01it's all down with Alper and Shingun.
04:02So that has to change first and foremost, I think, before anything,
04:05and that's one of the young guys right there.
04:07And then I will point to Reed Shepard as somebody that absolutely needs to be utilized,
04:12I think not just in a different way, but more so just more confidently, I think.
04:17Like they just need to kind of lean into it more
04:20and not think of ways and reasons to play him off the floor
04:24or to allow the other team to play him off the floor.
04:26Like you just got to fight through it, whatever the struggle is,
04:30through good and bad with Reed Shepard,
04:31because I don't think you can afford to really not have him out there
04:35in critical stretches like they did in that last game against the Clippers.
04:39So those are the two key ones that I will point to.
04:41So I think you need all the rest of them to play well as well
04:43or at least play well within their roles.
04:46But when you talk about key roles, key guys,
04:48it's Alper and Shingun playing again at an all-NBA level like he was before
04:52and Reed Shepard being more involved in the half-court offense.
04:55How much of Shingun's slippage, if you will,
04:58how much of that is just not playing well
05:01and how much of it is a different scheme,
05:04different headliner in Kevin Durant,
05:07like the change in scenery, if you will, around him?
05:09How much of it, when you watch it, how much of it is one versus the other?
05:12See, I would be able to lean more into the change in scenery thing
05:15if he wasn't playing so well in the beginning, right?
05:18It's not like he, you know, you struggled first
05:21and then he started playing well and kind of got adjusted.
05:24I probably would have been able to say that early in the season.
05:27Right.
05:27But they seem to be playing well or just fine together early on in the season.
05:31I don't think with those two, it's a matter of fit, really.
05:34Now, I will point to this, though, when it comes to Shingun.
05:36You do kind of have a little bit of a paradox.
05:38You're going on with fit, right?
05:40When you talk about on both ends of the floor,
05:43Alper Shingun and Reed Shepard on the defensive end of the floor,
05:46now you got at least one and a half to two liabilities defensively, right?
05:51Alper Shingun and Amin Thompson on the offensive end of the floor.
05:55Now you got two guys that clog up or mess up your spacing
05:57and neither one can really shoot the ball.
05:59And so I will point to that as an issue of fit
06:03and something that I think further down the line
06:05is something that the Rockets themselves are going to have to really contend with
06:08and think about.
06:09Like, how do we make the most of our pieces and make them fit together?
06:12I know, B. Scott, with this Rockets report,
06:15I know you kind of alluded to he wasn't on the floor
06:18with two seconds left down by three.
06:21Insane.
06:22He wasn't on the floor for the bulk of the fourth quarter
06:25when their offense was cratering.
06:26But specifically at that point when he was five from ten from three that night.
06:30And I know he wasn't on the floor then.
06:32Will he be starting the game against the Hornets tomorrow?
06:35And do you think that is a change that they're willing to make?
06:39They've run a bunch of starting lineups out there,
06:42so I wouldn't say it would surprise me.
06:44But if you're just asking me straight up,
06:45do I think he started tomorrow?
06:46I don't think that's the move.
06:48I don't think that's the move.
06:48I think Tarry Eason is going to start,
06:50especially coming off the All-Star break.
06:51I mean, Tarry Eason, if it was a back-to-back, right,
06:54and Tarry doesn't always play those,
06:56he started to actually more recently.
06:58But if it was the back-end of a back-to-back,
07:00maybe I could see Reid starting.
07:01Of course, Reid started at Oklahoma City game
07:04when Amin Thompson was dealing with an illness or whatever it was.
07:07But if I had to just go straight off of knowledge and belief,
07:12I would say that the starting lineup is going to include Tarry Eason
07:15and not Reid Shepard.
07:16The issue for me, though, is is he going to close games when it's tight?
07:20That's what I'm curious about.
07:20That's what I was going to ask.
07:21If Reid Shepard is not going to get inserted into the starting lineup,
07:25and we were talking about this earlier,
07:27it feels like the Rockets,
07:29they've got to make some sort of an adjustment of what they're doing
07:32because they can't just roll out what they've been doing.
07:35They've got to adjust in some way.
07:37What adjustments do you think can be made watching this team
07:41to improve what they're doing,
07:42to get themselves back into a space where you feel like they can compete
07:46with the Denvers and the OKCs and those teams above the Spurs?
07:50Yeah, I'll give them credit over the last couple of games or so.
07:54I thought they've done a better job with moving without the basketball.
07:57That's really the main thing that I think makes their half-court offense
08:01so stagnant and their spacing is messed up.
08:04Some of the things that I just talked about a moment ago
08:06with having a men, Thompson, and Alper and Shingun out there together.
08:10But I would say the one thing I would point to is, again,
08:13the leaning into Reid Shepard and the two-man game.
08:16I talked about this last week when I was in here.
08:18The two-man game between Reid Shepard and Alper and Shingun,
08:20we haven't seen, I think, enough of it.
08:23I think that's something that they need to lean more into.
08:26And then, of course, the stuff that I talked about
08:28as far as them moving without the basketball,
08:30not being stagnant on the offensive end of the floor
08:32and just standing around.
08:33How much of standing around and watching do we see
08:36whenever either Alper and Shingun or especially when Kevin Durant
08:39has the basketball?
08:40So if they can just do a little bit more for that.
08:42Honestly, a lot of this, I haven't probably said this enough,
08:46a lot of this, to me, is on MAU-Doka to come up with these answers.
08:50Like, we can sit up here and talk about it, and it's fun to do.
08:53But MAU-Doka is the one whose job it is to actually come up with these answers.
08:57And so far, I don't think they've done a good enough job of coming up.
09:01They've played well enough to be the fourth seed
09:03and to be kind of right there in the mix.
09:06But what's going to set them apart
09:07or what's going to put them up there with that upper echelon?
09:09I think they could use a boost in coaching.
09:13Yeah, look, you went the direction I wanted to ask you about.
09:16It's really just a general question of how much pressure
09:21in the rest of this 2026 season,
09:23how much pressure is on MAU-Doka to make a difference.
09:27Obviously, make some moves, make some adjustments,
09:30but really make a difference here.
09:32How much pressure do you think is on the head coach?
09:33It's funny, man, because pressure is an interesting word
09:35because he's a made man here now, right?
09:37Like, he got that extension last year, whenever it was,
09:40but it was ahead of the time when they really needed to give him one, right?
09:43Like, he basically got an early extension,
09:46and I think, therefore, was in power.
09:48I don't think there's any question, like, in the front office
09:50or within the organization about MAU-Doka
09:53or if they flame out in the playoffs and don't win a playoff series
09:56like I'm expecting them to do.
09:57If they don't do that, I don't think he's under any real kind of pressure.
10:02But in terms of accountability and responsibility
10:05and whose job it is, I cannot stress enough.
10:07Like, pressure be down, pressure or not.
10:10Like, I do think it is on him.
10:12Once you lose leaders like Fred Van Vliet and Steven Adams
10:17and, of course, Dylan Brooks is gone,
10:19but when there's a leadership vacuum there
10:20and all you really got is Kevin Durant and a bunch of young guys,
10:24to me, that puts coaching at all the more of a premium,
10:28and I think that puts all the more accountability on MAU-Doka,
10:31whether the front office or the ownership want to hold them accountable or not.
10:35So I'm looking at MAU-Doka for sure.
10:37Real quick, their ceiling to you right now is what?
10:40So, I mean, I'm picking them to win a playoff series,
10:44like be either that third or fourth seed,
10:46probably that fourth seed right where they are,
10:48and to win a playoff series.
10:50I think their actual ceiling, depending on how it shakes out,
10:52because it is such a quagmire, depending on who beats –
10:56it's a bloodbath, right?
10:57Yeah.
10:57So depending on who beats who, they could win two playoff series
11:00and find themselves in the conference finals.
11:02Do I think they've got enough to go through any combination of Denver,
11:09OKC, San Antonio?
11:11No.
11:12No.
11:12Could they arrive in a situation where they're playing one of them
11:15in the conference finals?
11:16Sure.
11:17But are they going to get past all of those teams?
11:19I don't think so.
11:20So the ceiling technically is probably the conference finals,
11:22but I'm going to say probably the semifinals is more realistic.
11:25I like them in the semis as long as they avoid Minnesota in the first round.
11:30That's going to be a tough one.
11:32That's going to be –
11:33If they like 3-6 or 4-5 and it's Minnesota,
11:36I think they'll beat the Lakers.
11:39I think they'll beat the Lakers, but if it's like Minnesota,
11:42it's like that one makes me a nervous.
11:44That one makes me a nervous.
11:44That one makes me a nervous.
11:46That's a series that would make me nervous.
11:47The teams that are not as good as them,
11:49which I think are Minnesota and the Lakers,
11:52do both have proven playoff performers, right?
11:56Like guys who you know you can go to in the half court.
11:58Now, I don't understand that the Rockets got Kevin Durant,
12:00but we've seen it work before in Minnesota.
12:03I share that concern even though I would pick the Rockets in that series.
12:07All right.
12:07That's B. Scott every Wednesday, 440, his Rockets report.
12:11We appreciate you stopping by.
12:13We'll see how this first week back gets when we talk to you next Wednesday.
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