00:00So the Rockets play the Knicks tonight.
00:02They've got eight games left.
00:04Six are at home.
00:05So they do have a little bit of a chance to build some momentum here
00:08heading into the postseason.
00:10And they played really well their last couple games.
00:12It was against the Grizzlies and the Pelicans.
00:14So for what it's worth, Pelicans haven't been awful, awful of late,
00:18and they beat them by 30.
00:19So that was nice to see on the road.
00:21Didn't turn the ball over very much.
00:23So some good things were happening these last couple games,
00:25perhaps because they had a team meeting on Thursday last week,
00:29Seth, after that horrible overtime loss to Minnesota,
00:33where the Rockets allowed the last 15 points of the game to lose by two
00:40in overtime to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
00:43They called a team meeting.
00:44And it turns out that the Rockets, you know,
00:50they needed to express their frustrations.
00:51They've been struggling recently.
00:53The biggest person, I would say the biggest struggler out of all the Rockets
00:58lately had been Tar Eason, who was on just a catastrophic stretch of shooting
01:04where he was three for 36 from three-point range over a period of time.
01:11Now, some things in this article on The Athletic talking about this meeting.
01:14I didn't realize that Tar Eason had been dealing the first anniversary of his
01:19father passing away a year ago.
01:20So there's that.
01:22I also didn't realize he was shooting so well before the All-Star break.
01:25He was fourth in the league in three-point shooting before the All-Star break
01:29and then came back from the All-Star break and was just abysmal.
01:33He was, according to this article, he was the focal point of this meeting.
01:37I mean, this meeting was basically his teammates, and I think in a teammate-friendly way,
01:43kind of doing what the Godfather did in the first Godfather movie,
01:47Marlon Brando, shaking Johnny Fontaine by his jacket lapel, saying,
01:51you can act like a man.
01:53That's what I know.
01:54And I think Shane Goon, when we hear him talk about it, you picture him.
01:57It's Shane Goon sitting next to Tar Eason with his arm around him.
02:00Yeah.
02:00And a lot of you might have seen this clip already.
02:02But, yeah, I think almost like an intervention type of thing,
02:07but in a positive way, like an intervention pep talk.
02:11As opposed to an intervention, like, you're ruining our lives.
02:14It was an intervention of like, hey, man, you're better than this.
02:17What do we got to do here?
02:19Yep.
02:19He's had two very good games since then.
02:21He's been good the last couple of games.
02:23He's given them what they needed.
02:25Here's Alper and Shingun.
02:27This is what Seth was talking about.
02:28It's two of them just sitting on a table after the win the other night in New Orleans
02:32and Alper, he's got his arm around Tari,
02:33and Tari's just kind of sitting next to him, taking it all in.
02:35And this is Shingun on what they told Tari in that meeting.
02:41I mean, you know, everybody knows, everybody sees we need him.
02:44And he kind of knows, too, but he was just in his head too much.
02:47And we were just like, you know, telling him, like, we really need you.
02:50And I think it helped him a little bit.
02:52It comes from everybody's head, you know what I mean?
02:55And inside of everybody, we don't just talk behind them or like one-on-one.
02:59We're just like, you know what I mean?
03:00In front of everybody, I think that's helped him a lot more
03:03because we were just kind of in the point.
03:05We really need you, you know what I mean?
03:07And he's one of the guys who brings the energy to this team.
03:10You know, that's what he's been doing the last four years.
03:14So, you know, we kind of just, you know, tell him we need you to win.
03:18I think what helps Tari and what's helped him these last couple games,
03:22and Tari's yet another example of where the guardrails that Fred VanVleet brings
03:28to the team, not existing, affects guys in different ways.
03:32And when Tari had been playing really, really, really poorly,
03:35it's when he was doing what other guys are doing,
03:38and it's going outside of what his role is.
03:40Like, you can never blame Tari Eason, even when he's playing poorly,
03:43for not hustling, not bringing energy, not attacking the glass.
03:47He does all of those things.
03:48The problem with Tari, when it got really bad for him,
03:52when he wasn't trusted anymore at various junctures in the game,
03:56was, yes, one, he wasn't knocking down his shots,
03:58and that's just something that is going to balance out over time.
04:02But he was making just really poor basketball decisions to the point
04:08where Tari would make a steal or Tari would get a rebound,
04:11and he's the one guy, Seth, that I scream at the TV, get it to a guard,
04:14get it to somebody else.
04:16Because Tari, just decision-making and ball handling are not his strong suits.
04:20They're just not.
04:21And I think because the team has been so devoid of somebody
04:26who does take on that role, I think it's affected Tari
04:29the same way it's affected Chengun and Amin Thompson at times.
04:32I like the fact that Ime Udoka has started mixing in Aaron Holiday
04:37a little bit more these last couple of games.
04:39I think that's it.
04:40Aaron Holiday was plus 41 in that New Orleans game plan.
04:45In a game they won by 34, he was plus 41 in that game.
04:48I think the biggest thing that hopefully might be really promising here,
04:53and who knows, maybe it just ends up being another footnote
04:56into a lost and forgotten season.
04:58But if they are able to get back to looking the way you know
05:02that they should be capable of looking, it's that, all right,
05:05here's evidence of at least one instance where the team figured it out
05:09on their own.
05:10The players figured out how to lead from within.
05:12And you could look at that as either a compliment to or a criticism of Udoka.
05:18Maybe that's part of Udoka's method is almost in the old drill sergeant type of way,
05:24making it difficult for these guys and making sure that they at some point
05:28take care of it amongst themselves and learn to rely on each other.
05:31If you want to be on the other side of the coin, you could say,
05:34how come Udoka's not the guy that's figuring this out
05:36and getting through it with Tari Eason, whatever it ends up being,
05:39it's that, you know, we always hear about team players-only meetings,
05:43and usually it's in a negative vibe.
05:45Because usually you hear about the ones after things have already gone complete.
05:49Like, the season is lost already.
05:51And it becomes a story about how, oh, great, here's a players-only meeting.
05:55That's the end for that.
05:57Most players-only meetings are never reported in the media.
05:59This one does reach the light of day,
06:03and it seems to have been a really positive outcome from it.
06:06So if it's a sign of better internal leadership or maturation by the players,
06:12then awesome.
06:14It's a very, very, very, very good sign.
06:17Indeed.
Comments