- 2 weeks ago
Seth and Sean kick off the show by airing out their frustrations with the Rockets' inability to compete with a depleted Lakers team despite KD actually making it back, and the Astros' loss amid continued pitching problems.
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00:00The Rockets look like trash in Los Angeles.
00:03Good morning, everybody.
00:05Welcome in to Payton Pendergast.
00:07It's so miserable.
00:08It's so miserable.
00:09And I feel bad for those of you, the majority of you who are listening right this moment
00:14probably didn't watch any of the Rockets game.
00:16And I might be tempted to say, hey, whatever you saw in the first half,
00:21it was a continuation in the second half.
00:23But that would be a little too generous because the Rockets took advantage of some turnovers
00:28in the second quarter to make the game closer than it probably should have been.
00:32But you know the Rockets and what they do when it comes to turnovers.
00:35Did you really think the turnovers were going to be the deciding factor in a Rockets victory last night?
00:41No, Durant almost single-handedly said, I'll create the turnovers.
00:46I will balance out this turnover battle.
00:49Don't you worry.
00:49I'm going to go get nine of them.
00:51Nine turnovers.
00:52And also, how many points did he score in the second half?
00:54He had only taken like two shots until the last five minutes of the game.
00:58I think he scored three in the second half.
01:02Whatever adjustments they made to take him out of the game, it worked.
01:05They did.
01:05I mean, the Lakers basically – and this was – it's frustrating because this is –
01:09a year ago you could have said the same thing.
01:12The Lakers just said, we don't think you guys have the shooters to actually do anything.
01:16So we're just going to – we're going to bludgeon Durant.
01:19And good luck.
01:21Good luck.
01:22And they end up being about 20-some percent from deep.
01:27They were just – they were pathetic shooters last night.
01:30They were.
01:30Everybody was MIA.
01:32Yep.
01:32They were seven of 29 from three.
01:35They were 40 percent for the game.
01:38From the field.
01:39Yeah, from the field.
01:4140 percent from the field.
01:4329 percent from – or 24 percent from three.
01:46And the biggest thing to me, Seth – and, you know, I wrote notes.
01:50I watched the whole game.
01:51I'm an idiot.
01:52I stayed up for the entire thing.
01:54I'm operating on three hours of sleep like anybody else who watched the game is,
01:57if you're up right now, probably operating on very little sleep
01:59and with a lot of frustration.
02:02And it's just – they – I get it.
02:05They don't have a real point guard.
02:06And we can talk about, you know, should they have gotten one at the trade deadline?
02:10Should they have addressed this in some fashion before the season?
02:14And it's so easy to defend this team.
02:16For a team that has as much talent as the Rockets have.
02:19Yeah.
02:20The Lakers, all they did – J.J. Reddick's getting a ton of credit today
02:23for outcoaching Emi Odoka, and he should.
02:25He's missing his – you know, depending on how you feel about Austin Reeves
02:30during the regular season, you could say he's missing his two best players.
02:33LeBron James is LeBron James.
02:35He's definitely missing his best player in Luka Doncic.
02:37He's made adjustments as to how they run that offense.
02:40And defensively, all they had to do – and it's so frustrating to watch.
02:43They just pressure the Rockets.
02:45Whoever's got the ball, the second they get over half court,
02:47they just double-team that guy.
02:49They just pressure him.
02:50And the Rockets have nobody that can handle any sort of on-ball pressure at all.
02:54Alperin Shengun dribbles like he's Stanley from the office.
02:57Ahmed Thompson, if he gets a head of steam going to the basket,
03:01he has no idea what he's going to do with the ball once he gets there.
03:04He has no plan.
03:05For a guy that they put the ball in his hands a lot
03:08when they're running the half-court offense,
03:09he's got zero clues to what he wants to do with it.
03:11And Kevin Durant, he makes up for it in other ways at times.
03:15But, boy, it's nine turnovers, and they are horrible turnovers.
03:19They're live ball, strip the ball out of his hands,
03:22passes that he's making that have zero chance of getting to the guy
03:26he's intending to throw it to.
03:27It's just – it's so bad.
03:30It's so horrible to watch.
03:31And Ime Udoka – Jay Sean Tate playing minutes in playoff games.
03:36Aaron Holiday playing as many minutes as Reed Shepard in the first half of a game.
03:40This is on Ime Udoka more than anybody else.
03:42He is coaching a horrible, horrible series so far.
03:46It is – their season's done.
03:48And this is my overriding emotion, Seth, and I know I'm ranting right now.
03:51But my overriding emotion as I'm watching this game last night is like,
03:54I don't even know if I care if they win.
03:56Because even if they win, they're going to get – they are running into a buzzsaw
04:00in the second round.
04:01Like, the version of – the Rockets could have won that game last night
04:04if they just knocked down a few more three-pointers.
04:06That said, the quality of basketball that's being played for 48 minutes,
04:10the way they operate, the way they initiate offense,
04:13that is a sweep waiting to happen in the second round.
04:16They might still win this series.
04:18They haven't played a home game yet, so let's see what happens on Friday.
04:21But I think – but the season's over.
04:23Like, this team's not going anywhere.
04:25Like, this team, as they're playing right now, as currently constructed,
04:29and most importantly, as currently coached,
04:31this team is going to get ground into – into ground beef
04:35in the second round against the Thunder.
04:36I mean, and there's still the prospective return of Austin Reeves.
04:40But it just – to the point, it was – were those MVP chants at the end of the game
04:45for –
04:46were those for Canard?
04:47They were for Rui Hachimura, I think.
04:50They could have been for anybody.
04:52Yeah, freaking Canard was cursed.
04:55I think it was for Luke Canard.
04:55Canard.
04:56Oh, boy, he's having a series for the ages.
04:58Eight of 13, three of six.
04:59He is – he is now eight of 11 from three in this –
05:03LeBron looked – LeBron looked magnificently athletic a few times, too.
05:07They really – they really showcased the – the old man still – still has it in his bag at
05:12times.
05:12How about – how about Jayshon Tate?
05:16Jayshon Tate in the first half is locked up with LeBron down in the lane as the ball's being inbounded.
05:21And he's – he's doing – he's doing things that guys like Draymond do, like locking his arm.
05:26And LeBron just whips his arm out of there, stares at him, gets the ball, backs up outside the three
05:32-point line,
05:33jab steps, and just knocks down a three.
05:35I'm like, Jayshon Tate, what are you doing, man?
05:37Why are you – why are you – why are you poking –
05:39He pokes bears, Sean.
05:40Why are you poking – yeah, Dylan Brooks, that's what I should have said.
05:43We poke bears.
05:44That's what the Rockets do.
05:45Yeah.
05:46You think – oh, you think you earned this 2-0 in this series?
05:49No, that's what we give you.
05:50It's funny because when you first started in on your rant, you said it's hard to – it's easy to
05:55defend this team.
05:57And I thought you were saying, like, it's easy as a sports radioist to defend this team.
06:01No, no, no, I understood, yeah.
06:03It's easy for the opponent to defend this team.
06:05As a basketball team, it's easy to defend.
06:07Not so easy.
06:07Listen, if you guys expected us to –
06:09How do you not –
06:11We're going to defend this Rockets team on this show today.
06:13Yeah.
06:14Oh, yeah.
06:15It's easy.
06:15Yeah.
06:16It's going to be easy.
06:16Four hours of defending the Rockets' performance last night.
06:20Yeah, we're that show.
06:21I'm just watching it.
06:23I'm going, how do you not have answers for this?
06:24It's not like J.J. Redick is doing anything exotic.
06:26It's like, hey –
06:27Well, thank God they didn't trade away Dorian Finney-Smith because that would have been a panic.
06:31I was thinking about this last night as I'm watching this debacle.
06:34I'm like, he's the Brian Abreu of the Rockets.
06:39And here's the analogy.
06:40I'm thinking to myself, why is Jay Sean Tate playing 12 minutes?
06:44Why is – you know, Aaron Holiday is a different story because he plays a different position.
06:48But anybody on a wing, you know, why is Josh Akogi having to play, you know, 27 minutes or whatever
06:53he plays?
06:54He's starting for this team right now.
06:5524 minutes, I've got the box score.
06:58Why is that?
06:59Because Dorian Finney-Smith was counted on to play a role for this team, and he's an awful basketball player.
07:04He can't play that role, so they've got to fill these minutes somehow.
07:08So they're filling them with guys who barely belong in the NBA playing minutes.
07:13Similarly with the Astros, and we'll talk about them at some point here.
07:17Similarly with the Astros, the reason why Brian King has to come into these games and spit the bit
07:22and pitch way more pitches than he should be pitching is because Brian Finney-Abreu is unusable right now.
07:30You have guys that you are counting on in roles for both of these teams, and they're unusable.
07:36And because they're unusable, you're having to use guys that barely belong in their sport
07:39to either finish baseball games or play playoff minutes for a team that supposedly has championship aspirations.
07:49That's what I was told.
07:50Yeah, I would say with Brian King, I'm okay with him, except that you also look at last night
07:58and you think, okay, in an ideal world, if Josh Hader were healthy, you'd have Brian Abreu operating the way
08:05he should be able to operate,
08:07and then Josh Hader coming in as a closer.
08:09But last night, with the way Brian Abreu has been playing, no, it would have been, for one,
08:14for one, you would have liked to have had the guy who started the eighth inning finish the eighth inning,
08:20but De Los Santos couldn't do it, and you have to have Brian King.
08:23Brian Abreu is nowhere to be seen for good reason.
08:26And obviously Josh Hader is somewhere playing catch from a short distance or whatever step he's in in his rehab.
08:33Yeah, Josh Hader is, I guess, Fred Van Vliet or Steven Adams in this analogy, just out, just injured.
08:38He can't touch him or use him.
08:40Last night was sad because I felt like De Los Santos, who I, you know, was in our kind of
08:45marginal circle of trust on the release staff.
08:48He was on the do-not-hate list.
08:49That's what we heard.
08:50Yeah, yeah.
08:51He might have gotten knocked down a little bit, yeah.
08:53Oh, no, no, no.
08:54In the moment, right now, I hate Brian King and De Los Santos, just for last night.
09:00I know King's been better overall this year.
09:01But Brian King is still, like, honestly, the number of pitchers with an impressive ERA has dwindled even further,
09:09because now Brian King has ascended up into the fours.
09:12So now you have –
09:13De Los Santos, too.
09:15Yeah, right, yeah.
09:16King and De Los Santos both last night, as it tends to happen with relievers early in the season, did
09:22some damage to themselves.
09:23So it's really, like, Kai Weitang was fine.
09:25He's good.
09:25So Kai Weitang is still one of my pleasant discoveries on the team this year.
09:30But Spencer Arrighetti and a little dabble – a little dallop of Okert are about the only guys who are
09:37healthy right now that I feel good about.
09:39Yep, yep, yep.
09:40So the Rockets lose last night, and the Astros lose as well.
09:46They lose eight to five.
09:47They give up six runs in the eighth inning.
09:49It was just – it was a horrible night of Houston sports, and it feels like we've had a lot
09:52of those lately.
09:53It feels like there's been a lot of Mondays where we come in recently where the Astros were bad over
09:58the weekend and the Rockets do something to frustrate us.
10:01That certainly happened earlier this week when they lost game one and they got swept by the Cardinals.
10:06I was thinking about this this morning, Seth.
10:08I'm like, you know what?
10:09Not to put any of this evil on C.J. Stroud, but from about the time C.J. Stroud threw
10:14the four picks against the Patriots,
10:16by our expectations, it's been a fairly miserable few months of Houston sports.
10:21That's true, the year of 2026.
10:23It's not been good.
10:24For the three major sports, the three major professional sports, it's been rough.
10:30It's been rough.
10:31Yeah, bad taste in your mouth with the end of the Texan season for obvious reasons.
10:37And then you were already in the middle of a funk with the Rockets at that point, wondering just what
10:42the hell is this basketball team.
10:44They went 18-14 in the next 32 games after the C.J. four picks.
10:50I went and looked it up.
10:52Yeah.
10:53I looked it up this morning.
10:57I looked it up because I'm that angry.
10:59I was trying to, in the timeline, I was trying to figure out when in January did the Texans lose?
11:05They lost on January 18th.
11:07It was a Sunday.
11:08And the Rockets' next game was on January 20th, I think.
11:11And I went and looked because the Rockets' numbers are a little skewed because of that little win streak they
11:16went on at the end of the year against a bunch of bad teams.
11:18And at the beginning of the season, too.
11:19So you just, yeah, you forget about, you're trying to remember just how miserable was I?
11:23So there was that February and March that was just awful.
11:26Well, they were winning games versus bad opponents and losing versus good opponents.
11:32It was just, yeah.
11:33It was 18-14.
11:35It really doesn't do service to how concerned you were about their prospects.
11:40Being able to beat, will this team be able to beat the Lakers if they don't have Doncic and Reeves
11:45in the playoffs?
11:45Maybe, yeah.
11:46I think so.
11:47Maybe.
11:47I don't know.
11:48Maybe.
11:48Yeah, that's true.
11:49One of those 18 wins might have been the angriest you and I have been during this entire Rockets' season
11:54when they beat the Jazz by 20 but turned the ball over 27 times in the game.
11:59Yeah, so.
12:00And then we know what the Astros' record has been since CJ threw the four picks.
12:04Yeah.
12:04Because it's the entirety of the season.
12:06Nine and 16, I think it is right now.
12:08Nine and 16.
12:10Oh, boy.
12:10That's a lot of pressure on CJ.
12:12I feel like, I mean, because he's not going to have a chance to play again until the Astros might
12:17be out of it already.
12:18No.
12:18You know, if we need to absolve, if we need to cleanse this sin from our collective consciousness, he's got
12:25to do it.
12:26He's got to have a hell of a first preseason game.
12:28Yeah.
12:28Because maybe then it'll be, maybe there'll be time to salvage the Astros' season by then.
12:32Yeah, maybe.
12:33It's too late for the Rockets.
12:35Yeah, it's over.
12:37You know, it's Texter on the Base Power text line says,
12:42Toyota Center is going to be bone dead on Friday.
12:45That is an interesting, interesting.
12:48He's underestimating the ability of Lakers fans to show up in droves.
12:51Maybe.
12:52Yeah.
12:52Well, just LeBron fans.
12:53Yeah.
12:54They're not going to be dead.
12:55No.
12:55It's just, it's not going to be the atmosphere that you want necessarily.
12:58That's going to be very interesting because I, I think the season's over.
13:01I think the season's over even if they, even if they win this series, if we're talking about
13:04this team, this team is clearly like so clearly not a championship contender.
13:10Like, it's just, it's, it's abundantly clear.
13:13Well, and say, Hey, you know what?
13:15Defensively, you held them at 101 points, but right.
13:18Because you got Reed Shepard the hell out of there, but then you don't have any, you don't
13:22have any, you don't have any shooters out there.
13:23No, nope.
13:25Exactly.
13:25The same as a year ago when one of the big issues was, wow, they just don't have enough
13:29shooters.
13:30Well, I thought, what are you going to do?
13:31I thought Reggie made a really good point during the toss yesterday.
13:34When I asked them, are you more angry or worried about the Rockets and Lopez and I were both
13:39worried.
13:40I can't remember if you were angry or worried.
13:43Reggie was angry.
13:45And I said, Oh, okay.
13:46And I said, explain.
13:47And he basically said, none of these guys other than, you know, with Kevin Durant, it seems
13:51like these guys are just relying on Kevin Durant to go play hero ball.
13:55Like none of these guys are better from a year ago.
13:57Like none of them are better.
13:58Tari Eason bet on himself and it's been a horrible bet so far.
14:01Jabari Smith Jr.
14:02Might be the only one who's slightly improved.
14:04But his ceiling is so low compared to like, say, I'm in Thompson, whose ceiling is really
14:08high, but he, I'm in Thompson's not a better basketball player right now than he was a
14:14year ago.
14:15And Reed Shepard's better, but he's still only, you know, he may doesn't use him all
14:19the time.
14:19So I thought in retrospect, and especially after watching last night with Durant actually
14:24out on the floor, I thought it was a really good point by Reggie that this is, and that
14:29goes back to email Doka and his staff.
14:31Like nobody's.
14:31Yeah, exactly.
14:32That's what I was going to say is like, if you were going to have to restructure this
14:36offense without Fred Van Vliet in there and figure out a way to maximize the ability of
14:41these young guys as they're playing different roles than they'd been planning on, you know,
14:46as, as, as, as late as July, that joke is not the guy to do it.
14:51Right.
14:52It's that you're not going to all of a sudden teach these guys, you know, NBA offense 301
14:59and, and, and really create something.
15:02And it was just, um, I almost feel like they were just left to figure it out on their own.
15:07And that's the biggest disappointment from the coaching side of things.
15:12No doubt.
15:13No doubt.
15:13And I can tell you right now, if this team loses this series to, to the, uh, to the Lakers
15:19with
15:20no Luka Doncic playing in this series and the, and the, the reports are the expectation,
15:24unless this series goes six or seven games, Luke is not going to sniff the floor.
15:28There's a better chance that the Rockets losing five in this series, the way they're playing
15:31right now, that's why it wouldn't go six or seven.
15:34Cause the Rockets lose.
15:35Um, but they, if they lose this series, um, there's no way that they can maintain the trust
15:42of the fan base with just running it back and saying, Oh, we'll get Fred and Steven back
15:46and we'll be fine.
15:47Yeah.
15:47Like there's no way there's, there is no way that there's no way Fred Van Vliet is the
15:53difference between losing to an undermanned Lakers team and contending for an NBA championship.
15:58And I know that's, I know they're missing a point.
16:00I know they're missing a point guard.
16:02I started doing this too.
16:03I started going, man, I got to go back and look at some of what was being said last year
16:07during the loss to the warriors in the first round.
16:09Like what was the feeling then?
16:11And there was, I, you know, I think there was still, I think that team was a young team
16:14still riding the high of being a two seed, you know, knowing that even if they lose to
16:17the warriors, Hey, it's the warriors, even though it's an older version of them.
16:21And, you know, you go to seven games, that's going to be good experience.
16:25And they'll use that experience to, to forge themselves further next year.
16:29People were pissed at Fred Van Vliet during that series last year.
16:33You know, like Fred, Fred, the, the, the, the greatest thing that's happened to the perception
16:37of Fred Van Vliet is this ACL tear that's, that's, that's forced the Rockets.
16:43That's a good point.
16:43It was a well-timed ACL tear.
16:45Yeah.
16:46Somehow positioned themselves as the MVP of the team.
16:48It's Magic Johnson all of a sudden.
16:49Well, you know, we need to take up a, we need to start campaigning for him to be MVP of
16:54the league the way they did when Peyton Manning was out.
16:56So yeah, look at what happened to this Rockets team without Fred Van Vliet.
16:59Exactly right.
17:00Yep.
17:00Yep.
17:01Yep.
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