00:00It's the Rockets Report.
00:02Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion.
00:06On The Drive with Sterner and Hughley.
00:09Hey, Houston Pines, I am so happy.
00:15It's a big one, y'all. It is a big one.
00:18I can't recall a time that I've been more deflated, to be completely honest with you.
00:24It has been a very, very long time, at the very least.
00:28Luke Morrow is in for Rob Hughley, Rob the Show Hughley.
00:33And it's time to talk to B. Scott about these damn Rockets, y'all.
00:37Here's the deal.
00:38The Rockets are sitting 12 games back to Oklahoma City Thunder in the West.
00:43Look, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs are running away with that 1-2 seed.
00:47They're a game and a half back, the Lakers in the standing, sitting at that 4 seed.
00:51But they are neck and neck tied with the Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves.
00:56And the remaining part of the season is absolutely critical to where they land in the playoffs.
01:03And this is a monster game tonight.
01:06More importantly, to hell with the seeds, to hell with the West.
01:08More importantly, what we watched Monday night, B. Scott, was just flat-out disgusting.
01:14I mean, unacceptable on several fronts.
01:17I'm going to give you the floor on the Rockets' loss, 192, one-point game with two minutes left in
01:26the game.
01:26And it just comes unraveled in the most critical moment of the game in a situation where you needed that
01:33win against the Lakers at home.
01:35So I'll just give you the floor on your thoughts about that particular game and the Rockets at this point
01:41in time.
01:41Well, it just feels like they're good for once a week having a fourth quarter like this where it completely
01:47melts down, sometimes multiple times a week.
01:50But at least once, maybe early in the week, whether it's a Sunday game, a Monday game, they can't get
01:56the week started off right for whatever reason.
01:59It's real frustrating.
02:00And it was a common theme, I think, is the big part.
02:03It's not like something new emerged or something new was revealed to us, right?
02:07Like, we saw things that we've seen from them time and time again, from the turnovers.
02:13And enough with the lack of point guard issue.
02:15Like, there are ways to mitigate the obvious and true issue of not having a point guard.
02:21Perhaps give the ball to the few ball handlers that you do have on the team, and they don't have
02:26many.
02:26But Kevin Durant, with all due respect, is not one of them.
02:30And so, it looked like the other night, strategically, they had Kevin Durant bringing the ball up, inviting the double
02:38team, despite the fact that time and time again, they were failing to make plays out of it, whether they
02:44were turning the ball over or just standing around and not really doing anything.
02:48There was one possession where they come out of a timeout, and it ends in a Jabari Smith Jr. he
02:53from half court.
02:54Not to mention the Kevin Durant turnovers that we're talking about.
02:57We got an eight-second violation.
02:58We got putting your heel on the line for a backcourt violation, which is types of stuff that you never
03:05really see or don't really see often in an NBA game.
03:07But you see it time and time again with the Rockets.
03:10And so, it was a common thread.
03:12It's become frustrating.
03:13I will point out, as you mentioned about tonight's game, it's critical with the Lakers because they're neck and neck.
03:19They're in the thick of it, right?
03:21And tonight's game effectively decides the tiebreaker if they were to finish with the same record.
03:26So, it is a monumental game for both teams, and the Rockets especially, given how they played in the last
03:32game.
03:32They played against a team that did not even play well, and they couldn't come out with the win.
03:38Right?
03:38Luka showed up.
03:39But outside of that, the Lakers didn't really offer much.
03:41They offered an adjustment, a double team, and they didn't have an adjustment.
03:45The Rockets did not have an adjustment to the Lakers' adjustment, and we've seen that before.
03:52We've seen it against San Antonio.
03:53We've seen it throughout the season, and something's got to give here down the stretch.
03:57Which leads me to tonight's game.
03:58I think that's what's interesting is because this is almost like the closest thing, I guess,
04:02to like a playoff series in the regular season where you get the same team back-to-back games.
04:06And so, now you can try to adjust here in the day in between.
04:09Do you expect, or should we even be able to expect to see any different from the Rockets tonight?
04:15Or do you think, like, you know, the Lakers are going to try the same stuff, Houston falls into the
04:18same trap?
04:19Like, how do you imagine this rematch going here 48 hours later?
04:22You know, it's funny that you mention the playoff element of it or the playoff aspect
04:26because Kevin Durant was kind of asked, he was actually asked about that after the last game.
04:31Did it have a playoff feel?
04:32And he kind of laughed it off, jokingly said, no, it actually felt like a Laker game
04:37because there were so many Lakers fans there.
04:39But I would say to that, that if two nights ago it didn't feel like a playoff game,
04:44tonight's game should definitely feel like one.
04:47Like, I would like that answer to change tonight and for them to at least treat it like that
04:51because it is that important, as I just mentioned, it decides the tiebreaker.
04:55And then to your question about, what do I expect?
04:57I expect teams to do the exact same thing that they've been doing.
05:02Like, there's a formula on how to defend the Rockets.
05:06And they have made themselves, through both personnel and strategically,
05:12have made themselves an easy team to defend.
05:15And that's a frustrating part about it.
05:17It's like, oh, they can just take a man Thompson out of the game
05:20by putting an athletic center on them.
05:22And they can limit Alper and Shingun by putting a strong, sturdy wing on them.
05:27That kind of works, double teams to Kevin Durant.
05:30And then they don't have answers for these sorts of things.
05:32It's too late in the season to be that way.
05:34So, to your question, I expect them to do the exact same thing until the Rockets show
05:38that they've got an answer for it.
05:39Well, if they don't have an answer for it tonight, they ought to fire Emei Doka, period.
05:43I mean, I don't care if it's the NBA.
05:44I don't care if you didn't, you had a one-off day.
05:45I don't care what it is.
05:46If you ain't got an answer for that, when they blitz Kevin Durant,
05:49if you don't have an answer immediately, and all of us Rockets fans can high-five after it,
05:53then they need to move the hell on.
05:55Here's the deal.
05:55I love, really because I agree with it, but I love your point enough about the point guard stuff.
06:01Not because that's not a legit conversation.
06:05Or not because that's not a real concern.
06:08Right?
06:09It's kind of like when the cross talk, I was talking to Reggie.
06:11Like, enough with the clutch percentages and clutch moments.
06:14Like, this isn't a conversation about that.
06:16This is a conversation about having answers.
06:18I mean, this is so bad, like, you can't even have the point guard conversation the other night.
06:26So, I greatly appreciate that.
06:28And one thing that I was saying after that game was I don't want to hear anything about Shingun.
06:32And my mindset was the same kind of your point, I think, of, look, this wasn't about having a player
06:37or not having a player.
06:38This was a bigger issue.
06:39But I do, in looking forward, I do want to get to this point of how do you think Shingun
06:45changes the game tonight?
06:48Versus the Lakers, knowing he didn't play last game.
06:51Well, it will be interesting to see how he does change the game.
06:54Because the fact of the matter is the Lakers are not a good defensive team.
06:57And they don't have anybody that can guard Shingun.
06:59And so, he usually cooks the Lakers.
07:01He should cook the Lakers tonight.
07:03And I understand he's coming off of a back injury.
07:05And that ankle injury seems to have limited him to some degree.
07:09Like, I don't want to make excuses for why he's underperformed the way he has.
07:13Because you've got to hold star players to a high standard.
07:15But I think there's something real there with him not being the same physically as he was to start the
07:20season.
07:21But I do think it will matter to the point of the game from the other night.
07:24I think he would have mattered in that game in terms of an extra ball handler.
07:28As odd as it might sound to say, hey, they would have been better handling the basketball if their center
07:33was in the game.
07:34Well, that's just how this team is made.
07:36And we understand that Shingun is one of their very few ball handlers.
07:40And so, I think it will make a difference.
07:43Obviously, they won't be able to give as much attention to Kevin Durant with Alper and Shingun out there.
07:48But that doesn't mean they won't double him at all.
07:50It doesn't mean that they won't double him in critical moments.
07:53And what do they do outside of that?
07:55To the point of Shingun, his touch around the rim.
07:58Two-pointers.
07:59I was just talking about this on a podcast the other night.
08:01But that Shingun, given the fact that he doesn't shoot threes, can't afford to be an inefficient twos guy.
08:09Like, this isn't 1993.
08:11Right?
08:12Like, you got to – if you're shooting inside the arc, you need to be efficient.
08:16And that's his game.
08:18And we understand how critical it is to what the Rockets do.
08:21So, it's going to be huge that he has a big game tonight.
08:23Let me take a bit of a right turn here.
08:25For Tari Easton last few weeks, do you think this is just like a regression to the mean?
08:28What do you think is going on?
08:29Nah, this is – I mean, this is – this kid.
08:32Especially if you look at the other night, he is one for 25 from three in the month of March.
08:39One for 25.
08:40All right?
08:41And if you want to expand it past that for a couple of months, it's not that much better.
08:47So, it's worse than a regression to the mean.
08:49Like, he – well, I guess it is because he's not as good – what does the mean?
08:55Because he's not as good as he was early.
08:57Right.
08:57And he's not as bad now.
08:58So, I guess – so?
09:01You know, hopefully he does regress to the mean and at the very least plays at the level
09:05and the standard that you would have of him, even if it's not what it was, you know, best
09:10corner three, best three-point shooter for a small stretch of the season, best at corner
09:14throw, one of the best at corner threes.
09:16If he can even have or create a glimpse of that, right?
09:19And any of these players on the periphery, right, on the fringes, like the Jabari Smith
09:24juniors and Tarisans of the world, they play so many minutes and they get so many easy shots
09:30or open shots, opportune moments, I should say, that come off the stars.
09:35They got to knock down their shots, man.
09:37They got to knock down their opportunities.
09:38I asked Kevin Durant straight up, and I think he kind of misunderstood my question a little bit.
09:41But he answered it for the most part of, like, what's been off against some of these better teams.
09:47He says, man, we're not knocking down shots.
09:49Can't shoot the ball.
09:50And a real frustrating part about the Rockets is that the three main elements of basketball
09:57that you need to be good at, they are not good enough at, which is dribbling, shooting, and passing.
10:03Right?
10:03Like, they just struggle with all three of these basic principles.
10:06You go to basketball camp as a little kid, they show you the triple threat.
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