REACTION: How Good Are The Rockets After Preseason Game 1?

Wex and AC react to the Rockets preseason win over the Hawks. Is this the moment where Houston makes the jump into the postseason conversation?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Wex and ac with you leading you up until six
o'clock tonight. By the way, I saw some of the
better highlights from last there was a lot of them.
This team's winning the NBA title this year. I'm gonna
go ahead and say it right now. The Hawks, Nope, Rockets,
Hawks JD.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Davison, alpri and Shngoon led Rockets are headed all the
way to the top.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I saw somebody that was like, this guy's way the Hawks.
Who is the hawks young up and coming star that
I can't think of his name right.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Now, No, Jalen Johnson.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Jalen Johnson, somebody with a stray face was trying to
say he's better than him and Thompson and I fell
out of my chair and after I.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Actually very good. And they missed him for the half
season that he was out for. But he's just a
very he's tremendous athlete, plays way over the rim, is
cultivating the rest of his game. Playing with Trey Young
helps a great deal. As much as Trey Young catches
a lot of strays, he's the actively and assists per
game and that's not going He's going to be that
for the rest of his career. He's still very very

(01:04):
good at making basketball easier for his teammates.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
They like to run the floor. He's a perfect fit.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
He's not Amen Thompson, and nobody would be thinking that
other than the person who you were speaking of.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
How did his jump shot look last night?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Jalen's no, Amen, Uh, he was a jump shot. I
think he only took two.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Jalen plays for the Hawks, so we can go back
to not caring about him anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, I think he I guess he took maybe three
two threes, and I think another with his foot online
maybe looks the same as it did last year except
it went in. I don't care about it. I don't
think he changed what he's doing. And corner threes are
really all that it's about. For alph threes at the
top of the key and nowhere else. If you can
get guys to find the spot where they actually make
them from, then don't mess around with all the other spots.

(01:49):
And teams usually don't have the ability to pick up
on that. But honestly, for me, and you'll hate me
for it, and I can't help it, exactly what I
was concerned about out with Amen Thompson is exactly what
happened in last night's game.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
What are you concerned about.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
He's just basically trying to beat guys off the dribble
from the top and just dribble too much, and he
keeps turning the ball over because he doesn't have the
same handle as a typical point guard.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well as a man who causes so many turnovers, shouldn't
he know better than that.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
He should and he's so good, so he's like probably
dumbfounded when it doesn't work. But that's one part of
his game. And yeah, I'm worried about it because turnovers
from the top usually turn into points because they're runouts
and they are those live ball turnovers. They're hard to
combat and hard to defend because you don't mean you
literally have nobody defending the play. Everything else about him

(02:40):
is just typical awesomeness. No offensive rebound jams, throwing alley
oops to his bigs, and it looks like they I
don't know how they're gonna play it during the season.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
You never know how big the rotation is.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
But one thing that's maybe a little bit underrated about
what they could be doing this year because of one
simple personnel change is the third bit, and that's Clint Cappella. Now,
jack Landell served a purpose for this team, but he
can't do the things. Yes, setting picks, he can't do
that well. He's not nearly as good a pick setter
as any of their three current bigs. He's smaller than

(03:12):
all of them. He's okay rolling off the pick, but
once you give him a ball, then what Then he's
going to take a dribble and try to hit a
layup when the other guys roll, you throw them the
ball above the rim, or you throw it to Steven
and he grabs it like it's a tomato and waits
for everybody to fall off of him and then drops
it into the basket. He was four to four last
night because that's all he shoots, and Clint tries to

(03:32):
tear the rim off. Clint plays above the rim. And
way back to the very very good player that Nane
was for this Rockets team. I was saying the same thing.
He's so good at everything, except he's not a really
good fit for what they want to do with their
big because every time he rolls, then what because he
plays below the rim. That's what Jack Landell did, and
now their third big plays above the rim where I

(03:54):
like to think they belong.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Triple Biggs all season long.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
They had quite a few double big looks.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Was a nice night for everybody that I think got
out there, all things considered. A couple early threes from
Jabari Smith Junior for those that plan on hitting Wednesday
night's game or listening right here on Sports Talk seven
ninety will mark the debut of Kevin Durant his second
night on the Rockets bench. His first night was last
night in streets as emy Doka decided that's the way
they want to play it this week. Jay Shawn Tate,

(04:20):
Dorrian Finney Smith unavailable last night. Tarry Easton and Steven
Adams expected to be unavailable tomorrow night, but Kevin Durant
expected to make his debut. First time he showed up
on the big screen after a time out on the
Rockets bench, there was a noticeable roar from the crowd
because for the first time in two decades, they've been
able to cheer Kevin Durant at Toyota said, Oh.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
And they didn't get to They didn't get to go
to any introductory press conference, and they certainly weren't at
Media Day. That's the first time these people, these people
were able to see him in the flesh as a
member of the Rockets.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
So yeah, when I.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Got to the arena, and food comes first, obviously that's
how raising cookies and none.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
They were not in the out come on man, I.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Know, it's the the preseason beginning together.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
There were a handful of things that I'm sure around
the country were very preseason related.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
But he was alight.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
He was out on the court when I got there,
right around five thirty, a normal routine for him, going
through a shot routine. When I got out there a
little bit before six a'lp, a few others were out there,
and click Cappella had almost finished all of his hellos
with every single member of the Hawks. He was the
last Rocket on the court after the game because he
was doing more of the same because he just played
with almost all of those guys season ago. But then

(05:29):
Kevin Durant, like the other players who are unavailable, made
his way to the Rockets bench. Tried to watch who
he was talking to during the game and who he
was spending a little time with. Where he was sitting
on the bench, he was right next to the coaching staff.
As a matter of fact, so a seat away from
Royale Ivy. He was clearly talking Tim throughout and one
other thing I meant to mention on the broadcast, and
I don't think we've brought it up here either. We

(05:51):
talked about it at Nauseaum. He's back with Steven Adams,
He's back with Jeff Green, He's back with Jeff A.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Koge.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
He's back with Emays, back with Royale, He's with Djugustine,
He's with Dexter Pittman. There's so many people that he's
worked with before. And he didn't really name a bunch
of those names the other day at media Dad, but
he said a lot of guys that I've worked with
and been behind the scenes with. Well, one of those
people sits on the Rockets bench every single night. They're
had athletic trainer, doctor Jason Biles, like e May, he

(06:17):
has USA Basketball team quote unquote coaching experience. So he's
another person that's gotten to know Kevin very well. He's
worked with Kevin before. I noticed them talking quite a
bit during timeouts last night. So the familiarity with the
Rockets runs super super deep. Now, familiarity on the court
tomorrow will begin Read Shepherd and a Men Thompson your

(06:39):
starter's last night in the back court, Tari Jabari and
Alpi rounding out your starting five four preseason game one.
Unlikely that will be your starting lineup on opening night,
considering KD we'll be out there. Well.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
I guess if I asked about a men's jump shot,
I should probably ask about the starting point guards jump shot.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
You know, that's one other part of it.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Matt and I talked about it, the starting guards where
a Men Thompson and Read Shepherd. I wouldn't say Red
Shepherd was the starting point guard. He rarely ran the offense,
He rarely set things up, but rather he was trying
to do the things as the shooter.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
He's the shooting guard.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
When a Men Thompson and Read Shepherd are out there,
Read is running off picks, trying to find openings, driving
into the lane when the opportunity presents, and Amn Thompson
after the first ten to eleven seconds, if he's the
one who's brought up the ball, which he usually was,
or set up the offense so they weren't running, then
he goes and does some of his off ball things.
But there weren't that many times where Reid was just
flat out running the offense. Same thing with when Davison

(07:35):
was out there, same thing when Aaron Holliday was out there.
More of them running the offense and less of Reid
running it. And that's fine if it's the best way
to find him, looks, because it's going to be tough
to give Red minutes. He's going to have to score
because what we saw on the other end of the
quarter is what we'll see all year until the Rockets
figure out how to combat it. Who's read Shepherd guarding?

(07:56):
All right, let's give him the ball, and I'm dumbing
it down to the nth degree. But even right out
of the jump at Atlanta Hawk's opening possession of the game,
Reed Shepperd's not defending Trey Young and men Thompson is
defending Trey Young and read his checking switch. Somebody else
out on the perimeter that's a little bit less threatening,
and that was Daniels. He's a much less threatening player.

(08:18):
And even he tried to back him down. Whoever he's guarding,
we'll try to back him down. And these are things
this new look sans Fred Rockets team will we'll have.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
To figure out. I checked him with Fred this morning.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Oh good and check Fred. I'm pretty impressed.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
I don't didn't know what to expect, because Fred and
social media did exist before he got here, and did
exist throughout his first two years.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
He was enjoying the sun roof today.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Most of what he puts out there is really deep
or really family related, and not what many NBA players
have out there. Fun, here's this, this player's fire, what
a great play, all that, And as he's gone under
the knife, he's and I know he has people with him,
creative people behind the scenes, videographers, et cetera. So I'm

(09:03):
sure they're all documenting this for an even bigger project.
But it's also giving us a little insight into how
his unfortunate season will go. Where he's rehabbing.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Exquisite taste of vehicles too, I might add, but I
didn't expect anything less from.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
A well well paid NBA a lot of years before
he got to Houston. And I'm not gonna do the math,
but I'm gonna believe in the math. I believe in
his three seasons here, this being year three, he's made
more money with the Rockets, and if you count the contract,
let's say, y ops, in that's one hundred and thirty
million or so.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, hopefully he matches the ring total or exceeds it.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
That would be nice.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
While here in Houston, all right, mention that we will
get to Nick Cassario's thoughts on Joe Mixon. We will
do that before three o'clock. But in the meantime, it's
time for what we do every single day at this time.
It's the best of cks and it's straight ahead the
eight on Sports Talk seven ninety