00:00Here was Zach Lowe on the Bill Simmons podcast.
00:02They were talking about the Rockets and the Lakers game four Sunday night.
00:08The Rockets keep their season alive.
00:09They'll be back at it tomorrow, Wednesday, in L.A., 9 o'clock tip tomorrow night.
00:15Here was Zach Lowe on what the Rockets did better in game four
00:19as opposed to the first three games of the series.
00:22I mean, thing number one was they actually made Luke Kennard play defense
00:26and didn't let him just hang out.
00:28I know it took four games, but they didn't let him hang out off the ball all the time.
00:33Ahmed Thompson attacked him, and he was on Tar East,
00:36and Tar East even just blew by him at one point.
00:38They just gave Tar East the ball.
00:39Jabari Smith hunted him in a switch, and this has kind of been fun.
00:42Without KD, it's been fun to watch guys like Jabari Smith Jr.
00:45get to do a little bit more and really stretch their wings.
00:47That was one, and just they have this kind of defensive gear in them
00:51when they have their best defenders on the floor.
00:53They can create a lot of turnovers.
00:54Lakers had 20-something turnovers the last time I checked.
00:56Yeah, so strategically, that would be the main one.
01:00Yeah.
01:01It'll be interesting tomorrow night, Seth.
01:03They're going to be able to force 24 turnovers again.
01:05The Lakers were really careless with the basketball at times in that game on Sunday.
01:10They're going to be home.
01:12They're going to be more dialed in.
01:13Their role players are probably going to play better at home than they do on the road.
01:16That's generally the norm in the NBA.
01:19The part about attacking Kennard when making Luke Kennard play defense, to me,
01:26is the part that's just so disturbing and so damning that it takes four games in to figure out,
01:32oh, yeah, this guy who rarely plays, you know, he's a reserve on their team normally
01:37because they're just without Luka and without Austin Reeves right now,
01:41that this guy has been killing us at the offensive end.
01:44You know what would be good?
01:44Make him work at the defensive end a little bit.
01:46Right, yeah, and that's where this conversation they were having,
01:52Simmons and what's his name, Zach Lowe, were kind of scoffing at.
01:58They started off saying, like, hey, they actually used some strategy, you know,
02:01like, oh, a strategical move by the Rockets, and they laughed and scoffed.
02:06Now, when Simmons scoffs, I don't think much of it.
02:09Zach Lowe, he's different.
02:11He's more of a ball-knower.
02:13Yeah, I've always been amazed that he has ever actually worked for Bill Simmons as his boss
02:18because if ever there was a dynamic where, like, oh, this is my stupid boss is saying something
02:24and I've got to act like it makes sense, that's Zach Lowe.
02:28Yeah, so you're kind of scoffing at the Rockets' inability to strategize or have a plan
02:33or any kind of structure or anything.
02:36I think that's very real, and I think coming from a scoff from Zach Lowe actually means something.
02:42The other big part of this, too, is we still don't have word officially on Austin Reeves, do we?
02:46No, I haven't heard anything.
02:48He was upgraded from questionable, so there's a good chance Austin Reeves plays.
02:52Yeah, he was listed as questionable the last two games going into the game, and he didn't play.
02:58So, yeah, we'll see.
02:59He seems to be closer to coming back than Luka does.
03:03Getting either of them back is a problem for the Rockets because they've been undermanned all year
03:08with respect to Fred Van Vliet and mostly Steven Adams for the year, and now no Kevin Durant is a
03:15problem.
03:17There's strong optimism that he'll play according to sources on ESPN.
03:21Okay.
03:22It's an oblique injury for him.
03:25So, Kendrick Perkins was on ESPN.
03:30He was on yesterday morning, and he had this to say about Game 5.
03:34Now, keep in mind, Kendrick Perkins, who even after the win on Sunday, was still killing the Rockets.
03:41Selfish, horrific, called them not a pile of bleep, but a pasture full of bleep.
03:48He's been very critical of the Rockets for some time now.
03:51And he had this to say about Game 5.
03:53Game 5 is a must-win for the Lakers.
03:57I know that much.
03:58They better get it done in Game 5, which I believe they will because if it's prolonged past that,
04:04then we're going to be having a different conversation.
04:06But Game 5 on Wednesday is a must-win for Bruin and the Los Angeles Lakers
04:12because you don't want to have this series extended and all of a sudden Kevin Durant comes back
04:17and all of a sudden the Rockets and their confidence continue to grow.
04:21And all of a sudden we could be seeing something that we've never witnessed in the history of the NBA.
04:27So, again, me knowing Bruin, he's going to come with a level of focus.
04:32Those role players are going to play better at home.
04:35But they're in a must-win situation, Game 5.
04:37They better close it out in L.A.
04:39I'm going to give Perk a little bit of a pass because at that point he's still talking like Kevin
04:44Durant
04:45might come back for this series.
04:46And we'll play Dr. Chow here in a second.
04:48It doesn't sound like Kevin Durant's going to make it back for this series,
04:51at least if what Dr. Chow says about bone bruises is accurate on that ankle.
04:55The part that I just can't compute, even if Durant were healthy,
04:59is that you've been killing this team all year, but especially the last couple months
05:04and especially the last couple weeks, Kendrick Perkins cannot get off of the Rockets.
05:09He's destroying them.
05:10And now all of a sudden if they win Game 5 and they're still down 3-2,
05:15all of a sudden the Lakers are in trouble now all of a sudden.
05:17Yeah, they've got a chance.
05:18Yeah.
05:19You're talking about a team that you've said is like one and done, terrible.
05:24I haven't seen Kendrick Perkins talk bad like this about any Rockets team, certainly.
05:29And now all of a sudden if they win this game, boy, the Lakers better look.
05:32Boy, LeBron better look out.
05:33The guy who's never coughed up a 2-0 lead in a playoff series is better look out
05:38because now he's going to be the first one to ever cough up a 3-0 lead.
05:41To ever lose 3-0, yeah.
05:42I just don't get that.
05:43I think one of the biggest X factors really is that Game 4 was the first time
05:48that LeBron looked tired and old.
05:50Yes.
05:50It looked like it was getting to him.
05:52And then lo and behold, he's got two days off.
05:55And I don't know, maybe he flew to Spain to get some kind of revolutionary treatment
05:59to recover, that you're probably going to see more of the LeBron James that you saw
06:05in the first three games.
06:06Yep, yep.
06:06I would think so.
06:08This is, I'm really P.O.ed about this being, is this a 9 p.m. start?
06:12Yeah, 9 p.m.
06:13Yeah, on Wednesday.
06:15This is, you know, like, when you say up late for the Astros, we're in the middle of the playoffs,
06:21it's a different feel, or it used to be a different feel.
06:23So this, I'm really pissed that it's a 9 p.m. start.
06:26Well, the only good thing is that there's zero overlap with the Astros.
06:30Like, the Astros start at 5.30.
06:32Yeah.
06:33That game will be over probably by 8, 8.15, and then you've got a little time in between
06:37to, you know, shower or order some takeout or whatever.
06:40I've already ordered a couple of Kai Wei Tang custom t-shirts.
06:43Hell yeah.
06:44On the internet.
06:45Hell yeah.
06:45Licensed?
06:46I don't care.
06:47Yeah, who cares, man?
06:48Who cares?
06:48Made in Taiwan?
06:50Good chance.
06:50Yeah.
06:51Yeah.
06:51Appropriate, I would say.
06:53Appropriate.
06:54This was Dr. Chow, who's a friend of the show, former sports doctor for the, former team
07:00doctor for the Chargers, who now, he has a website where he does injury reporting for
07:07gambling purposes, SICsports.com, if you want to check it out.
07:11It's a good site.
07:12SICcentral.com.
07:13SICcentral.com?
07:14Okay, got it.
07:16SICcentral.com.
07:17No, you're probably, you're right.
07:19You're right.
07:20I'm not even going to check it.
07:21Yeah, I think you're right.
07:22Yeah.
07:22Here's Dr. Chow on the injury.
07:24Hold on, let's, let me apologize for 30 more seconds.
07:27I'm sorry that Mike Greenberg said that.
07:30Yeah, exactly.
07:31You said that David Boston.
07:33That Denzel Boston was the son of David Boston.
07:34David Boston's Sean's dad.
07:35Yeah.
07:36Here is, here's Dr. Chow talking about the severity of the, what the bone bruise on Kevin
07:42Durant's ankle means.
07:43The reporting says there's an ankle bone bruise.
07:48And if he has an ankle bone bruise, okay, it's the ankle, not the knee, like Anthony Edwards.
07:53That's not just a strap it up and play through injury.
07:56Okay.
07:56So if he indeed has a bone bruise as has been reported, then I would not call Kevin Durant soft.
08:04So I get the suspicions and I love Shams, Charnia, but the reporting on his knee when they got run
08:11into on his knee that it was a deep patella tendon bruise.
08:17He's, you don't really bruise tendons, but okay, whatever.
08:22You're not going to go after her.
08:23He didn't, he heard it from somebody.
08:24He's not, yeah, he's not.
08:25Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:26It's a game of telephone from an agent or something.
08:28Correct.
08:29The agent might be trying to make it sound worse.
08:31That's why I always thought Durant would play through that.
08:34If he has an ankle bone bruise, then I don't think he's soft, but he's also not coming back.
08:40And that's probably one more game from being done that series, right?
08:43We were both wrong.
08:45It is sixscore.com.
08:47Oh, sixscore.com.
08:49Sixscore Sports Injury Central.
08:51So the word sports injury.
08:53I was right that you were wrong.
08:54So I was more right than you were.
08:56Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:56Mostly.
08:57I'm not apologizing to you just so you know.
08:59No, that's, it is, because a lot of times, anytime you hear bruise, I think people have a tendency to
09:05think, oh, it's a pain tolerance issue or something.
09:07With a bone bruise, the amount of swelling that you can have, it can just shut things down.
09:12Your body doesn't work properly.
09:13So it's a bigger deal.
09:15I'm glad, you know what?
09:16And I'm glad that David Chow explained that about the patellar bruise, because that didn't make any sense to me
09:23at the time.
09:24I'd never heard it before.
09:25A bruise tended.
09:26But certainly Shams Charania wouldn't mess this up.
09:29No.
09:29Dr. Shams?
09:30Who was it that said, where's Woj?
09:33That said he missed Woj a couple weeks ago.
09:35Oh, oh, it was, it was Doc Rivers.
09:37Yeah, that's right.
09:38It was Doc Rivers.
09:39That's right, Doc Rivers.
09:40It was Doc Rivers.
09:41Yeah, where's Woj?
09:42Yeah, Seth.
09:42If you couldn't hear, Seth said it in the middle of that cut from Dr. Chow.
09:46All right.
09:46So not optimistic about Kevin Durant.
09:49But you know what?
09:50Let's keep the season going.
09:51There was a big part of me, Seth, on Sunday that was just like, let's just get this over with.
09:55And now that they've won a game, I'm like, okay, well, you know, if they go win in L.A.,
09:59and all of a sudden that boy, game six on Friday has a lot of juice to it back here
10:04in Houston.
10:04If they're able to pull off the win.
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