- 15 hours ago
Seth and Sean discuss the disaster the Rockets have been over the past 4 weeks since the end of the All-Star break and what might actually fix the litany of issues.
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00:00This is, and this is one of those things, like, with each of these losses the Rockets have,
00:05and even some of the wins, like, I remember you and I coming in the day after that game
00:09where they beat Utah by 20, but they turned the ball over 27 times.
00:13I couldn't even be happy about a 20-point win.
00:15When they beat the Raptors, I almost got angry about the fact, I did that classic mistake
00:20of I complained about the thing I was asking for.
00:23They beat the Raptors basically because they didn't turn the ball over in the fourth quarter.
00:26Right.
00:26And you're like, okay, great.
00:27You see how simple it is?
00:28Yep.
00:29Just don't turn the ball over.
00:30Yeah, man.
00:31Just don't give them every single opportunity to dig themselves out of this.
00:35They did it, and then I found myself angry because it was the exception, not the rule.
00:39Yep.
00:39That I just want that more consistently replicated.
00:43This is the frustrating thing about the Rockets.
00:46The Rockets are 7-6 over the last four weeks, so that's not a catastrophic stretch of basketball.
00:52Good teams go 500 over the course of a month or so all the time.
00:56It happens.
00:57It's a long season.
00:58It's 82 games, so if someone had said, you know, the Rockets, if someone told me the
01:02Rockets are 7-6 over the past four weeks, I would have said, you're crazy.
01:05There's no way.
01:06It doesn't feel like that at all.
01:07Here's why.
01:08Why?
01:08Because the losses are just abysmal.
01:12Yeah.
01:13And even when they're competitive losses, they're against teams that there should be no business
01:17with that game being competitive.
01:19I'm just going to lay it out here.
01:20Lay it out.
01:21So, five of the six losses in that 7-6 stretch were these.
01:26They're all candidates at the time.
01:29I feel like after all of these, Seth, we said, that's the worst loss of the year.
01:34This is one you remember at the end of the year.
01:37If you don't make the playoffs or something, this is the one you'll remember.
01:40But it felt like we said this after all of these on the radio the next day or two days.
01:45It happened on the weekend two days later, whatever.
01:47And so, the ante kept getting up.
01:50February 21st, the Rockets blow an 18-point fourth-quarter lead against the New York Knicks.
01:55That's one you're going to remember at the end of the year.
01:57That is that category.
01:58That is that type.
01:59Yeah.
01:59You blow a lead like that.
02:01You lose by 40 to the Nuggets.
02:03I'm not going to remember.
02:04You just got blown out.
02:05But a game where you were the better team all night, but then you let Jalen Brunson go haywire.
02:10In the fourth quarter.
02:11So, that was on February 21st.
02:14Fast forward to March now, and these all happened in 11 days.
02:18Yeah.
02:18Within an 11-day period, these four things happen.
02:21Rockets lose in overtime at home to the Warriors without Steph Curry.
02:26That's right.
02:27Without Steph Curry.
02:28Three days later, the Rockets get blown out on their home court.
02:33Yeah, go ahead.
02:34Did you want to add something to that?
02:35Yeah, the Warriors game, though, especially.
02:36I think that was one where you could see, oh, okay.
02:38Because it wasn't just Steph that was out.
02:40It was a weakened Warriors team versus the Rockets.
02:45And it was so glaringly obvious that, oh, this isn't about the talent that's on the court.
02:50This is the Warriors being a more finely tuned machine and a better coached basketball team.
02:56Better coached, yes.
02:56Yeah.
02:57That it was just, it was glaring.
02:59The difference between the two teams because of the talent disparity was, it was stark.
03:05Spurs, 145.
03:06Rockets, 120.
03:08Three days later, the Rockets allowed 56 points in the paint and a 58% field goal percentage in that
03:16game.
03:16That one is, that's not the one that you point to at the end of the year as, oh, these,
03:21you know, these are the games you can't drop.
03:23This was more of a, oh, crap.
03:25Yeah.
03:26This is exactly what this team is right now.
03:28Like, this is, you can remember this game in terms of, yeah, the whole season that tells the story.
03:34Well, and that's the game, too, where you go, man, this was a team, we were both down and out
03:39three years ago.
03:40And we, they got Wemby, but we were the better team.
03:44We were two seed last year.
03:45They weren't even in the playoffs.
03:46Yeah.
03:46And we went and got Durant.
03:47Boy, this is what's going to hold them off.
03:49Like, oh, no, they just jumped right into the HOV lane and sailed past you in the Western Conference.
03:54So, that was that.
03:56Three days after that, Nuggets 129, Rockets 93.
04:00That's the game where I give myself credit that the Rockets were up by one late in the second quarter.
04:05But then by early in the third quarter, they were down by like 10.
04:08And I'm like, ooh, I know which way this one's going.
04:10That was a back-to-back where they had to go to Denver on a back-to-back.
04:14They got outscored, Seth, 87-50 to close out the game.
04:2087.
04:20That's not good, 87-50.
04:23And then the Lakers game the other night, which might be the most infuriating one out of all of them,
04:29because you scored 20 points in the final 17 minutes of the game.
04:33The Nuggets game, the 87-50 was over what course of time?
04:36Over the last however many minutes of the game.
04:38It was 43-42 late in the second quarter.
04:42Yeah.
04:42And the final score, Rockets 43, Nuggets 42, and they lost by 36.
04:48And then the, yeah, the scoring.
04:51And the Nuggets are not that great a team either.
04:54That's the thing.
04:54It's not the championship.
04:55I mean, they're about the same level as the Rockets right now, but it's not like they're OKC or something
05:00like that.
05:00The Lakers, the scoring 20 points in the final 16 minutes and 55 seconds of the game, that was the
05:08one that kept you up, right?
05:09That was the, that you just, you were angry.
05:12You were angry that you had to wake up on short sleep after having to watch just the complete non
05:17-effort.
05:17Yeah, just a shame.
05:18Really, after, and it was, there was something about that that still sticks in my craw that somehow the flagrant
05:23foul against Durant, which I'm actually fine with.
05:27Like, the explanation was that he, because he loaded up and, and, and launched himself into, what's his face there?
05:36Austin Reeves.
05:37White guy headband.
05:38Yeah, yeah.
05:39That, but that, all right, fine.
05:41You're not happy with a foul.
05:43Like, that's no excuse to just collapse completely and not score any more points the rest of the game.
05:48They were OKC as a team.
05:49That's, yeah, so that's the, and that's the juncture that I'm using for that 20 points.
05:54The score at that time, think about this.
05:56The score at that time was 72 to 66 Rockets with four minutes and 55 seconds left in the third
06:02quarter.
06:02You got five minutes left in the third quarter.
06:04You've scored 72 points.
06:06You should easily, at 72 midway through the third quarter, you should easily be hanging 115 points on the Lakers
06:12in that game.
06:13You scored 92, 92 points in the game.
06:17So that was a big turning point in the game, but that, and you could say it's a bad call,
06:21and I know you're, that's not what you're saying.
06:23I'm saying in general, I saw Rocket fans, it's a bad call.
06:25Even non-Rocket fans are saying, eh, kind of a bad call.
06:28That happens all the time in the NBA.
06:30That can't be a reason why you're just folding up tents, and you continue to play stupid basketball, and sail
06:36passes into the first row, and dribble into traffic.
06:39And the inability of Ime Udoka to come up with something to remedy a double team of Kevin Durant at
06:46the top of the three-point line is infuriating.
06:49Someone did a cut-up of all the Durant possessions in the second half of that game, and the Lakers
06:54are throwing double teams at Durant at about 30 feet out, you know, at the top of the three-point
06:58line there.
06:59And the Rockets are handling it like an eighth-grade team.
07:03They don't know what to do.
07:04It's crazy, man.
07:06So Ime's catching some right now, and he should.
07:08He should absolutely be catching some.
07:10The other, by the way, Fred VanVleet, one thing we didn't play from the other day was when he was
07:15on his podcast with Sarge the other day.
07:17Yeah.
07:18One of the things he had also said was, hey, some of those things we said about him potentially being
07:22back at the beginning of the season, or at the end of the season and everything,
07:25that was pre-surgery, and it felt like he threw some cold water on it.
07:32Oh, no.
07:34The quote was, I think a lot of the predictions of where I was going to be were made pre
07:37-surgery.
07:38So we've had to adjust the timeline as things go on.
07:40But, again, selfishly, I'm always going to keep my window open.
07:43I'm not going to come on here and tell you, oh, no, I'm not coming back, and then I come
07:47back like, oh, surprise.
07:49That feels like, you know, well, like, yeah, there's always a chance.
07:54Yeah.
07:55But it doesn't sound like anything imminent.
07:56No, and that's kind of how it felt at the time.
07:59Yeah.
07:59That's why I was surprised.
08:00It sounds like you said he used the word predictions there, a lot of the predictions.
08:04Because I don't know that anybody, I mean, maybe, look, he knows better than anybody what was being discussed in
08:09the rooms at the medical facility,
08:11way more than we do, obviously.
08:13But, I mean, you're somebody who's been through multiple ACL surgeries.
08:17Yeah, I've never played a single game as a point guard in the NBA.
08:20You've not.
08:21That's the big difference there.
08:22But you've done a rehab for the injury before, and I think you, I remember you pumping the brakes on
08:27that, I think,
08:28about any talk of him coming back in April for the postseason.
08:30I don't know.
08:31If anything, I guess, I just, I never.
08:35Have recovery times gotten shorter now?
08:37I was frustrated that so many people were ruling it out that he might come back.
08:41Yeah.
08:41Like, it's like, oh, don't, that's stupid.
08:43Yeah.
08:44Yeah, we've seen some pretty incredible comebacks, so I wouldn't ever rule it out.
08:48I think there's examples where you can find where guys come back very quickly, but it's the exception.
08:55And realistically, you shouldn't have ever hoped for him to come back, and I still wouldn't hope for it at
08:59this point.
08:59Yeah.
09:00But never say never, et cetera, et cetera.
09:02I think as an organization, unless it was like, I mean, it would be dicey.
09:06Seeing how bad it is right now without Fred VanVleet, I would be very, very, very careful about doing anything
09:15that's dicey at all in terms of creating a chance of re-injury.
09:19Yeah.
09:19Because if you end up without Fred VanVleet again next year, good luck.
09:25Yeah.
09:25Good luck with whatever the hell you're trying to do this year.
09:29You've got to do better than that.
09:30Absolutely.
09:31Absolutely.
09:32Someone's saying on the text page, boy, there's a lot of Rocket fans weighing in.
09:35The Lakers game could have been the only game you watched this year, and you'd know exactly what everybody's been
09:40talking about all year with the Rockets.
09:42It was an extreme version of it, no doubt, but it was.
09:45The issue with this team this year is it turns the ball over way too much.
09:49It has no idea how to initiate a watchable offense, and the defense has just been tamped back.
09:56They're not an awful defensive team, but they hung their hat on defense and offensive rebounding last year, and they're
10:03just not great at those things anymore.
10:05And they need to be, unfortunately.
10:06Especially without Steven Adams.
10:06That's correct.
10:08I feel like Steven Adams is kind of the forgotten man when it comes to, all right, what worked for
10:13the Rockets last year?
10:14It included Steven Adams being just an absolute demon on the boards.
10:19And that's what made up for some of your poor shooting, and that, like, you've already lost Fred Van Vliet.
10:25Then Steven Adams ends up going out, and nothing that was working last year is out there on the court,
10:31or two huge chunks of what was working last year are not on the court.
10:35No.
10:35Last thing before we hit the break, text message, base power text line.
10:38Sean, I've been a Rocket fan since Slick Watts, Billy Paltz, and Murph.
10:42I'm with Murph, Calvin Murphy, all caps.
10:45This is the worst I've ever seen.
10:46Poor Calvin Murphy, Seth.
10:48I stayed up and watched the postgame, too, the other night after that Lakers game.
10:52This Rockets team is going to kill Calvin Murphy.
10:55Oh, no.
10:56It's going to kill Calvin Murphy, even more than the Steven Silas bad teams did.
11:00Because this is a talented team that's not fulfilling its potential, and it's doing so.
11:05And keep in mind, Calvin's an old point guard.
11:08Calvin is watching this team turn the ball over 25 times in the most idiotic ways possible.
11:13I don't think I've ever seen Calvin Murphy.
11:15And, again, I'm including the bad years.
11:17I don't think I've ever seen Calvin Murphy as depressed on a postgame show as he was on Monday night
11:22after that Lakers game.
11:22When your expectations, it's always expectations that lead to the most misery.
11:26Absolutely.
11:27When you're not living up to expectations.
11:28Correct.
11:29Or you let your hopes get up, and then you see him dash against the rocks.
11:33That's tough, man.
11:33It's tough.