December 26, 2025 • 27 mins
The Rockets (18-10) went 2-4 on their season-long road trip in December, including losses to multiple teams with records near the bottom of the Western Conference standings. Yet, they ended it with a flourish thanks to a Christmas night beatdown of the Lakers (19-10).
With Ben DuBose and Dave Hardisty as hosts, Thursday’s “ClutchFans Live” postgame show breaks down all the key storylines. Topics include Dorian Finney-Smith’s return and Tari Eason’s promotion to the starting lineup; a breakout performance by Amen Thompson; and, from the perspective of team results, what the optimal usage model for Alperen Sengun should be.
With Ben DuBose and Dave Hardisty as hosts, Thursday’s “ClutchFans Live” postgame show breaks down all the key storylines. Topics include Dorian Finney-Smith’s return and Tari Eason’s promotion to the starting lineup; a breakout performance by Amen Thompson; and, from the perspective of team results, what the optimal usage model for Alperen Sengun should be.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Merry Christmas, everybody. Rockets get a huge win their first
game playing on Christmas in sometime one, nineteen to ninety six,
over the La Lakers in LA to cap off a
road trip that has been tumultuous, to say the least,
at least ends on a really positive note. Kevin Durant
(00:23):
and Amen Thompson combined for I believe fifty one points
tonight to lead the way another shift and sort of
shot hierarchy and basically kind of dominated the Lakers from
start to finish a team that was ahead of them,
that is ahead of them in the standings. I'm here
with the great Ben Dubos. Ben, I appreciate you being here.
It's going to be a fun I'm very Christmas to
(00:43):
you and your family. By the way, than you curious
your thoughts on this game after you know, we didn't
even do postgames after the last two games just because
of our holiday schedule. Yeah, yeah, that would have been ugly.
And tonight, you know, on Christmas Night, we actually get
together to do this and they get a big win.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah. Absolutely, And it shouldn't be lost that they made
a change to the starting lineup with Tarry Easton in
place of Josha Kogi, And I don't think it's necessarily
a referendum on Josha Kogy, who's been very good this season.
But I do think Tarry Easton added something both with
his ability to create chaos getting some seals, but also
how his shooting opened the floor for a Men Thompson,
(01:26):
because I really thought that was the big difference in
this game. Like, certainly the Rockets outclassed the Lakers athletically,
that's something that stood out to basically everyone watching. But
when you talk about the Rockets outclassing someone athletically, it
starts with a men Thompson. And I was talking with
someone inside the organization during the game and they made
the case to me, and I think they're right that
(01:47):
the Rockets are at their best when a men is
the engine. Now that's not to say that a men
should be the engine every night, because there's some nights
that he's simply not worth that. They're not gonna, you know,
try and fit a square peg into a round hole.
They're not at a four speed. A men touches and
shot attempts for the sake of you know, acting like
and coorinating him as the best player on this team.
(02:08):
He's not Kevin Durant and Alper and Shangun or All
Stars at this point, Amen Thompson is not. However, if
there's something you can do to unlock that peak version
of Amen Thompson, and I think the additional floor spacing
of someone like Tarry Eason potentially read Shepherd as well.
But with Reed there's concerns defensively with the lack of
size we've addressed in the past. I just think with
(02:31):
KD and Shangoon, as good as they are on a
consistent basis, I think A Men's the variable. When you
get this version of A Men, the downhill force that
we saw tonight creating for not just himself but his teammates,
that's when the Rockets go from good to very good,
potentially great. And you know, NBA dot Com had this
new stat called gravity that came out today and I
(02:53):
think A Men was the worst among the Rockets rotation players.
And I think like two hundred and sixty seventh in
the NBA, which isn't that shocking because defender sag off
of him with the shooting limitations. We all know that. Well,
the thing is, he doesn't play with a ton of gravity.
Joshua Kogi doesn't. He's a respectable three point shooter, but
certainly not one that that teams are gonna go out
(03:14):
to the three point line to contest. They are more
than happy to give him those shots. Shounoon and Adams
neither of those two are consistent three point shooters. In fact,
Stephen doesn't even take them. So if you have three
of the five with a Men, a Kogi, and a
big as non spacers, that makes it really tough for
(03:35):
a Men to get the space he needs to attack
downhill and make those plays going to the rim. And
I thought, you know, a Men was the story of
this game, and he deserves his flowers. But I also
think starting Tari that might have unlocked something, you know,
in a lot of ways. It's similar to the pros
for starting Reed Shepherd. We've talked about it in the past,
(03:55):
having one more creator slash shooter on the floor. But
with Reed you worry abot out the lack of size
and getting exploited defensively. Well, with Ta you have the shooting.
You might not have the creation, but you do have
the size defensively, so you're not gonna get exploited on
that side. Maybe Doriy and Finney Smith, who by the way,
made his Rockets debut tonight very limited in minutes, didn't
(04:15):
have a super impactful game to be expected since he
hasn't played since April. Long term, maybe he fits into
this equation as well. But I think if you can
go from Joshua Kogi to a fifth starter that can
really space the floor, that might help unlock the peak
version of a Men Thompson. Because to bring my comments
full circle, I think the Rockets are right. The peak
(04:37):
version of the Rockets involves what we saw from a
Men Thompson tonight and anything they can do to get
that version of the Men it's to the betterment of
the team.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, I'm one hundred percent with you on this. I mean,
we've talked about it before. I feel like, and I
guess some of the criticisms of a Men as a
point guard, I don't think he's thriving in this role.
There's been instances. I know we saw this in the
Clipper game where there was an instance where he just
flat out lost the ball, no pressure, nothing, just lost it.
They went down and hit a three. This is late
(05:05):
in the game. I hardened it, and I mean I
was just frustrated. There are instances like that with the men,
but you are doing such a huge disservice to the
future of this team if you're not exploring the basically
engine or on ball potential of both Red Shepherd and
a men Thompson. You know, I just think if you
(05:26):
say to yourself, Okay, this is just going to be
a shn hub situation. You know, you go fill your roles,
you just catch and shoot read and you go over here,
a men play in the dunker spot. It's just you're
not going to reach any kind of maximum potential. And
tonight yet, yeah, the Lakers defense is not very good.
That's important to point out for sure here. So I
don't want to make it sound like a men can
(05:46):
do this every single night, But there were some plays
tonight where I mean it was just like you said Downhill,
like there was just a lot of force that he
played with. I thought he set the tone. Tari starting
was very big. I thought he applied some pressure early
on to Luca that Luca was not loving or very
comfortable with. And I thought, you know, on a small scale,
(06:07):
Jabari had a nice bounced back game as well, just
you know, was sufficient in his role and has some
good defensive moments as well. All around great game. We
haven't really talked too much about Kevin Durant, who I
thought was terrific and has been terrific, shooting the ball
in a number of games, you know, eight to fourteen
from the field tonight four of six from three. He
continues to be big. I think he finished with twenty
(06:28):
five and a man with twenty six. So just you know,
and I tweeted this out. I'm sure overnight I'm going
to get a ton of hate about it. But it's
just just notable. The amount of shots on this road
trip that Alprin Shanghun got in the four losses was
twenty one and a half on average the field goal attempts,
and then in those two wins it's eight point zero.
(06:49):
I'm not saying that that's how it needs to be
all the time. It's just interesting to see these games
where it's kind of he takes more of a role
where his defense is a little bit better to focus
harder on the defense. The focus is more on the
rebounding and making the direct connecting pass. He had a
really good short roll alley loop to a men tonight.
It's just a contrast, especially because on this road trip
(07:11):
we saw the direct contrast in the Nuggets game, the
first one that they lost. Now granted they almost won
that game, but they lost, and it was you know,
LP taking twenty seven to twenty eight shots whatever it
was to winning the game later on where he takes nine.
I just think the contrast on this road trip was interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And when you're able to dial up the usage for
a men Thompson and he's able to soak up more reps,
then it opens up the game for Shingoon and KD
to do other things. KD had eight assists, Shangoon had
twelve rebounds. And when you talk to people inside the building,
they will tell you that throughout this very uncomfortable December,
where even with the win tonight, they still have a
(07:51):
losing record five and six on the month, they wrapped
up a season long six game road trip at two
and four, so no victory laps. They are nowhere near
even at eighteen and ten and where they think they
should be. And if they had just closed out games
against the Pelicans and the Kings and hadn't had the
first one in Denver stolen from them, I mean, just
imagine where they'd be. But at the end of the day,
eighteen and ten, fifth or sixth in the West. I mean,
(08:13):
it's where they are, and they've got to make the
best of the situation moving forward. At least they have
a lot of home games coming up where the defense
has held up. The slippage defensively has largely been on
the road. But when we talk about this defense that
went from top two through October and November to bottom
ten going into this Christmas Night game in La I'm
(08:34):
not going to say that it's all about the big men,
but there has been some slippage there. And when Shongoon
is able to concentrate a little bit more on defense
and rebounding he had twelve and thirty one minutes tonight.
That's to the betterment of the team. And when you
talk to folks inside the building, they're not worried about
crunch time, execution, who's the point guard? No. What I've
heard throughout this month, and Dave, I'm guessing you've heard
(08:56):
many of the same things. It's about the defense, it's
about the rebounding. That's what they are frustrated by. And
overall this month I went and looked. So they're still
almost at the top of the NBA in overall rebounding,
but that's because of the offensive glass and the Steven
Adams effect. Defensively. Going into tonight, they're actually in the
bottom half of the league, so there has been some
real slippage there. If Shangoon's able to go a little
(09:20):
bit harder on the glass, if KD has a little
more juice in his legs, where for as good as
he is and as large as he is, KD is
not a good rebounder for his position. So if he
has some more juice, if Shagoon has some more juice,
then that can sort of clean up these possessions. Were
on the road trip, we've seen opponents get two and
three chances and eventually they're able to finish. And I'm
(09:44):
wondering after the way they've looked the past week, with
two really good wins on the road against the Nuggets
and the Lakers, and then the two terrible losses to
the Pelicans and the Kings and the Clippers. Although I
think the Clippers a little bit of an outlier. Rocket's
effort was really bad, not one, and Harden and Kawhi
were really good. I'm wondering, Dave, if you know, early
(10:05):
on in the year, there was this narrative that the
Rockets are better against you know, lesser teams because they
hadn't beaten a so called top tier team until Denver
last weekend. I actually think it might be the reverse.
You know, this month, they've lost to each of the
five last place teams in the West or the bottom
five teams in the West standings. And I think the
way this roster is set up, other than a men
(10:27):
and to an extent, tari they aren't particularly explosive. They're big,
but when you look at you know, the front line
Shingoon and Adams Shabari, they're not super vertically explosive athletes.
KD for all of his attributes, he's not particularly springy,
at least on the glass. Reed Shepherd has some springs,
but he's very small. Like this is a team that
(10:50):
if you're playing against a bottom tier type team, those
tend to disproportionately have a lot of long, explosive athletes
because they've been you know, relating lottery picks. That might
be the ticket to you know, giving this Rockets team
some problems, especially if you know, I'm not going to
act like that that they've been totally dialed in for
forty eight minutes, because they have not been. But what
(11:12):
I'm saying is that's sort of a compounding effect. They're
not dialed in for forty eight minutes, and then just
the strength of this team, it's more or at least
it should be for the half court games against teams
like the Nuggets and the Lakers, and we're we started
to see that turnaround and over the last week. And
I guess the silver lining, Dave, is that in the playoffs,
I think the type of game we saw tonight, what
(11:33):
we saw in Denver, the two games last week, those
are more likely to be the types of games you
see in the playoffs when it's more spread out than
what we saw against the likes of the Pelicans and
the Kings. So it's frustrating in many ways. It's sort
of like the opposite of last year in that, you know,
last year's team they maximized every drop, they always played hard,
but we always worried about, you know, is the ceiling
(11:55):
going to be limited in the playoffs, And ultimately it
was this year's team might be the opposite, and that
they lose a few games that they probably shouldn't along
the way, but they also have that gear that you
can actually trust them to execute in half court situations
against good teams. I think we saw that tonight, and
to sort of put a bow on this, I think
(12:15):
the best way to mitigate it moving forward, besides playing
at home more, having more Jews, hopefully not having you know,
the disjointed schedule that we've seen this month, if you
can free up Kdi and Shingoon to do some things
beyond simply scoring, then that can go a long way
towards mitigating these deficiencies, along with scaling up the roles
of Tory Easton and Dori Anfhony Smith.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah, it's you know, interesting talking about a little bit
of the effort level that we talked about. I know
online a lot of people focusing on a Men Jabbari,
you know, Men's Andre Robers and Jabari is the worst
starter player in the entire NBA, and I feel like
it's a lot of lightning rods and there's definitely across
the board effort issues that we saw that I thought,
(12:56):
you know, tonight, we're kind of a raise fifty eight
thirty one. They dominated the boards tonight, which was really
nice to see. But I know, yeah, like you're saying, internally,
they're focusing on their two main guys, the guys who
are probably going to the All Star Game, and Katie
and shannguon and trying to to get them to lead them.
And I think you're gonna, like you said, you're gonna
have to be able to play both ways. And it's
(13:18):
nice that you can. You can go to a shn
hubbub type offense and play off of that at times,
but I think you're going to have to have at
least one of these guys a man or read you know,
proved to be an on ball type of player. It's
gonna be really interesting when Fred does get back next year,
you know, assuming that's what happens after a season, or
whether he's back this year. I mean, I know, Ben,
(13:40):
you were the first person early on, shortly after the
injury to say Fred, you know or the Rockets that
excuse me, are not ruling out Fred van Lee coming
back this year. And I'm like, that's really tough to see.
But you know, you're seeing more and more indicators and
signs that he wants to I don't know, if that's
how feasible it's going to be, you know, if we're
gonna see an Aaron Rodger type situation where okay, he
(14:01):
could play, but he's not actually going to. But you know,
and it's interesting. Oh that that brings up another point
with DFS playing tonight. I didn't actually take a look,
but from the first half trends, it did look like
A Kogi and Reed both lost some minutes. Reid played
about ten minutes in the first half. Yeah, before going
into this game, I'm a little scattered here with some
of my points. But Reed had actually taken the lead,
(14:24):
and Row total plus minus rechepperd at probably half the
minutes of other players had taken the lead. That really
didn't play out tonight. Your five starters were all in
the plus twenty fives twenty six is. I think Katie
and Amen led the way with plus twenty six, j
Bari plus twenty five, shan Gun plus twenty four, and
Tari plus twenty three. Reid was minus eight. But it's
(14:47):
gonna be very interesting because now you're getting that depth back,
and you know, we talked about this before the game tonight.
A Kogi has been really good shooting over forty percent
from thirty these defense has been good, his net rating
when he's on the floor fantastic. So it's I just
I was thinking, are we going to see a huge
impact from DFS. I think just in the overall debt,
(15:07):
the fact that you can throw out several of these
guys who can play a great defense or bring some
two way impact is there. But just replacing a Kogi
with DFS, you might not see as significant impacts as
you know expected well.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And I think it's going to take some time for DFS.
This is a guy who's not played NBA basketball since April,
and he didn't have the benefit of preseason and training
camp to scale up. So I'm not going to look
at his stats or his level of play all that
seriously until probably a month from now at the earliest,
Like right now. My guess is Ima Udoka a few
(15:42):
weeks ago said they were targeting January. They probably pushed
the timetable forward a little bit, with as rough as
things have been in recent games to get you know
a little bit of a psychological boost. And I do think,
you know, he's very high IQ. He communicates defensively, and
so for a Rocket team that's been slipping in the areas. Yeah,
he can help them, but my guess is that they
(16:04):
probably would have liked to have had a little bit
more time, but the team's level of play in the
last couple of weeks might have led to them, you know,
pushing the envelope a little bit. And Jorian has a
lot of pride, and even though I don't think he
scored tonight, he definitely contributed in his minutes. I just
think the problem with Josha Koge, like the numbers are there,
but with Josh and threes, it's a little bit like
(16:25):
the outlier kJ Martin year that he had. I forget
what season it was, but people were trying to sort
of buy in on kJ long term with the Rockets,
and the problem was, even though he was like thirty
six thirty seven percent, opposing teams weren't really respecting him,
so you weren't really getting the benefit of him as
a spacer, Like you could tell the scouting reports were
(16:45):
still trust that he's not going to make them at
a high level on a consistent basis, and eventually he
fell back to earth and not saying that Josh is
anything analogous to kJ as a player, because Josh is
way better defensively, but in terms of the shooting, like
we saw late in the Sacramento game, like teams are
leaving him wide open for a reason, and I think
that compresses the floor for a men, especially if he's
(17:07):
also playing with Shangoon or Steven Adams, which he typically is.
So it's nothing that Josh is doing wrong, but I
do think that the overall ceiling is higher when you
have Tari or Red in that fifth slot or potentially DFS.
Although my guess is that they're gonna you know, this
is different. People are going to look at what Tari's
done the past week when he's been really impressive, and say, well,
can DFS do much of the same. I think it's
(17:30):
gonna take a lot longer. Like Tari missed a month
with DFS, we're talking about eight months, and in contrast
to Tari, he didn't have training camp for the preseason.
It's an entirely new team. Tari's played with Imodoka. This
is his third season. It's a lot tougher for DFS
on a number of levels than it was for Tari
when he came back a couple of games ago. So
(17:50):
be patient. That'd be my main thing with DFS. I
think it's worth it in the long run because he's
someone that is shot at a high enough level consistently
that that I think it would be the floor spacing
would be there in a way that it's not for
Josha Kobe. But in the short term there might be
some bumps. You just have to trust that it's going
(18:11):
to be, you know, for the greater good. And one
other point I wanted to get in on the last
segment's commentary, as far as you know, are the Rockets
better against you know, bad teams or good teams? And
I'm starting to think they might be, you know, better
for the matchups against the good. So some of that
narrative that that was out there about not beating top
tier teams until the Nuggets and Lakers games, there's a
(18:34):
little bit of cherry picking going on. And when you
look at the games people are referencing, so many of
them were just coin flips. We're talking a small sample
size to begin with, and then the first Denver game
in Denver that is ok SE Detroit. These are literal
coin flip games where one bounce, one whistle going your
(18:54):
way completely changes the outcome, So the process was fine.
The Rockets were in those games and there's nothing to
be ashamed of in their effort. In fact, I think
they match up pretty well with Denver, even though there
were one and two in those three games. I actually
sort of liked the matchup. Now, I know Denver didn't
have Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown for a lot of
those so we'll see what that might mean assuming those
guys eventually get healthy. But from what I've seen, I
(19:16):
like the Denver matchup. The one team that I do
have some concerns about the matchup with is San Antonio
because that's the one Tier A team where I felt
like the Rockets legitimately did get out classed. Do you
go back to that Cup game, you know, the Rockets
took a ten point lead, and then from you know,
about the final three minutes in the first half, all
the way and into the game, the Rockets just couldn't
(19:37):
match their physicality and athleticism between Wimby and Castle and
Keldon Johnson crushing Tarry Easton on the offensive glass. That
was the one matchup where it just felt like, you know,
the Rockets didn't have the juice and that sort of
ties back into what I was saying earlier about the
vertical athleticism or the lack thereof. That might be the
(19:58):
weakness of this team, and that's why I think they
sometimes struggle against the lottery teams. This is a big team,
it's not a super vertically explosive team, and I think
the Spurs sort of put it on display in that game.
So I think, you know, clearly the Spurs are coming around.
They've beaten the Thunder like three times in a week,
so they look like a contender in their own right.
But I just think of all the top tier West teams,
(20:20):
that might be the toughest matchup because I think, you know,
if the Rockets have a weakness beyond just the effort
being down on sub nights, it might be that they're
not the most vertically explosive team. So I guess A,
I worry about the Spurs because of that, and B
I wonder if maybe that sort of pushes the needle
to experiment more with the Terror twins, because I think
(20:43):
when you play a Men and Tari together, that's the
one configuration where you are potentially you're not going to
say you're like Spurs level of team athleticism because with
wemb obviously that's a that's just a different standard, but
a men and Tari together and that terror twins. That
might be the one way you can sort of chip
away at the at the athleticism gap that I think
(21:05):
at times could be an issue. I guess, Dave, that's
the way I'd put a bow on all of this.
The Rockets, you know, they're certainly a very good team,
and they are a very big team, but I do
think in some of these matchups they're not the most
like vertically explosive team, and I think that's where I
have some concerns, and maybe amendentry together is a way
you can address that.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You know, we talked about this before the game. I mean, okay,
see we were talking about or not we, I mean
just the NBA community at large about okay, see, you know,
going for seventy just you know, being one of the
greatest teams ever. Now they've lost I think five games
this year, three of them to the Spurs, and we
talked about this in our last broadcast of three games
ago or so. It's just looking at the Rockets and
(21:45):
just this needle that they have to thread with their
present and their future. How does their future size up
against okay See, How does their future size up against
San Antonio. We still have a lot of questions left
to be answered. We still want to see the Rockets
go against the Spurs again. And we haven't seen okay
See the Oka See matchups since the opening night and
that was often obviously very very close. But it's it's
(22:07):
kind of scary. I mean, san Antonio is just scratching
the surface. And I don't want to go too far,
but like they could threaten if they can beat okay See,
they could threaten to win it this year, which is nuts,
just nuts. I mean, obviously they got it incredibly lucky,
getting the you know, sort of guy to get out
(22:30):
of all the last you know, twenty years or whatever
however long it's been that this is you know, Wenby
is is truly that kind of impact player. But you know,
this is a Rafelstone who's built a heck of a team.
But it's going to be his biggest challenge is how
do you size up against Okac and now now San
Antonio as well. But this is a great win tonight,
you know, and and I love the Rockets kind of
(22:51):
win in a different variety of ways. You've got the
shan Hubb. They've won games playing shin Hub as well,
but on this road trip, just you know what they
did with some of those with their two wins, I
thought was really kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And real quick. Someone in the chat mentioned trade possibilities.
I think this is why Rafelstone is going to have
to be very cautious, Like I'm not opposed to a
trade in all circumstances, like there are tweaks you can
make around the margins, but I don't think they want
to bid very aggressively because I think you need in
(23:24):
your back pocket the tier one assets to go after.
We've talked about Giannis in the past. It doesn't have
to be honest, but someone of that stature, because if
it's not just the Thunder but the Spurge are potentially
in that tier as well the Rockets. In my opinion,
they've got to be very careful not to overpay for, say,
you know, a name point guard just to have a
(23:46):
point guard if it's not you know, someone that's clearly
going to make you a top shelf title contender immediately.
And so I'm not opposed to, you know, a trade
under the right circumstances. But I would say it sounds counterintuitive,
but with as good as the Thunder and the Spurs
look at the moment, not just now, but for the
(24:08):
foreseeable future or assuming health, it would actually make me
a little more cautious at least about moderate upgrades, because
you need to make sure that you have enough AMO
to eventually pursue a top tier guy if you need it.
We don't need to go into that tonight. Hopefully the
Rockets don't need it. Hopefully they're good enough as is.
But if they're not, and Dave, you're exactly right, the
bar is really high. They need to make sure that
(24:30):
you know those premium assets. The Brooklyn swap in twenty seven,
the two Phoenix picks, which I think are being undervalued
sons are off to a good start. I still question
how sustainable that is. MAVs in twenty nine, We'll see
what they look like a few years from now. Rocket's
own picks, the young players on this roster, I would
be very very cautious packaging too much of that for
(24:51):
a moderate upgrade. Someone that might just fill and check
a box right now in the short term, if it's
not a true needle mover, because the possibility is there
that you really will need a needle mover to get
to that true title contention level. I hope that's not
the case, but you at least have to be open
minded to that, as you sort of if you're a
Felstone and you take shape of how the league looks
(25:13):
and what you should do with your assets.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Well, anything else, Ben you want to say before this game,
this is a good good win. Obviously Rockets come back.
They'll be playing the Calves, I believe here on the
twenty seventh, and better than a yeah, and then I
think they got the Pacers. I can't haven't take a
quick look beyond that, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
To their homestand I mean, Dave the silver lining. They've
played twenty eight games. They're eighteen to ten. Eighteen of
the ten or eighteen of twenty eight excuse me, have
been on the road. Only ten have been at home.
And of their first thirty six games, which I think
wraps up around the tenth or so January, twenty three
of their first thirty six are on the road. That
(25:51):
is tied for the most road games through thirty six
games in NBA history. So it has been a very
road happy start to the season. They're eight and two
at home. The defense has not slipped at home this month,
as I mentioned earlier. So maybe with the schedule evening out,
because everybody's gonna play forty one at home forty one
on the road. By the time the schedule winds down
(26:13):
in mid April, maybe they find the legs that they
need to consistently be a top tier defense again. And
if that's the case, this thing can get sorted out
in a hurry. So that's the hope, is that as
you get more home games and the schedule evens out,
maybe that gets more juice across the board. Maybe that
gets the best versions of KD and Shinoon. These are
all maybees, but that's the hope. And it starts with
(26:35):
two home games on Saturday and Monday.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yep. Absolutely, And just to your other point, I personally
lean towards just saying play outreach Shepherd, let's see what happens.
And I mean, if they end up falling, it's tough
because you've got that Kdie at thirty seven year, thirty
seven years old year where he's playing really really well
and you don't know what thirty eight and thirty nine
is going to look like so it's tough of a
win now versus you're balancing for the future. I kind
(26:59):
of look more towards buy out candidates. Is maybe at
adding somebody who can help you as opposed to a
trade Now, if something jumps out that we're not expecting that,
that might be different. But we'll see how that plays out.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Ben.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I appreciate you doing this. Merry Christmas to everybody. I
hope everyone's had a great holiday and continues to enjoy
the holidays. Rockets get a huge win, finish the road
trip two and four come back now trying to climb
back up into the West starting on Saturday against the
Caves with Evan mobiley back. Appreciate everybody, have a great
rest of your night.
Merry Christmas, everybody. Rockets get a huge win their first
game playing on Christmas in sometime one, nineteen to ninety six,
over the La Lakers in LA to cap off a
road trip that has been tumultuous, to say the least,
at least ends on a really positive note. Kevin Durant
(00:23):
and Amen Thompson combined for I believe fifty one points
tonight to lead the way another shift and sort of
shot hierarchy and basically kind of dominated the Lakers from
start to finish a team that was ahead of them,
that is ahead of them in the standings. I'm here
with the great Ben Dubos. Ben, I appreciate you being here.
It's going to be a fun I'm very Christmas to
(00:43):
you and your family. By the way, than you curious
your thoughts on this game after you know, we didn't
even do postgames after the last two games just because
of our holiday schedule. Yeah, yeah, that would have been ugly.
And tonight, you know, on Christmas Night, we actually get
together to do this and they get a big win.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah. Absolutely, And it shouldn't be lost that they made
a change to the starting lineup with Tarry Easton in
place of Josha Kogi, And I don't think it's necessarily
a referendum on Josha Kogy, who's been very good this season.
But I do think Tarry Easton added something both with
his ability to create chaos getting some seals, but also
how his shooting opened the floor for a Men Thompson,
(01:26):
because I really thought that was the big difference in
this game. Like, certainly the Rockets outclassed the Lakers athletically,
that's something that stood out to basically everyone watching. But
when you talk about the Rockets outclassing someone athletically, it
starts with a men Thompson. And I was talking with
someone inside the organization during the game and they made
the case to me, and I think they're right that
(01:47):
the Rockets are at their best when a men is
the engine. Now that's not to say that a men
should be the engine every night, because there's some nights
that he's simply not worth that. They're not gonna, you know,
try and fit a square peg into a round hole.
They're not at a four speed. A men touches and
shot attempts for the sake of you know, acting like
and coorinating him as the best player on this team.
(02:08):
He's not Kevin Durant and Alper and Shangun or All
Stars at this point, Amen Thompson is not. However, if
there's something you can do to unlock that peak version
of Amen Thompson, and I think the additional floor spacing
of someone like Tarry Eason potentially read Shepherd as well.
But with Reed there's concerns defensively with the lack of
size we've addressed in the past. I just think with
(02:31):
KD and Shangoon, as good as they are on a
consistent basis, I think A Men's the variable. When you
get this version of A Men, the downhill force that
we saw tonight creating for not just himself but his teammates,
that's when the Rockets go from good to very good,
potentially great. And you know, NBA dot Com had this
new stat called gravity that came out today and I
(02:53):
think A Men was the worst among the Rockets rotation players.
And I think like two hundred and sixty seventh in
the NBA, which isn't that shocking because defender sag off
of him with the shooting limitations. We all know that. Well,
the thing is, he doesn't play with a ton of gravity.
Joshua Kogi doesn't. He's a respectable three point shooter, but
certainly not one that that teams are gonna go out
(03:14):
to the three point line to contest. They are more
than happy to give him those shots. Shounoon and Adams
neither of those two are consistent three point shooters. In fact,
Stephen doesn't even take them. So if you have three
of the five with a Men, a Kogi, and a
big as non spacers, that makes it really tough for
(03:35):
a Men to get the space he needs to attack
downhill and make those plays going to the rim. And
I thought, you know, a Men was the story of
this game, and he deserves his flowers. But I also
think starting Tari that might have unlocked something, you know,
in a lot of ways. It's similar to the pros
for starting Reed Shepherd. We've talked about it in the past,
(03:55):
having one more creator slash shooter on the floor. But
with Reed you worry abot out the lack of size
and getting exploited defensively. Well, with Ta you have the shooting.
You might not have the creation, but you do have
the size defensively, so you're not gonna get exploited on
that side. Maybe Doriy and Finney Smith, who by the way,
made his Rockets debut tonight very limited in minutes, didn't
(04:15):
have a super impactful game to be expected since he
hasn't played since April. Long term, maybe he fits into
this equation as well. But I think if you can
go from Joshua Kogi to a fifth starter that can
really space the floor, that might help unlock the peak
version of a Men Thompson. Because to bring my comments
full circle, I think the Rockets are right. The peak
(04:37):
version of the Rockets involves what we saw from a
Men Thompson tonight and anything they can do to get
that version of the Men it's to the betterment of
the team.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, I'm one hundred percent with you on this. I mean,
we've talked about it before. I feel like, and I
guess some of the criticisms of a Men as a
point guard, I don't think he's thriving in this role.
There's been instances. I know we saw this in the
Clipper game where there was an instance where he just
flat out lost the ball, no pressure, nothing, just lost it.
They went down and hit a three. This is late
(05:05):
in the game. I hardened it, and I mean I
was just frustrated. There are instances like that with the men,
but you are doing such a huge disservice to the
future of this team if you're not exploring the basically
engine or on ball potential of both Red Shepherd and
a men Thompson. You know, I just think if you
(05:26):
say to yourself, Okay, this is just going to be
a shn hub situation. You know, you go fill your roles,
you just catch and shoot read and you go over here,
a men play in the dunker spot. It's just you're
not going to reach any kind of maximum potential. And
tonight yet, yeah, the Lakers defense is not very good.
That's important to point out for sure here. So I
don't want to make it sound like a men can
(05:46):
do this every single night, But there were some plays
tonight where I mean it was just like you said Downhill,
like there was just a lot of force that he
played with. I thought he set the tone. Tari starting
was very big. I thought he applied some pressure early
on to Luca that Luca was not loving or very
comfortable with. And I thought, you know, on a small scale,
(06:07):
Jabari had a nice bounced back game as well, just
you know, was sufficient in his role and has some
good defensive moments as well. All around great game. We
haven't really talked too much about Kevin Durant, who I
thought was terrific and has been terrific, shooting the ball
in a number of games, you know, eight to fourteen
from the field tonight four of six from three. He
continues to be big. I think he finished with twenty
(06:28):
five and a man with twenty six. So just you know,
and I tweeted this out. I'm sure overnight I'm going
to get a ton of hate about it. But it's
just just notable. The amount of shots on this road
trip that Alprin Shanghun got in the four losses was
twenty one and a half on average the field goal attempts,
and then in those two wins it's eight point zero.
(06:49):
I'm not saying that that's how it needs to be
all the time. It's just interesting to see these games
where it's kind of he takes more of a role
where his defense is a little bit better to focus
harder on the defense. The focus is more on the
rebounding and making the direct connecting pass. He had a
really good short roll alley loop to a men tonight.
It's just a contrast, especially because on this road trip
(07:11):
we saw the direct contrast in the Nuggets game, the
first one that they lost. Now granted they almost won
that game, but they lost, and it was you know,
LP taking twenty seven to twenty eight shots whatever it
was to winning the game later on where he takes nine.
I just think the contrast on this road trip was interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
And when you're able to dial up the usage for
a men Thompson and he's able to soak up more reps,
then it opens up the game for Shingoon and KD
to do other things. KD had eight assists, Shangoon had
twelve rebounds. And when you talk to people inside the building,
they will tell you that throughout this very uncomfortable December,
where even with the win tonight, they still have a
(07:51):
losing record five and six on the month, they wrapped
up a season long six game road trip at two
and four, so no victory laps. They are nowhere near
even at eighteen and ten and where they think they
should be. And if they had just closed out games
against the Pelicans and the Kings and hadn't had the
first one in Denver stolen from them, I mean, just
imagine where they'd be. But at the end of the day,
eighteen and ten, fifth or sixth in the West. I mean,
(08:13):
it's where they are, and they've got to make the
best of the situation moving forward. At least they have
a lot of home games coming up where the defense
has held up. The slippage defensively has largely been on
the road. But when we talk about this defense that
went from top two through October and November to bottom
ten going into this Christmas Night game in La I'm
(08:34):
not going to say that it's all about the big men,
but there has been some slippage there. And when Shongoon
is able to concentrate a little bit more on defense
and rebounding he had twelve and thirty one minutes tonight.
That's to the betterment of the team. And when you
talk to folks inside the building, they're not worried about
crunch time, execution, who's the point guard? No. What I've
heard throughout this month, and Dave, I'm guessing you've heard
(08:56):
many of the same things. It's about the defense, it's
about the rebounding. That's what they are frustrated by. And
overall this month I went and looked. So they're still
almost at the top of the NBA in overall rebounding,
but that's because of the offensive glass and the Steven
Adams effect. Defensively. Going into tonight, they're actually in the
bottom half of the league, so there has been some
real slippage there. If Shangoon's able to go a little
(09:20):
bit harder on the glass, if KD has a little
more juice in his legs, where for as good as
he is and as large as he is, KD is
not a good rebounder for his position. So if he
has some more juice, if Shagoon has some more juice,
then that can sort of clean up these possessions. Were
on the road trip, we've seen opponents get two and
three chances and eventually they're able to finish. And I'm
(09:44):
wondering after the way they've looked the past week, with
two really good wins on the road against the Nuggets
and the Lakers, and then the two terrible losses to
the Pelicans and the Kings and the Clippers. Although I
think the Clippers a little bit of an outlier. Rocket's
effort was really bad, not one, and Harden and Kawhi
were really good. I'm wondering, Dave, if you know, early
(10:05):
on in the year, there was this narrative that the
Rockets are better against you know, lesser teams because they
hadn't beaten a so called top tier team until Denver
last weekend. I actually think it might be the reverse.
You know, this month, they've lost to each of the
five last place teams in the West or the bottom
five teams in the West standings. And I think the
way this roster is set up, other than a men
(10:27):
and to an extent, tari they aren't particularly explosive. They're big,
but when you look at you know, the front line
Shingoon and Adams Shabari, they're not super vertically explosive athletes.
KD for all of his attributes, he's not particularly springy,
at least on the glass. Reed Shepherd has some springs,
but he's very small. Like this is a team that
(10:50):
if you're playing against a bottom tier type team, those
tend to disproportionately have a lot of long, explosive athletes
because they've been you know, relating lottery picks. That might
be the ticket to you know, giving this Rockets team
some problems, especially if you know, I'm not going to
act like that that they've been totally dialed in for
forty eight minutes, because they have not been. But what
(11:12):
I'm saying is that's sort of a compounding effect. They're
not dialed in for forty eight minutes, and then just
the strength of this team, it's more or at least
it should be for the half court games against teams
like the Nuggets and the Lakers, and we're we started
to see that turnaround and over the last week. And
I guess the silver lining, Dave, is that in the playoffs,
I think the type of game we saw tonight, what
(11:33):
we saw in Denver, the two games last week, those
are more likely to be the types of games you
see in the playoffs when it's more spread out than
what we saw against the likes of the Pelicans and
the Kings. So it's frustrating in many ways. It's sort
of like the opposite of last year in that, you know,
last year's team they maximized every drop, they always played hard,
but we always worried about, you know, is the ceiling
(11:55):
going to be limited in the playoffs, And ultimately it
was this year's team might be the opposite, and that
they lose a few games that they probably shouldn't along
the way, but they also have that gear that you
can actually trust them to execute in half court situations
against good teams. I think we saw that tonight, and
to sort of put a bow on this, I think
(12:15):
the best way to mitigate it moving forward, besides playing
at home more, having more Jews, hopefully not having you know,
the disjointed schedule that we've seen this month, if you
can free up Kdi and Shingoon to do some things
beyond simply scoring, then that can go a long way
towards mitigating these deficiencies, along with scaling up the roles
of Tory Easton and Dori Anfhony Smith.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah, it's you know, interesting talking about a little bit
of the effort level that we talked about. I know
online a lot of people focusing on a Men Jabbari,
you know, Men's Andre Robers and Jabari is the worst
starter player in the entire NBA, and I feel like
it's a lot of lightning rods and there's definitely across
the board effort issues that we saw that I thought,
(12:56):
you know, tonight, we're kind of a raise fifty eight
thirty one. They dominated the boards tonight, which was really
nice to see. But I know, yeah, like you're saying, internally,
they're focusing on their two main guys, the guys who
are probably going to the All Star Game, and Katie
and shannguon and trying to to get them to lead them.
And I think you're gonna, like you said, you're gonna
have to be able to play both ways. And it's
(13:18):
nice that you can. You can go to a shn
hubbub type offense and play off of that at times,
but I think you're going to have to have at
least one of these guys a man or read you know,
proved to be an on ball type of player. It's
gonna be really interesting when Fred does get back next year,
you know, assuming that's what happens after a season, or
whether he's back this year. I mean, I know, Ben,
(13:40):
you were the first person early on, shortly after the
injury to say Fred, you know or the Rockets that
excuse me, are not ruling out Fred van Lee coming
back this year. And I'm like, that's really tough to see.
But you know, you're seeing more and more indicators and
signs that he wants to I don't know, if that's
how feasible it's going to be, you know, if we're
gonna see an Aaron Rodger type situation where okay, he
(14:01):
could play, but he's not actually going to. But you know,
and it's interesting. Oh that that brings up another point
with DFS playing tonight. I didn't actually take a look,
but from the first half trends, it did look like
A Kogi and Reed both lost some minutes. Reid played
about ten minutes in the first half. Yeah, before going
into this game, I'm a little scattered here with some
of my points. But Reed had actually taken the lead,
(14:24):
and Row total plus minus rechepperd at probably half the
minutes of other players had taken the lead. That really
didn't play out tonight. Your five starters were all in
the plus twenty fives twenty six is. I think Katie
and Amen led the way with plus twenty six, j
Bari plus twenty five, shan Gun plus twenty four, and
Tari plus twenty three. Reid was minus eight. But it's
(14:47):
gonna be very interesting because now you're getting that depth back,
and you know, we talked about this before the game tonight.
A Kogi has been really good shooting over forty percent
from thirty these defense has been good, his net rating
when he's on the floor fantastic. So it's I just
I was thinking, are we going to see a huge
impact from DFS. I think just in the overall debt,
(15:07):
the fact that you can throw out several of these
guys who can play a great defense or bring some
two way impact is there. But just replacing a Kogi
with DFS, you might not see as significant impacts as
you know expected well.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And I think it's going to take some time for DFS.
This is a guy who's not played NBA basketball since April,
and he didn't have the benefit of preseason and training
camp to scale up. So I'm not going to look
at his stats or his level of play all that
seriously until probably a month from now at the earliest,
Like right now. My guess is Ima Udoka a few
(15:42):
weeks ago said they were targeting January. They probably pushed
the timetable forward a little bit, with as rough as
things have been in recent games to get you know
a little bit of a psychological boost. And I do think,
you know, he's very high IQ. He communicates defensively, and
so for a Rocket team that's been slipping in the areas. Yeah,
he can help them, but my guess is that they
(16:04):
probably would have liked to have had a little bit
more time, but the team's level of play in the
last couple of weeks might have led to them, you know,
pushing the envelope a little bit. And Jorian has a
lot of pride, and even though I don't think he
scored tonight, he definitely contributed in his minutes. I just
think the problem with Josha Koge, like the numbers are there,
but with Josh and threes, it's a little bit like
(16:25):
the outlier kJ Martin year that he had. I forget
what season it was, but people were trying to sort
of buy in on kJ long term with the Rockets,
and the problem was, even though he was like thirty
six thirty seven percent, opposing teams weren't really respecting him,
so you weren't really getting the benefit of him as
a spacer, Like you could tell the scouting reports were
(16:45):
still trust that he's not going to make them at
a high level on a consistent basis, and eventually he
fell back to earth and not saying that Josh is
anything analogous to kJ as a player, because Josh is
way better defensively, but in terms of the shooting, like
we saw late in the Sacramento game, like teams are
leaving him wide open for a reason, and I think
that compresses the floor for a men, especially if he's
(17:07):
also playing with Shangoon or Steven Adams, which he typically is.
So it's nothing that Josh is doing wrong, but I
do think that the overall ceiling is higher when you
have Tari or Red in that fifth slot or potentially DFS.
Although my guess is that they're gonna you know, this
is different. People are going to look at what Tari's
done the past week when he's been really impressive, and say, well,
can DFS do much of the same. I think it's
(17:30):
gonna take a lot longer. Like Tari missed a month
with DFS, we're talking about eight months, and in contrast
to Tari, he didn't have training camp for the preseason.
It's an entirely new team. Tari's played with Imodoka. This
is his third season. It's a lot tougher for DFS
on a number of levels than it was for Tari
when he came back a couple of games ago. So
(17:50):
be patient. That'd be my main thing with DFS. I
think it's worth it in the long run because he's
someone that is shot at a high enough level consistently
that that I think it would be the floor spacing
would be there in a way that it's not for
Josha Kobe. But in the short term there might be
some bumps. You just have to trust that it's going
(18:11):
to be, you know, for the greater good. And one
other point I wanted to get in on the last
segment's commentary, as far as you know, are the Rockets
better against you know, bad teams or good teams? And
I'm starting to think they might be, you know, better
for the matchups against the good. So some of that
narrative that that was out there about not beating top
tier teams until the Nuggets and Lakers games, there's a
(18:34):
little bit of cherry picking going on. And when you
look at the games people are referencing, so many of
them were just coin flips. We're talking a small sample
size to begin with, and then the first Denver game
in Denver that is ok SE Detroit. These are literal
coin flip games where one bounce, one whistle going your
(18:54):
way completely changes the outcome, So the process was fine.
The Rockets were in those games and there's nothing to
be ashamed of in their effort. In fact, I think
they match up pretty well with Denver, even though there
were one and two in those three games. I actually
sort of liked the matchup. Now, I know Denver didn't
have Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown for a lot of
those so we'll see what that might mean assuming those
guys eventually get healthy. But from what I've seen, I
(19:16):
like the Denver matchup. The one team that I do
have some concerns about the matchup with is San Antonio
because that's the one Tier A team where I felt
like the Rockets legitimately did get out classed. Do you
go back to that Cup game, you know, the Rockets
took a ten point lead, and then from you know,
about the final three minutes in the first half, all
the way and into the game, the Rockets just couldn't
(19:37):
match their physicality and athleticism between Wimby and Castle and
Keldon Johnson crushing Tarry Easton on the offensive glass. That
was the one matchup where it just felt like, you know,
the Rockets didn't have the juice and that sort of
ties back into what I was saying earlier about the
vertical athleticism or the lack thereof. That might be the
(19:58):
weakness of this team, and that's why I think they
sometimes struggle against the lottery teams. This is a big team,
it's not a super vertically explosive team, and I think
the Spurs sort of put it on display in that game.
So I think, you know, clearly the Spurs are coming around.
They've beaten the Thunder like three times in a week,
so they look like a contender in their own right.
But I just think of all the top tier West teams,
(20:20):
that might be the toughest matchup because I think, you know,
if the Rockets have a weakness beyond just the effort
being down on sub nights, it might be that they're
not the most vertically explosive team. So I guess A,
I worry about the Spurs because of that, and B
I wonder if maybe that sort of pushes the needle
to experiment more with the Terror twins, because I think
(20:43):
when you play a Men and Tari together, that's the
one configuration where you are potentially you're not going to
say you're like Spurs level of team athleticism because with
wemb obviously that's a that's just a different standard, but
a men and Tari together and that terror twins. That
might be the one way you can sort of chip
away at the at the athleticism gap that I think
(21:05):
at times could be an issue. I guess, Dave, that's
the way I'd put a bow on all of this.
The Rockets, you know, they're certainly a very good team,
and they are a very big team, but I do
think in some of these matchups they're not the most
like vertically explosive team, and I think that's where I
have some concerns, and maybe amendentry together is a way
you can address that.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
You know, we talked about this before the game. I mean, okay,
see we were talking about or not we, I mean
just the NBA community at large about okay, see, you know,
going for seventy just you know, being one of the
greatest teams ever. Now they've lost I think five games
this year, three of them to the Spurs, and we
talked about this in our last broadcast of three games
ago or so. It's just looking at the Rockets and
(21:45):
just this needle that they have to thread with their
present and their future. How does their future size up
against okay See, How does their future size up against
San Antonio. We still have a lot of questions left
to be answered. We still want to see the Rockets
go against the Spurs again. And we haven't seen okay
See the Oka See matchups since the opening night and
that was often obviously very very close. But it's it's
(22:07):
kind of scary. I mean, san Antonio is just scratching
the surface. And I don't want to go too far,
but like they could threaten if they can beat okay See,
they could threaten to win it this year, which is nuts,
just nuts. I mean, obviously they got it incredibly lucky,
getting the you know, sort of guy to get out
(22:30):
of all the last you know, twenty years or whatever
however long it's been that this is you know, Wenby
is is truly that kind of impact player. But you know,
this is a Rafelstone who's built a heck of a team.
But it's going to be his biggest challenge is how
do you size up against Okac and now now San
Antonio as well. But this is a great win tonight,
you know, and and I love the Rockets kind of
(22:51):
win in a different variety of ways. You've got the
shan Hubb. They've won games playing shin Hub as well,
but on this road trip, just you know what they
did with some of those with their two wins, I
thought was really kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And real quick. Someone in the chat mentioned trade possibilities.
I think this is why Rafelstone is going to have
to be very cautious, Like I'm not opposed to a
trade in all circumstances, like there are tweaks you can
make around the margins, but I don't think they want
to bid very aggressively because I think you need in
(23:24):
your back pocket the tier one assets to go after.
We've talked about Giannis in the past. It doesn't have
to be honest, but someone of that stature, because if
it's not just the Thunder but the Spurge are potentially
in that tier as well the Rockets. In my opinion,
they've got to be very careful not to overpay for, say,
you know, a name point guard just to have a
(23:46):
point guard if it's not you know, someone that's clearly
going to make you a top shelf title contender immediately.
And so I'm not opposed to, you know, a trade
under the right circumstances. But I would say it sounds counterintuitive,
but with as good as the Thunder and the Spurs
look at the moment, not just now, but for the
(24:08):
foreseeable future or assuming health, it would actually make me
a little more cautious at least about moderate upgrades, because
you need to make sure that you have enough AMO
to eventually pursue a top tier guy if you need it.
We don't need to go into that tonight. Hopefully the
Rockets don't need it. Hopefully they're good enough as is.
But if they're not, and Dave, you're exactly right, the
bar is really high. They need to make sure that
(24:30):
you know those premium assets. The Brooklyn swap in twenty seven,
the two Phoenix picks, which I think are being undervalued
sons are off to a good start. I still question
how sustainable that is. MAVs in twenty nine, We'll see
what they look like a few years from now. Rocket's
own picks, the young players on this roster, I would
be very very cautious packaging too much of that for
(24:51):
a moderate upgrade. Someone that might just fill and check
a box right now in the short term, if it's
not a true needle mover, because the possibility is there
that you really will need a needle mover to get
to that true title contention level. I hope that's not
the case, but you at least have to be open
minded to that, as you sort of if you're a
Felstone and you take shape of how the league looks
(25:13):
and what you should do with your assets.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Well, anything else, Ben you want to say before this game,
this is a good good win. Obviously Rockets come back.
They'll be playing the Calves, I believe here on the
twenty seventh, and better than a yeah, and then I
think they got the Pacers. I can't haven't take a
quick look beyond that, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
To their homestand I mean, Dave the silver lining. They've
played twenty eight games. They're eighteen to ten. Eighteen of
the ten or eighteen of twenty eight excuse me, have
been on the road. Only ten have been at home.
And of their first thirty six games, which I think
wraps up around the tenth or so January, twenty three
of their first thirty six are on the road. That
(25:51):
is tied for the most road games through thirty six
games in NBA history. So it has been a very
road happy start to the season. They're eight and two
at home. The defense has not slipped at home this month,
as I mentioned earlier. So maybe with the schedule evening out,
because everybody's gonna play forty one at home forty one
on the road. By the time the schedule winds down
(26:13):
in mid April, maybe they find the legs that they
need to consistently be a top tier defense again. And
if that's the case, this thing can get sorted out
in a hurry. So that's the hope, is that as
you get more home games and the schedule evens out,
maybe that gets more juice across the board. Maybe that
gets the best versions of KD and Shinoon. These are
all maybees, but that's the hope. And it starts with
(26:35):
two home games on Saturday and Monday.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yep. Absolutely, And just to your other point, I personally
lean towards just saying play outreach Shepherd, let's see what happens.
And I mean, if they end up falling, it's tough
because you've got that Kdie at thirty seven year, thirty
seven years old year where he's playing really really well
and you don't know what thirty eight and thirty nine
is going to look like so it's tough of a
win now versus you're balancing for the future. I kind
(26:59):
of look more towards buy out candidates. Is maybe at
adding somebody who can help you as opposed to a
trade Now, if something jumps out that we're not expecting that,
that might be different. But we'll see how that plays out.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Ben.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I appreciate you doing this. Merry Christmas to everybody. I
hope everyone's had a great holiday and continues to enjoy
the holidays. Rockets get a huge win, finish the road
trip two and four come back now trying to climb
back up into the West starting on Saturday against the
Caves with Evan mobiley back. Appreciate everybody, have a great
rest of your night.
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