- 14 hours ago
Seth and Sean discuss what they want to see from the Rockets as the NBA regular season winds down and their hopes that they end up seeded against the Luka-less Lakers in the playoffs.
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00:00A Rockets win last night, 117-116 over the Warriors.
00:03Very entertaining game, very entertaining day of sports yesterday
00:07between the Astros' extra inning loss to the Athletics
00:11and the Rockets' win over the Warriors.
00:15So, some little Northern California action yesterday for our Houston teams.
00:19Alperen Sengun with a bucket with about 11 seconds to go in the game,
00:24and then down comes Steph Curry to the other end of the floor
00:29to try to go win the game, and Curry misses a three-pointer
00:33from straight on at the buzzer to lose the game.
00:37117-116.
00:38Curry came off the bench in this game.
00:40They've been bringing him off the bench to kind of work him back in.
00:43He shot the ball really well.
00:44He was 5 of 10 from three.
00:46He had 29 points in 26 minutes on 21 field goal attempts.
00:52So, the Warriors are one of those teams that are in the play-in mix right now.
00:56They're not in the play-off mix yet.
00:58But six in a row now, Seth, for the Houston Rockets.
01:01And as you pointed out earlier, not an elite turnover number or anything like that,
01:06but they had 13 turnovers in the game according to the box score here.
01:10Below their season average.
01:13Yeah, yeah.
01:14And some of that, too, is like, you know, Amin Thompson and Reed Shepard,
01:18they're playing like young point guards at times in the second half
01:22where you've got to really be on your P's and Q's.
01:26But overall, just a much better version of offense over these last six games.
01:31Four of the games have been against not good opponents.
01:35Yep.
01:35Three of them have been atrocious opponents.
01:37Sure.
01:37But also with a couple of good challenges where it's just been –
01:40it's been this –
01:43Sean, you have to store this in your memory banks, okay?
01:45Okay.
01:46Because the tendency whenever you hear about a players-only meeting is that,
01:50oh, the season is lost.
01:51Oh, boy, here we go.
01:54You know, Durant cited the players-only meeting again yesterday.
01:57We've heard multiple other players, including Shang-Goon,
02:00talk about their sit-down where they basically sounded like they had an intervention with Tari Eason.
02:05And it's worked.
02:07It's like this is an example of so far, at the very least,
02:11regardless of what they do in the playoffs,
02:12this is a better offensive basketball team,
02:15and they're playing more as a cohesive unit than they were before they really seemingly started addressing this stuff head
02:23on.
02:23Yeah, Tari's still been a little up and down, but he's flashed better lately.
02:27He was bad last night, but he's had better games of late.
02:30So, yeah, that's been important.
02:32I think the biggest, to me, the biggest change that's allowed them to bring their turnover number down,
02:37and, again, they had 13 turnovers last night.
02:40That's by far the most they've had recently.
02:42They've been in single digits.
02:43They were single digits three games in a row during this six-game winning streak.
02:48I think the biggest thing is they've kind of figured out how to incorporate,
02:53like, where does Kevin Durant fit in the whole initiation of offense matrix here?
02:59Because Durant, the games where they were turning the ball over 20, 25, 27 times,
03:05Durant was usually the biggest culprit out of all of them.
03:07He'd have seven or eight turnovers, and they were of the, oh, my God, they're trapping me,
03:12and he'd just dribble it off his foot or he'd throw a lazy pass or something like that.
03:16And really, what he's done a better job of is he's like a better RPO quarterback
03:22because he was predetermining a lot of times where he was going to go with the ball
03:27when he was going to get bracketed, and the good defenses are going to figure that out,
03:32and they got a good feel for if Durant knows where he's definitely going to go with the ball,
03:37then good defenses have a pretty good feel for where you're going to go with the ball,
03:40where now he's letting it come to him more.
03:42And I think that coincides with guys actually moving away from the ball and creating options.
03:49So it just does, if you want to use the old point guard as a quarterback type of dynamic,
03:53in that situation, Durant's had to be a better quarterback,
03:57and he's just doing, he's letting the game come to him more so instead of trying to force things.
04:01So the Rockets are fifth place right now.
04:03It would be a real shock if they finished below fifth place at this point.
04:07There's four games left in the regular season for all of these teams.
04:12Minnesota at six, the Rockets at five, the Nuggets and the Lakers are at four and three.
04:19So those are your three through six.
04:20Nobody's catching the Spurs.
04:21Nobody's catching the Thunder.
04:22They're going to be your one and two seats.
04:24Thunder one.
04:25In all likelihood, the Spurs at two.
04:28And then you got your slew of play-in teams from seven through ten.
04:31So the three through six, Lakers, Nuggets, Rockets, Timberwolves.
04:35The Timberwolves have started to dip a little bit.
04:37They're three games back of the Rockets.
04:39So they're almost locked into the sixth seed.
04:41The floor for the Rockets is probably the five.
04:44The nice thing if you're the Rockets, Seth, is that the Nuggets at four and the Lakers at three
04:49are probably going to switch spots here, I would say, down the stretch,
04:53because the Lakers are now without Doncic and Austin Reeves for the rest of the regular season.
04:59The remaining games, I won't go too deep on these.
05:03For the Lakers?
05:04Well, I have the Nuggets and the Lakers both pulled up here.
05:07The remaining games for the Nuggets, again, the two of them, they are tied.
05:10They have the exact same record.
05:12They're 50-28.
05:15Portland, Memphis, OKC at San Antonio.
05:19Okay, so maybe it's not a foregone conclusion.
05:21If OKC and San Antonio are trying at the end of the year.
05:23Oh, yeah.
05:24Well, I mean, it's not like it's going in super deep here,
05:27especially when there's big names involved.
05:28I mean, the Lakers play the Thunder and then the Warriors.
05:31Yeah.
05:32Then the Suns and the Jazz.
05:35OK.
05:35I mean, other than the Jazz, those are all teams that are going to be playing basketball in some form.
05:39Yeah.
05:39After this coming weekend.
05:41So, look, if the Lakers fall to four and the Rockets are at five,
05:47or, I mean, even if the Rockets, whose schedule is not that tough the rest of the way.
05:52I mean, they've got Phoenix and then three home games to close out the season.
05:56Boy, if the Rockets could get into a four versus five with the Lakers
06:00and have home court advantage against a team that doesn't have Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves.
06:05Yeah.
06:06For a team that was – now, granted, you win that series,
06:09you're getting fed to the defending champs who just beat the Lakers by 43 last week
06:13in the game where Doncic got hurt.
06:15But as far as scenarios go – look, as far as scenarios go for this team,
06:19this was a team, the Rockets, that were closer to the play-in than they were the two-seed a
06:24month ago.
06:25Sean, no.
06:25As far as scenarios go for how do you feel about this team headed into next season
06:29with Fred VanVleet coming back,
06:30I am night and day from where I – night and day compared to where I was a month ago.
06:36Yeah.
06:37Because a month ago, you could have told me, hey, Seth,
06:39the Rockets are going to beat – win their first round against the Lakers
06:44and they're going to be weakened without two of their best players.
06:46I would say, all right, cool.
06:48So just – so if they win that and they're still going to get destroyed
06:52and they're still playing this haphazard, mired down, ball-is-stuck version of offense,
06:58I would be disgusted in advance.
07:01Now I can foresee a situation where, all right, great, you beat a weakened Lakers team,
07:06but you're doing it with a better version of offensive basketball.
07:09You're looking more like a complete basketball team.
07:12You're not turning the ball over and just giving games away.
07:15All right, cool.
07:16It makes sense that you would beat the Lakers.
07:18And then it comes into if you manage to put up a fight versus one of those two elite teams,
07:24I'm going to feel way better going into the postseason than I would have
07:28in any other scenario I had been imagining.
07:30So, like, I got to credit Udoka for really creating a turnaround
07:34in the way that they're operating as an offense that I didn't think this team was capable of.
07:39So you're saying if they beat a diminished Lakers team
07:41and then they put up a fight against OKC or San Antonio?
07:45Yeah.
07:45That you are team run it back.
07:48I'm back in the Fred Van Vliet is healthy train.
07:51And Steven Adams, too.
07:53And Steven Adams.
07:54Steven Adams, I have a hard time just because he's a big man in his 30s
07:59who's had a bunch of injuries.
08:00Sure.
08:00And he's not like at Lance McCullers status or anything.
08:05No.
08:05But I just have a hard time.
08:07Fred Van Vliet, I imagine, yeah, if he comes back, I'm comfortable.
08:10Better chance than not that he plays the entire season.
08:12Yeah, yeah.
08:13Steven Adams, there's just going to be a whole lot of load managing going on.
08:15Boy, that double big lineup, though, man.
08:17If you're trying to throw some different calculus at other teams.
08:20It's a big lineup when you also have a couple of young guys who hopefully are really starting
08:24to come in their own as point guards.
08:27Yeah.
08:27You know, I'm on Thompson and Reed Shepard are different players now than they were three
08:31months ago.
08:31Yeah.
08:32Here were the odds for the Lakers.
08:34This is before the Luka injury.
08:35It's not like they were viewed as, you know, on the level of the true contenders.
08:40They were on the Rockets level.
08:41They were like the true contenders, especially with Cade Cunningham's lung, punctured lung over
08:46in the East, like true contenders are right now OKC and whoever wins OKC in San Antonio
08:51feels like who everybody's picking to win the NBA title.
08:54The Lakers were, before Luka's injury, they were 30 to 1.
08:58So better odds than the Rockets to win the NBA title, but not by much.
09:02After the Luka injury, Seth.
09:04So Luka goes out with the hamstring last week.
09:07They get blown out by OKC.
09:09Their odds go to 100 to 1.
09:11They lose Austin Reeves over the weekend to the oblique injury.
09:15They're 120 to 1.
09:17And then the market just kind of, after that, the market clearly spoke.
09:22And they, you know, so to get it, you know, to try to get any money on the Lakers, they
09:27had to go all the way to 400 to 1.
09:29The sports books did.
09:30Just, you know, the, the, initially the Austin Reeves and Luka injuries had them at
09:35120 to 1.
09:35And then as of Sunday morning, 400 to 1.
09:38So there are people who are looking at that.
09:40Boy, what a commentary that is on LeBron James and like just the shell of himself that he
09:44is now compared, he's obviously still a good basketball player.
09:47Ask the Rockets, he lit them up for 30 points in one of those games a few weeks ago.
09:51But he's just not a guy who can carry a team in the playoffs anymore.
09:55He's just not.
09:56What do you think the, you're the, you're the handicapper on this show.
09:59What are the odds that LeBron retires?
10:04The, are you looking at them right now?
10:06They're like the little, I don't have any updated.
10:08Okay.
10:08Yeah.
10:08I would say it's, I would give it 45% chance.
10:15It looks like right now, like before the season, it was like a 33% chance he retires after this
10:23season.
10:24Yep.
10:24So it's probably gone up that way, that much.
10:26I would say, I would say it's, it's definitely gone up just based on the fact that he's
10:30not, you know, this he's a, he's a more mortal version of himself now, you know, how is that
10:36fun for him?
10:37You know, is it fun for him to be a guy that's just kind of, you know, blends in more
10:40than
10:40he's the key?
10:41Here we go.
10:42Right now, will LeBron James retire before the next NBA season?
10:47Yeah.
10:47It says 22%.
10:4922%.
10:49Yes.
10:50Yeah.
10:50Okay.
10:51Yeah.
10:52The talk is he's either going to do another year in LA or he's going to go back to Cleveland
10:55for his swan song.
10:57So see what happens.
10:58Poor Cleveland.
11:00Yeah.
11:01Just in general in the city.
11:03All right.
11:03Great.
11:04Thanks, LeBron.
11:04Come back for your swan song.
11:06Yeah.
11:06So we can have a bunch of meaningless ceremonies.
11:08Somebody is going to be giving him a gift before every, before every tip off Houston.
11:13They'll give him some cowboy boots or something.
11:14That's right.
11:15Yeah.
11:15You know, a saddle.
11:17Yeah.
11:17Yeah.
11:18Yeah.
11:18New York, they'll give him, I don't know, a line of legal substance.
11:21Does LeBron, I guess LeBron James probably gets a farewell tour if he.
11:24Oh, yeah.
11:25Yeah.
11:26Yeah.
11:26It'll be initiated by LeBron.
11:28Yep.
11:29He'll be, he'll be sending it.
11:30He'll have a registry that's sent out to every NBA team.
11:33That'd be great.
11:34Like, yeah, these are the items on my gift registry.
11:37Yeah.
11:37This is what I'd like.
11:38Could use one of those air fryers.
11:40He's not going to be getting anything from Memphis.
11:42Uh, no.
11:42Memphis was taking it on the chin all weekend long.
11:45They were.
11:45All these different NBA players talking about how crappy the, the hotel, it sounded like
11:50there's one hotel that they all stay at.
11:52Yeah.
11:53It's really bad.
11:53Is it one of the Hyatts in Memphis?
11:55I don't know.
11:55I'm pretty sure I stayed at that Hyatt, but it was during COVID.
11:58Okay.
11:59And I, I had a great experience because there were like 10 guests in the entire hotel.
12:02Yeah.
12:03That's really nice.
12:03It was like when the first shutdowns all started.
12:05Oh yeah.
12:06And we were driving cause we couldn't get a flight and we stayed and it was awesome.
12:10Yeah.
12:11Cause there were like, there was like, it was almost like a four to one employee to guest
12:14ratio.
12:15Dude, Amy and I flew back from our honeymoon.
12:16We were supposed to go to Italy.
12:18We went to California.
12:18We got married the week before COVID hit.
12:21And so we went to California instead.
12:23And we basically flew on a private 747 back to Houston.
12:27There was nobody on the plane.
12:28You should have done one of those photos and claimed that you had, uh, that you had rented
12:32out.
12:32Cause remember Vince did that.
12:34Vince Young did that like as a joke because he was on an empty Southwest flight and people,
12:38it became the, the topic of a million think pieces.
12:42This is why you don't have any money wandering their money and everything.
12:45Yeah.
12:46Yeah.
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