- 2 days ago
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00:00It's really a good thing that we've got an NBA team that's just so riveting right now.
00:04I know. If you need somebody that you can really latch your hopes and dreams to,
00:07just get aboard that train and watch the – how many straight times have the Rockets beat the –
00:14excuse me, the Lakers beat the Rockets.
00:16Oh, I don't know. Well, the Rockets beat them earlier this year.
00:19This was for the tiebreaker between the two teams.
00:22Oh, you know what? In my mind, it's – you know what's screwing me up, Sean?
00:26Because I read this right beforehand, and you're right.
00:29Right. Like, obviously, they didn't get swept in the series.
00:31Yeah.
00:31But they keep putting it in articles and in the headlines,
00:37Lakers win their seventh straight versus the Rockets, which is a very confusing headline.
00:41Because it means that they've won seven straight.
00:43Yeah.
00:44It doesn't mean they've won seven straight matchups with the Rockets.
00:46No, no, just the last two have been with the Rockets.
00:48This is where sometimes when I read the paper, I'm like, I wish they would just all go to AI,
00:53because this doesn't make any sense.
00:54Right.
00:55AI would be like, that could be confusing, actually.
00:57Do you mean – yeah.
00:58Right. It should just say, Lakers beat the Rockets.
01:00This is their seventh straight win on the season.
01:03So, you're right. That wording is confusing.
01:06The thing about last night's game, aside from staying up for the whole damn thing again,
01:11I'm such a sap.
01:13124 to 116, if you're just getting up, the Rockets lose.
01:17This was just – you know, there's nothing about the way the Rockets play.
01:22I mean, look, it was still not a beautiful night offensively or anything like that.
01:26They only turned the ball over 11 times.
01:28You know, this isn't one of those Sean and Seth come in and we're lamenting a 27 turnover performance
01:35where 19 of the turnovers were live ball turnovers.
01:38It just – the guy got stripped at the top of the key and off the other team goes on
01:42a three-on-one the other way.
01:43They only turned the ball over 11 times.
01:44This was your garden variety loss, and this might be the most depressing part of all about all this
01:49because when you turn the ball over 20-some-odd times in a game, you can look at it and
01:53go,
01:53okay, well, just stop doing stupid things and you're going to be a pretty good basketball team.
01:57This is one where they fell behind – they didn't play very good defense in the first half.
02:01They gave up 67 points in the first half, and they were down by 11 at half.
02:06They bounced back.
02:07They took a lead in the fourth quarter.
02:09It was back and forth.
02:10And then their stars were better than our stars at the end of the game.
02:14It was just sort of your garden variety.
02:16Oh, okay, there's one more team that's in a seven-game series probably better than the Houston Rockets.
02:21If you weren't so disgusted with the Rockets as so many people are right now,
02:25I think you might look at that game.
02:27Let's say if it were happening earlier in the season or something,
02:31and Jabari Smith Jr. and Amon Thompson played well.
02:34Kevin Durant and the offense in general I think responded a lot better to when they doubled Durant.
02:41They got into some action, and it looked more like they knew what to do in those situations.
02:50So maybe that is – if you were going to try to be an optimist about this, okay,
02:55maybe there is some evidence that they're going to have a better plan or a better reaction to when teams
03:00do that,
03:01as they inevitably will versus Kevin Durant.
03:03But it just – it's also – it's the second time facing that team in three days,
03:08and maybe it's as simple as, okay, yeah, when they get a little preview of exactly how they might need
03:16to respond to it,
03:17then they can do it.
03:18Yeah, guess what?
03:18This is what every team's been doing against you.
03:20Get it better.
03:22Damn it.
03:22Well, and Kevin Durant was just – other than a burst early in the second half,
03:27he was kind of invisible out there.
03:29I mean, he only shot the ball 11 times.
03:31Kevin Durant took the fifth most field goal attempts of any – well, actually,
03:37still check that.
03:37Reed Shepard.
03:39Kevin Durant took the sixth most field goal attempts of anybody on the team.
03:42But I think that's a little bit, though, of how it's going to have to be at times
03:47when teams are focusing all their attention on Kevin Durant, which is going to happen,
03:52that, yeah, you've got to get the ball out of his hands and get other people involved.
03:56Yeah.
03:56Yeah.
03:56They're just – you felt it last night.
03:58They're not a very deep team.
04:00You know, Dorian Finney-Smith and Josh Akogi get the minutes they do.
04:04Clint Capella only played three minutes last night.
04:06Your number – your top guy off the bench right now, because Fred VanVleet's out for the season.
04:10Steven Adams is out for the season.
04:12Your top guy off the bench is an undersized guy who he's not knocking down his threes.
04:17Is – there's not much else he brings to the table in Reed Shepard.
04:22So, you know, he's 4-12 last night, 3-8 from three, you know,
04:26which 3-8's not horrible or anything like that.
04:28But it's just – the stars came out last night for the Lakers.
04:33They had Luka.
04:34LeBron dialed up a, you know, 2013 LeBron performance.
04:38LeBron was 13-14 from the field.
04:40And not all of those were dunks.
04:42He knocked down a couple big threes early in the game.
04:44Yeah.
04:45The first shot of the game.
04:46The first field goal attempt of the game was a corner three from LeBron James.
04:49He had 30 points last night on 13-14.
04:51DeAndre Ayton had 16 points on 8-10.
04:54And Luka was fantastic last night, including the daggers at the end of that game that took
04:59it from being a one-possession game to being a three-possession game.
05:02He had 40 points.
05:04I spent most of my night cursing Nico Harrison for trading Luka Doncic to the damn Lakers.
05:09Just because Doncic was there in his existence.
05:11Okay.
05:12Yeah.
05:13Yeah.
05:13So, fifth place right now, Seth.
05:16What's Nico doing now?
05:17Just collecting his guaranteed contract?
05:19Definitely doing that, for sure.
05:21Probably a consultant.
05:22That's usually what they do.
05:23They go find something to go consult people about.
05:24What he says on Wikipedia is that he's a basketball executive and former player who was president
05:32of basketball operations and GM of the Mavericks.
05:34Right, right, right.
05:35So, he's in limbo right at this moment.
05:37Yeah.
05:37Well, last night.
05:38Well, it's unfortunate, man.
05:40That's one reason not to go.
05:41That's one reason to live in fear of going viral with any kind of comment is that any
05:46fan base now knows him as the guy that acts like winning the lottery with a 2% chance of
05:51winning the lottery.
05:52It's the way to go.
05:53All part of the plan.
05:54Yes.
05:55Yeah.
05:56Mortgage paid.
05:57You can see what the vision was.
05:58Yep.
05:59It was for us to just have a ridiculously good stroke of luck in the lottery.
06:04Trade away, give away, give away an MVP candidate and then win Cooper Flagg in the lottery.
06:11Reed Blankenship met with the media yesterday, Seth, one of the newest Houston Texans, shifting
06:16gears away from that Rockets game last night.
06:18He jumped on a Zoom with a bunch of the media.
06:22And I like this.
06:23This is something you and I talked about earlier this week.
06:25Reed Blankenship had already kind of talked about coming to the Texans on his own podcast.
06:29This gave the Houston media a chance to ask some questions.
06:32And he talked about, he's already talked about this before that Zoom call, which was, hey,
06:36this is the first time I've really felt wanted in my entire football career, including getting
06:43recruited out of high school.
06:44He played at Middle Tennessee State and he was undrafted by the NFL.
06:47He talked about the phone call, the Zoom call that he had with D'Amico Ryans.
06:52I'm going through free agency, so I really didn't know how it worked.
06:55But my agent was giving me live updates and it seemed like Houston was always the top
07:02team keeping in contact with my agent.
07:06And I guess it's this new thing now where teams have the ability to call five players
07:13during the free agency.
07:14So I got a call from D'Amico and just hearing what he had to say and I could tell
07:23that he
07:23wanted me and I could tell that he really liked me as a player.
07:26And obviously we haven't met truly in person, but I feel like he knows what my character is
07:33and what my personality is.
07:35So you could tell that he really wanted me and really liked me.
07:38And after we hung up, I was with my wife and I'm like, I really feel like Houston really
07:45wants me.
07:46And that honestly felt like the first time in my whole career, NFL career, that somebody
07:52really wanted me as a player and as a person to come and perform for them.
07:56Okay.
07:56We should just real quick, Seth, we should lay out for people to know that what he's talking
08:00about with the five calls real quick.
08:03Before you weren't allowed to talk to any of the other team's free agents during the legal
08:06tampering period, it's called the Bill O'Brien rule.
08:09He couldn't talk to Brock Osweiler back in the day.
08:11Now you can have a Zoom call with up to five free agents from other teams.
08:15And he obviously was one of them for the Texas.
08:17So there's a little bit of a, oh, they really like me.
08:21I'm one of their top five guys that they'd like to discuss.
08:24Yes.
08:24In the pool of guys who aren't going to have a bunch of offers on the table, like immediately
08:28at 12.01 PM.
08:31That's cool.
08:31I would love to know who the other four, if the Texans used all five and who they were
08:36on, that would be really interesting to know.
08:38That part of it, though, too.
08:39I mean, a lot about Reed Blankenship totally fits the mold of the guys that they have in
08:44their secondary there.
08:45You want guys that are football junkies, guys that play the game a certain way, play with
08:49their hair on fire, is what D'Amico would always say that first couple of years.
08:52And I think he is that guy.
08:55The part, too, that I'm guilty of this is sometimes, I sometimes forget that D'Amico played
09:01a really good chunk of time there in Philadelphia.
09:04And it's with a different coaching staff and everything.
09:06Four seasons.
09:07Yeah, Howie Roseman was still there.
09:09So whatever intel perhaps that D'Amico might have had just from conversations with anybody
09:13at all in Philadelphia, the word of mouth is really good on Reed Blankenship.
09:18Oh, yeah.
09:18Yeah, yeah.
09:19But from Reed Blankenship's perspective, I think about this with David Montgomery.
09:24David Montgomery sounds really excited to come to Houston because he could tell from
09:29his experience just practicing against the Texans and then from watching him, that's the
09:33kind of environment he'd want to be in.
09:35And it seems like they've got a really good culture up there in Detroit.
09:38The Eagles are an interesting franchise because they've had a lot of success, but I couldn't
09:44tell you what their culture is in terms of, man, it seems like there's always drama.
09:48Yeah, it does.
09:50There might be a part of Reed Blankenship that he would never say this out loud, but
09:54it seems like everybody gets along down there.
09:57I know you don't hear a lot of reports about drama out of Philadelphia or out of Houston
10:01and everything.
10:02He's coming from a place where everybody just seems to be bipolar at any given time.
10:08The quarterback won't talk to anybody.
10:10The star receiver wants to get out.
10:13Sirianni is flipping out on fans and everything.
10:15He might just be like, hey, I'm just a nice kid from Tennessee that just wants to play
10:20football and not have to deal with all this stuff.
10:23Or it's like when you've been in a...
10:25You don't know anything else.
10:26You were born into a dysfunctional family.
10:29You don't really know anything else because he's only been on Philly his entire time in
10:33the NFL.
10:33And he has a conversation with Domega.
10:35Now it's like a new girlfriend or something.
10:36Like, wow.
10:37Her family is...
10:39They got their act together.
10:40They look at how they all like it.
10:41They like having dinner with each other.
10:43They spend holidays together.
10:44Yeah.
10:44My Lord.
10:45Yeah.
10:46He's probably going to show up kind of the first few days wondering, like, where's
10:49the...
10:49Where's the...
10:50Where's the next drama?
10:51Yeah.
10:51And everybody's going to be like, there's not really any much...
10:54All that much drama here, actually.
10:55Yeah.
10:55Yeah.
10:56Actually, yeah.
10:57And we actually had some drama last year.
10:59He was your predecessor from the Eagles that we acquired.
11:02That's right.
11:03Yeah.
11:03We got rid of him after three games.
11:05Yeah.
11:06And he goes, like, so you hang out with CJ, GJ a lot.
11:08What's the deal?
11:09Yeah.
11:09That was the first question on the Zoom call.
11:12Oh, man.
11:13Here's one more from Reed Blankenship saying, man, I can't believe I'm coming to play.
11:18This defense is legit.
11:19I've been watching them.
11:20Can't wait to play for them.
11:21Watching Houston fly around at times, I'm like, dang, this defense is legit.
11:28And, you know, fast forward to being able to play for y'all for them now.
11:33I'm like, man, it's crazy that somebody like a team like that wants me to come in and to
11:38perform at a high level.
11:40And, you know, it speaks volumes.
11:42I feel like with me coming into this defense, I feel like I can give everybody a sense of
11:48calmness.
11:50That's part of my game.
11:52I want to be the communicator out there.
11:54I don't want to step on anybody's toes at all, but I want everybody just to play free, you
11:59know, and play free, have fun.
12:01And at the end of the day, just go and hit dudes.
12:03You know, that's just part of defense.
12:06And I've always been coached like an old school type coach.
12:10And, you know, I've been born and raised to go run and hit dudes for a living.
12:14And so I feel like this is a great fit.
12:17I know there's a bunch of dogs in the secondary, linebackers, D-line everywhere.
12:22So I'm super, super excited, super stoked for this.
12:26I'm just ready to build that relationship between all the levels.
12:29Sounds like a guy who can't believe he's in the NFL still four years in.
12:33It is like that, though, too.
12:34I can remember even just when I came to Houston, I'd been in the NFL for five years, but you've
12:38only been on one team.
12:39And, you know, you talk to guys about what it's like elsewhere and everything.
12:42But you almost, I didn't feel like a real veteran until I got to a different team where
12:47all of a sudden people are looking at me like a veteran and the coaches are treating me
12:50like a veteran.
12:51And these aren't the guys that drafted me or anything.
12:54There's no dad strength or big brother strength from some of the older veterans.
12:58So it is, it's cool.
12:59It's cool.
13:00And a lot of guys go through that.
13:01I think the interesting thing about Blankenship is that he's coming from a scheme in Philadelphia
13:06where there is a huge emphasis on not allowing big plays.
13:09And so Vic Fangio is wired a little bit differently, you know, has a different philosophy without
13:16even getting into the scheme, just a different philosophy than D'Amico to a certain extent.
13:21And that's the one area where the Texans weren't elite last year amongst the really good defenses.
13:27They weren't, they did not, they were not as good as the other elite defenses at not allowing
13:33big plays.
13:33So Blankenship and coming in, maybe haven't been exposed to that world, maybe has a little
13:38bit of a different mindset and can balance some things out and add to the mix in that
13:43way.
13:44You know, like the Eagles last year, they weren't great at it.
13:46You know, they had a letdown in a lot of ways, but they were, they were eighth best in
13:49terms of not allowing big plays where the Texans were 17 and big plays allowed.
13:54Upper quartile.
13:55So.
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