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Seth and Sean kick off the show by talking about the Rockets very interesting weekend getting wins over the Heat and Hawks.
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00:00It really is for what you think in your head should be a slow week in sports and whatnot.
00:06Between the rodeo, the Rockets, with this new kid.
00:10Did you see this new kid they found?
00:11The kid, the little spunky little kid from Kentucky.
00:15I don't know if they signed him out of a prep school or something.
00:19There's a revelation this weekend.
00:20Yeah, Reed Shepard gets it.
00:22For the first time on Friday, he started when it wasn't due to injury.
00:26So somebody held a gun to Adoka's head and said,
00:29No, you're going to start him now.
00:30Hey, look, man.
00:31Tari is toxic out there.
00:33We've got to get somebody else in there.
00:34Lo and behold, everybody else.
00:36It's amazing.
00:37This is a problem.
00:38I feel like Adoka's been looking at things in too much of a silo.
00:42Like he's looking at Reed Shepard individually and thinking about what he can and cannot do
00:46without realizing that, oh, when Reed Shepard's out there,
00:50the other four guys get to play in their normal roles.
00:52They get to be normal basketball players.
00:55And Ahmed Thompson's the best version of himself.
00:57Albert Shane Goon almost gets a triple-double.
01:00It gets reversed on a call.
01:02But, like, everything just looks and flows better.
01:04So there's that.
01:06Then you've got the Astros coming up on Thursday.
01:09You have the tournament, which is kind of disappointing in terms of nail-biting outcomes
01:14or down-to-the-wire finishes or anything.
01:17Dude, yes, yes.
01:17I'm not mad at you, Cougs.
01:20Do what you do.
01:21Yeah.
01:21Maybe make it a little interesting every now and then.
01:23I woke up Saturday morning, and I've told you this before, Seth.
01:28I used to be a tournament just into, like, especially the first weekend, Thursday through Sunday,
01:33just on the couch.
01:34Child services came for your children one day because they were so neglected.
01:37They found out your kids hadn't eaten in 96 hours.
01:41That's exactly right.
01:41That's exactly right when they were young.
01:43And you're the one who made the call.
01:45Mm-hmm.
01:46Yeah, I know.
01:47Yeah.
01:47I looked at her.
01:48I said, somebody's got to do something about this.
01:50I'm going to call the government.
01:51Kids haven't eaten in four days.
01:54So, yeah, I was someone Thursday through Sunday wouldn't move from the couch.
01:58Not as urgent a matter in these days as it used to be, but I still obviously watch a ton
02:03of it.
02:03I was so excited for Saturday.
02:06I was actually kind of angry that the tournament didn't kowtow to the state of Texas
02:11and space those games out a little bit.
02:14Because TCU Duke started at like 415 or something, and then U of H, A&M started at 515,
02:22and then the Longhorns started at like 615 or 620.
02:26So there's always this overlapping thing going on, which is why you have multiple TVs.
02:29I get it.
02:30But I like to be, especially the TCU Duke game for personal reasons.
02:34My son went to TCU.
02:35But the Cougs and the Aggies, for sure, just because we have so many people in our inner circle
02:40that have rooting interests in that.
02:42And, you know, we don't get to see those two teams in any sport battle like we used to back
02:47in the day.
02:48And the Cougs just ran them out of the gym.
02:50I was like, this thing was over with like 10 minutes to go in the first half.
02:56And the TCU Duke game wasn't much better.
02:58It was close at halftime.
03:00But it was still fun, still fun having all that hoops.
03:03And it was good to see the Rockets go 2-0 this weekend.
03:07An interesting 2-0 this weekend, back-to-backs on Friday and Saturday.
03:12And you mentioned it.
03:13Reed Shepard, to me, is the story.
03:16He's the story of the weekend because he gets to start not because of injuries,
03:21but because Ime Odoka is finally like, all right, we've got to try something here.
03:24And, yeah, it looked a lot smoother offensively.
03:27And for whatever Reed Shepard's warts are, defensively, he made up for it at the offensive end of things,
03:34especially in that win over Miami on Saturday.
03:37And we can talk about the end of that game, which was just, boy,
03:40they avoided a serious, serious disaster of a conversation on a Monday morning.
03:46The Batman Thompson's tip-in at the end of that game to win that game.
03:49Tari Eason's just a mess right now.
03:50But Reed Shepard on Saturday, 23 points, 14 assists, zero turnovers is the biggest number out of all of those
04:00because the Rockets have had a turnover issue as a team,
04:02and nobody's been more culpable with what I'll call Ryan Hollins calls the JV turnovers,
04:08the bad turnovers, the dribbling into traffic turnovers, bad passes.
04:12And Reed Shepard, Reed Shepard was awesome.
04:14They don't win that game without Reed Shepard on Saturday.
04:17He was incredible.
04:18Yeah, and I think just, you know, talk about his defensive warts.
04:22I mean, on Friday night he has the ball, coughs up the ball, but then runs half court with an
04:29incredible block.
04:31Durant pointed to that after the game as kind of a, you know, like, okay, here we go type of
04:35moment.
04:36But it's not like his individual production was incredible or anything.
04:40But it just, yeah, everything looks more like an offense when you have him out there.
04:45And the way he provides spacing, his ability to hit volume threes, or even just attempt, attempt credible volume threes.
04:54To the point where, okay, you know, like he has to be accounted for.
04:58Yeah.
04:58And it opens up everything for everybody else.
05:01He's a real shooter.
05:02Like, he's a legitimate shooter.
05:04And even a couple of the plays in that Miami game, like, he made a huge floater in the lane
05:09at the end of that game.
05:10I forget if it tied it up or if the lead changed hands at that point.
05:14But he was just, when the ball starts moving on offense in the half court and it winds up in
05:18Reed Shepard's hands,
05:19he's the one guy where more good decisions get made than just guys dribbling into traffic or just going ISO
05:25ball or something like that.
05:26So, he's got to keep playing him.
05:29He's got to keep playing him.
05:30Let's skip down to that, Ben, with Emeo Doka, Todd, since we're talking about Reed Shepard right now.
05:36This is Emeo Doka explaining, this was after the Hawks game on Friday, the decision to start Reed Shepard.
05:45Give us a different look, you know, as I've done throughout the year.
05:48You know, tinker with a few different things.
05:50And, obviously, Reed has taken a nice step and jump lately, but I wanted to have more spacers out there,
05:57some shooting,
05:58and have different guys that, you know, can handle and do some things.
06:01And, obviously, him, Kevin, and I'm in all do it a little bit differently, but I wanted to look at
06:06that.
06:07You know, Tari's struggling, obviously, but it's not necessarily bad as much.
06:11He's still doing the things we want to do defensively.
06:14It's good to see him make some shots tonight.
06:16But just put him back in his role, off the bench, relax a little bit, and take a look at
06:22Reed.
06:22You know, we started Josh most of the season.
06:24Steven at times, Reed as sporadically, and then went with Tari for a while.
06:29So, get a last look at something before the playoffs.
06:31They're 10-2 with Reed Shepard in the starting lineup.
06:34And, as you've pointed out, Seth, most of those starts have been, other than these two, they've been because somebody's
06:39been hurt.
06:39So, Reed gets bumped into the starting lineup.
06:42I don't think that's insignificant that they're 10-2.
06:44We'll get to Tari in a second and talk about the end of the Miami game on Saturday night.
06:50I saw somebody make this point, and I apologize, I don't recall who it was.
06:54It was one of the, you know, sort of the rocket accounts on Twitter, make the point about a counterpoint
07:00to a lot of people.
07:01They're saying, look, as long as Reed gets his 30 minutes or whatever, who cares if he starts or comes
07:04off the bench?
07:05And I saw this point made, and I'd have to go back and watch Reed Shepard games to see if
07:10it's valid.
07:10The point is, the point feels valid to me, which is, no, there is a difference with Reed starting versus
07:16coming off the bench.
07:17Because when he comes off the bench, Reed is the one guy who's had his minutes very inconsistent.
07:22Like, Ime, clearly, there are still trust issues between Reed Shepard and Ime Odoka trusting Reed Shepard.
07:29That when Reed comes in off the bench, there's a tendency for him to press because he knows that, hey,
07:35if I don't make it happen, if I don't make it pop here, I'm going to be getting 18 minutes
07:40and not 32 minutes tonight.
07:41There is something about it, almost, if you just want to make the quarterback analogy of just being able to
07:46start off and set the tone and be the guy that's, you know,
07:51just setting the template for how everything's going to go for the rest of the game, how you're going to
07:55react and how you're going to adjust.
07:57The part that's been curious about it all is I always try to side with the head coach or at
08:04least understand that, look, he sees a lot that we don't see.
08:08He knows what's going on with the things that aren't done.
08:11You know, there's times where there's things that are the point guard's fault, but you don't realize it, just viewing,
08:17but things weren't executed properly.
08:19That it's tough when you have to try to just throw a young guy out there who's probably making more
08:24mistakes than even show up in the box score and what have you.
08:28Except that on this team, are you afraid you're going to have more turnovers?
08:33Are you afraid that it's going to somehow be sloppy or something?
08:36It's already a sloppy version.
08:38That battle is being lost that if you get somebody in there who can grow and progress and work through
08:43those issues,
08:44it's like, let's focus on the positive part of it too, that you actually get ball movement, that you can
08:49actually run a, you know what it is almost,
08:51I think sometimes you feel like there's this tendency to latch onto what they were last year and then, okay,
08:58second chance,
08:58second chance opportunities off of offensive rebounds and everything else.
09:03That's the way we have to do it to the point where you're blind to even the notion that, no,
09:09you can play on both sides of the court.
09:11So, okay, if you have to give up a little bit with Reed Shepard defensively or what have you,
09:16just remember that you're adding to the offense.
09:19And when all those other guys are able to do what they're comfortable doing, they become better defensively.
09:26That it's just, okay, Amon Thompson's doing Amon Thompson things.
09:30Alperin Shang-Goon's doing Alperin Shang-Goon things.
09:32Everything, you don't have to overthink it.
09:34No.
09:35It just feels better when he's in there.
09:37Well, the fact of the matter is, it's late in the season now, man.
09:40Like, there's sands running out of the hourglass here.
09:43Amon Thompson's not becoming a point guard for you.
09:45Running the ball through Alperin Shang-Goon, we've seen what that's done with him this year.
09:50I get it.
09:51Kevin Durant is the best solution at times on the floor just to let him kind of iso,
09:54draw a double team, and then get the ball swinging around.
09:57Reed Shepard's the only thing that's going to develop into a point guard that can play winning basketball for you
10:02at this point.
10:03Well, and the other part of it, too, is, okay, if you're trying to manage it
10:06and you're trying to bring along a young guy like Reed Shepard and hoping that he improves, hoping that he
10:10improves,
10:11you're sitting at this spot all season long where you're comfortably in the playoff race.
10:16You're winning games.
10:17You're beating the teams you should be.
10:20So the experimentation or kind of trying to figure out when do we pull the trigger,
10:24when do we hit the panic button on all of it, we're getting down to that.
10:29And, okay, maybe the plan all along has been to play Reed Shepard more towards the end of the season,
10:36but you also want to maybe have a little bit of an ambush factor going into the playoffs where people
10:41don't get a beat on you.
10:43I'm glad they're finally doing it.
10:45This is the first weekend in a while where I've felt like, okay, you know what?
10:50Yeah, these guys could be a different team come the playoffs.
10:53Yep.
10:53Last year, we were all but putting a tombstone on the front page of the Chronicle for them because it's
11:01so frustrating to watch.
11:04This weekend, I felt like, all right, yeah, you can build off of this.
11:08You can do something with this.
11:09They're starting to be a little divide in the standings now to where the Rockets would really have to have
11:13the bottom fallout,
11:14especially considering what the schedule looks like the rest of the way.
11:17They've got 12 games left.
11:19They're tied, virtually tied in the standings.
11:22They've got a slightly better record percentage-wise than Denver and Minnesota,
11:26but those three teams are 12-and-a-half back of Oklahoma City.
11:31So there's no games left to catch Oklahoma City, and it's running out on catching San Antonio.
11:39The Lakers are two-and-a-half games ahead of all those three teams, Rockets, Nuggets, Timberwolves.
11:44The most important thing out of all this is that the Rockets and the Nuggets and the Timberwolves appear to
11:51be,
11:52again, unless the bottom falls out, they're not going to get stuck in the play-in with Phoenix and the
11:56Clippers and the Blazers.
11:58There's really tears to this thing.
12:01There's Oklahoma City on their own planet.
12:03There's San Antonio on a planet slightly closer to Earth.
12:06There's the Lakers who are, you know, with only 10 or 12 games left and playing well,
12:13are in really good shape to be the three.
12:16And then you've got three teams that are tied at four, five, and six,
12:19and they're in no real danger of falling down into the play-in.
12:22So that's the good news for the Rockets is that Phoenix has started to lose some games here of late.
12:26Last week, at the end of the week, you had basically divided the rest of the schedule into two columns,
12:31and there was the tomato can column, a bunch of teams that the Rockets should be able to beat no
12:37matter what,
12:38and then you had three teams that were actually formidable challenges.
12:43Yeah, I had three buckets, actually.
12:44Oh, three buckets.
12:45Yeah, it was three buckets.
12:46Yeah, it was the playoff, the surefire contender or perceived contender,
12:51and I think that's where you're going with it, Seth.
12:53There were only three teams left on the schedule in that bracket,
12:57a home game against the Knicks, and then a home and an away game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
13:02So those three games.
13:03Like bona fide top-tier teams.
13:05Bona fide, like, yeah, like people take these teams seriously as contenders.
13:10And then the second bucket was play-in teams, which are sort of the in-between the contenders and the
13:15tanking teams.
13:16And then the third bucket.
13:16Seems like the Hawks and the Heat.
13:17The two teams they beat this weekend, exactly, yeah.
13:20How many of those teams were there?
13:21There were five of those teams.
13:22So there were 14 games left going into the weekend.
13:25There were three contender games, five play-in team games, and then six tanking team games.
13:31So you still have six of those left.
13:33So there were eight formidable foes left on the schedule that you had identified.
13:39They're 2-0 in those eight games so far.
13:42Yes.
13:43You know how you labeled them in this day and age, Seth, in the NBA?
13:46There are eight teams that are trying, and there are six teams that are not trying.
13:50That's true, yeah.
13:51Can you take care of business versus teams that aren't even trying?
13:53Yeah, yeah.
13:54I mean, the Hawks had won 11 in a row going into that game on Friday.
13:58They'd been on a heater.
13:59Yeah, I mean, that's a good sign, too.
14:00In a very small sample size, you have two games, even though you almost blew it against the Heat
14:06with your same old fourth-quarter issues, that you're 2-0 against those teams with Reed Shepard as a starter.
14:14Yeah, let's talk about that for a second, because Ime Odoka almost lost that game for them.
14:18And Tari Eason on Saturday.
14:20The Rockets led 119-113 late in the game.
14:23Amy and I were out somewhere watching that game, and they turned the ball over up six with like a
14:29minute and a half to go,
14:30and Miami comes down.
14:31I think it was Tyler Hero hit a three to make it 119-116, and Amy goes, shit, they're going
14:35to lose this game.
14:36And then it gets to 119-118, and then Miami gets the ball.
14:43Somehow it winds up with Rockets 121-120 with like 15 seconds left and the ball.
14:50And at first, Jabari Smith is inbounding the ball, and Tari Eason gets pissed at him for not letting him
14:59inbound the ball.
15:01And Jabari, I forget what happened, either Jabari calls timeout or they threw the ball inbounds and it bounces out
15:05of bounds.
15:06So the Rockets have to inbound it again.
15:08And Amy Odoka has Tari Eason inbound the ball.
15:10And it's 121-120 Rockets.
15:12And I turned to Amy, and I said, because everything Tari is touching right now when the ball is in
15:17his hands turns to stone.
15:19Like he's just a mess right now, whether it's his shooting or his decision-making or his ball handling, he
15:25is a mess.
15:26Why Amy Odoka even has him in the game, let alone inbounding the ball?
15:30And I said, he's going to throw this ball to Miami, and Miami's going to take the lead.
15:33And sure enough, that's exactly what happens.
15:35He panics.
15:36He has a timeout left, doesn't use it, panics, throws the ball into a crowd.
15:39Miami gets the ball, lays it in.
15:41And the only reason, let's go to the Amen tip here, Ben.
15:44And this is the thing that's saved everybody from an uncomfortable conversation on Saturday and after the game was Amen
15:50Thompson making a huge play to win the game.
15:53Thompson looking to Durant on Adebayo.
15:56KD pulls up.
15:58Wild shot.
15:59Bounced off.
16:00Tipped in.
16:01It was tipped in.
16:02Amen Thompson tipped it in.
16:04Amen Thompson tipped it in.
16:06Rockets won 23.
16:08He won 22.
16:10And there was no question about it.
16:12Like, you could tell right away.
16:13It was going to count.
16:14The red light didn't come on until the thing bounced off the glass.
16:18So, Amen Thompson saves a night that was a celebratory night because Kevin Durant passes Michael Jordan on the all
16:25-time scoring list.
16:26Yeah.
16:26And it would have been really bittersweet had they lost that game the way they were about to lose that
16:31game.
16:32Yeah.
16:32So, I don't know.
16:35I was hoping maybe Udoko was going to get up in the press conference and tell that story about Edison
16:40when the assistant dropped the light bulb.
16:43And the next day when they were testing it again, he let that assistant carry the light bulb.
16:47And that's what he's doing with Tari Eason.
16:49Yeah.
16:50Trying to stay.
16:51And I want him to say, a brilliant man is giving a wayward assistant a chance, another opportunity.
16:57Oh, my God.
16:58When I'm looking at Tari Eason inbounding the ball, I'm like, what are we doing?
17:02And then that happens.
17:03And then he gets saved.
17:04It was just, I mean, all's well that ends well.
17:08You win the game.
17:09But, man, why do they make it so hard on themselves, man?
17:12Sometimes.
17:12Sometimes.
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