The Houston Rockets will host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night for a huge interconference matchup, as the Cavaliers sit atop the Eastern Conference with a 36-6 record. The Rockets are coming off Monday's 107-96 loss to the Detroit Pistons. Cade Cunningham recorded 32 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. While the Pistons committed 23 turnovers, they were able to force the Rockets into 17 turnovers and convert it into 19 points. "We felt like we woke up a little bit late, coming off the west coast trip, early game, all those things. Bottom line was they outplayed us, out-hustled us, were more aggressive, and that has rarely happened this year, so looking forward to getting back to who we are tonight," Rockets head coach Ime Udoka said. Despite balanced scoring, the Rockets shot 39% and struggled from beyond the arc, making 11 of 39. "It was a rare off night for a lot of people. And then once our defense did settle down, we just didn't score at the rate that we needed to," Udoka said. The Rockets will look to return to the win column against a dominant Cavaliers team, led by Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. "They present a lot of challenges and have a lot of balance." With Cavaliers center Evan Mobley ruled out of Wednesday's game, Alperen Sengun has an opportunity to improve upon his latest offensive struggles. "We invite the double teams that he attracts to garner a bunch of free shots for everybody else. But when they do guard you one-on-one, go make them pay," Udoka said. After Wednesday's contest, the Rockets will begin a four-game road trip that includes a back-to-back following the rescheduling of a game against the Atlanta Hawks. "I don't mind the road schedule at all. I think it builds character and toughness. We've obviously done a much better job this year than last year," Udoka said. The Rockets are currently 14-7 in road games so far this season.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But right now we preview the rockets of Cavaliers with
I may A Doka who joints us here coach.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm sorry about this.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Whether I knew when you took the job in Houston
you were thinking about eighty five degrees every single day,
but you know what's going to happen once every twenty
five or thirty years.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's why you're late, right, Yeah, got caught up in
the snow store. No, it was it was interesting. I'd
never seen this in my time in Texas, but it
was kind of pretty. I must admit it was pretty.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
But how did you do it in Boston?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Damn?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I mean that's happened all the time. And did you
have a good Snowblower's? That was the key to my
success in living in Minneapolis, is I had a high
end snowblower to get rid of all that crap on
the sidewalks.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, some practice. After my years in San Antonio, went
from Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, so I had quite a bit
of snow, but lived in high rise so didn't have to.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Do the Oh oh, I'm so jealous, so jealous. All right, email,
let's get to first things first. The game against Detroit.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Stunned.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
The forty point first core. That had to surprise you
a little litle bit as well. And I gotta get
the sense from the guys in the locker room and
certainly listened to you after the game that there was
just a little more fire and the belly from the
Pistons a couple of nights ago, and that hasn't happened
a lot for your squad this year.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I think there's a
few things. Obviously, I called the time out halfway through
the quarter when it was nineteen to nineteen and both
teams were kind of scoring at will, and I said,
ron pace for a forty point quarter, given up in
which we never do and so or rarely do. But
it felt like we were scoring well enough and weren't
giving any resistance on the other end. So you know,
(01:32):
we gave that up six, got back in it, obviously
down fifteen, and to take a lead and then be
tied at halftime. So we felt like we woke up
a little bit late, coming off the West Coast trip
early game, all those things. But yeah, bottom line, was
out played us, out hustled us, were more aggressive, and
that has rarely happened this year, so looking forward to
getting back to who we are tonight.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, thirty nine points in the second half obviously was
not what you wanted to see from your squad, though
the defense did settle down. Was it just a night
of offshooting with there are some spots on the floor
that maybe some better shots could have been taken.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
A little bit of both. I think we guarded well enough. Obviously,
they had seventeen in the fourth quarter where we only
scored sixteen, and so other than those six or seven
free throws late in that quarter, we really guarded well.
But to your point, weren't scoring enough. I think they
mix it up with some zone and going after jalen
Oo quite a bit. They guarded I'll be one on
one and we just didn't make him pay. I thought
(02:25):
we saw a lot of blitzes on Jalen early in
the season where we got some practice and we managed
it well, but didn't really take advantage of that there.
And then some of our other guys just missed shots that
they usually make one on one situations, and so it
was a rare off night for a lot of people.
And then once our defense did settle down, we just
didn't score at the rate that we needed to.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, I'll be with a little bit of a difficult
scoring night for himself with eleven points. And Miley's philosophy
on him is this, I don't know what you tell
him in between games and practice and whatnot, is I
don't mind it. I'd rather him go to the basket
and take his chances against some rimp detectors. And Durren's
obviously a different kind of player, but he's gone against
Go Bear and Giannis and some other folks yokicch in
the past. That's when I find my most impressive times
(03:09):
watching outbi is you know what I'll see what I
can do is compared to maybe taking the fade away
and making him maybe a more difficult.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Two point attempt.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
How much do you talk about him going against an
individual defender as the game is progressing.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, I think for him it's if teams are going
to guard in one on one, we have the belief
that he's going to score more often than that. And
so you've seen it done obviously against some of the
best post defenders in the league. And the thing is
to be aggressive and not be hesitant. Whether that's in
the pick and roll, you know, the half role where
you kind of stop halfway instead of going all the
way to the basket or in the post, taking some of
those fadeaways like you mentioned as well. So the rhythm
(03:45):
guy that gets you know, he sees one or two
go down and gets into a rhythm obviously has all
the footwork and moves down there. But first and foremost
would be to be aggressive and go score, especially when
they're garding you one on one, and so it's some
easy ones that he would usually make. Obviously, five for
four is a tough night for him with a lot
of those coming inside. But like I said, a lot
of guys at off nights as well. But we want
(04:06):
all the guys to be aggressive, you know, not give
a defender or a scheme any credit or too much credit.
Attack those like we have and that's when we're at
our best.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
You mentioned the five of fourteen and a shooting percentage
is down from where it's been the last couple of
years and his career.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
What do you attribute that to I had, I mean
him and Jalen. They both had slow starts offensively, you know,
from a percentage standpoint, I think we saw those both
guys come out of those fairly quickly. It was just
a lot of mishots early in the season that we
talked about. You know, our record would have been a
little bit different early on if we scored, and you
know now we're scoring at a high enough clip, and
(04:42):
a big part is our aggressiveness. And so just continue
to be aggressive and take the shots that are there.
Like I said, don't second guess and give a defender
or anybody too much credit. Go do what you do,
especially if they're going to guard you one on one.
You know, we invite the double teams that he attracts
to garner a bunch of a free shots for everybody else.
But when they do guard, you want to want to
(05:02):
go make them pay. And so we have motivated guys
that are obviously very confident, and so look back to
getting to what we do. Tonight.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Rockets head coach Emo A. Dooka was us here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety after tonight eight of nine
games on the road, two sets of four games and
six nights. Is there any sort of conversations about altering
or rotations or keeping guys fresh or is it going
to be business as usual?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We're looking at both I mean, obviously the makeup game
in Atlanta adds one, adds a back to back after
Boston there. And so for us, you know, we talk
about our depth all the time and how we have
very reliable guys and so, you know, Tari coming off
some things and different guys feeling things. Stephen was out
with the Migraine obviously, and so we rely on the
guys that we have in hand. But no, we can
go deeper if we need to. And so yeah, for us,
(05:50):
it's business as usual. I you know, I don't mind
the road schedule at all. I think it builds character
and toughness. And then we've obviously done much better job
this year than last year. So let's get on the
road and it doesn't matter who we're playing or whatever
the case is. We want to hold ourselves to a
certain standard and attack it with the same mentality like
we do at home.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, it certainly has been a tail of two seasons
for this squad fourteen and seven away from totisen in
this year, which has been a lot of fun to
watch and call this Cleveland team. I mean, my goodness,
six losses on the year, they shoot at almost fifty percent.
They're making forty percent of their threes. Now, you're not
going to give us any company secrets, but have you
(06:29):
been able to find something that you kind of say,
all right, if we take advantage of this, we can
get at least one or may hopefully both these games
against the Cavaliers coming up.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, I mean, our thing is be who we are,
and so a lot of teams don't defend at the
love we do with the physicality we do, and so
we're one of the best that taking away three pointers.
They're one of the best in making them. So it's
always a battle as far as that, and we've seen
that throughout the year against certain teams. And so what
we want to do is be aggressive and pose our
will and play our style of basketball, and so a
(07:00):
lot of teams get taken aback by that by our physicality.
I think Detroit did a good job against us with
the blitzes and the physicality they used last game. And
so we understand what works for us regardless of the opponent.
We know a lot of people don't play the way
we do, and so we could present some challenges as
far as that. Other than that, it's we don't look
at the record. We look at how we want to
play where we're trying to get to, and we've beaten
(07:21):
a lot of great opponents this year, and so Cleveland
will present that same challenge.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, they score one hundred and twenty two points a game.
I'm going to assume that you do you want to
slow things down or do you just want to make
sure that everything in terms of defense is short up
and that the good defense will turn into And we've
seen us so much this year coach better offense for
you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, we're not going to change the way we play.
And what we rely on is, like I said, our
defense and our toughness and the things that we can
try to take away from them. But as you said,
we've been our best and we could turn defense offense,
get down in transition to have those high fast break
numbers and let our guys get out and run and
so get the stops, get out and run. Most teams
are not great and transition defense, and that's what we've
(08:02):
had a good success with this year, getting the steals,
getting in the open court and everybody kind of being
having echo opportunity as far as that. So we'll do that.
We'll be aggressive there and then obviously you got some
guys to worry about Donald Mitchell and Garland. They're playing
a high level. They got some athletic mobile bigs, even
though Mobile's out tonight, So that's why they're so good.
(08:23):
They present a lot of challenges and have a lot
of balance.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And despite the loss of Detree at eighteen steals in
that contest and a lot of them in Freddy out
on guards just poking the ball away And how much
is that is that's basketball one on one for these guys.
Is that a little bit of taking their chances and
hoping that they can go in there and not hopefully steal,
you know, steal the ball away and not commit a foul.
What makes a team and an individual player in your
(08:45):
mind a good guy that oh and Tari does is
too just poking the ball away and forcing turnovers, but
just just a guy just dribbling.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I mean, we have guys are really good hands
and instincts, and so fred is as tough as they come.
As far as that I think I'm in and Taria
through the best in the league, and then dealing with
his body position and physicality. We also will go after
guys at certain points and so we give our guys
freedom to make plays and be aggressive. And like I said,
when our steel numbers are high and they're turnovers high
(09:15):
and we can convert those in transition, we're in good shape.
But a lot has to do with instincts or natural ability.
Is something that's hard to teach, but you know Fred
does that well and obviously the other guys as well. Coach,
thanks for visus always.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
We'll see a letter tonight at the Arena, and best
of luck against the Cavaliers. Thank you, you got it.
You may and Doka with us here on Sports Talk
seven on
But right now we preview the rockets of Cavaliers with
I may A Doka who joints us here coach.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm sorry about this.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Whether I knew when you took the job in Houston
you were thinking about eighty five degrees every single day,
but you know what's going to happen once every twenty
five or thirty years.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's why you're late, right, Yeah, got caught up in
the snow store. No, it was it was interesting. I'd
never seen this in my time in Texas, but it
was kind of pretty. I must admit it was pretty.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
But how did you do it in Boston?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Damn?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I mean that's happened all the time. And did you
have a good Snowblower's? That was the key to my
success in living in Minneapolis, is I had a high
end snowblower to get rid of all that crap on
the sidewalks.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, some practice. After my years in San Antonio, went
from Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, so I had quite a bit
of snow, but lived in high rise so didn't have to.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Do the Oh oh, I'm so jealous, so jealous. All right, email,
let's get to first things first. The game against Detroit.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Stunned.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
The forty point first core. That had to surprise you
a little litle bit as well. And I gotta get
the sense from the guys in the locker room and
certainly listened to you after the game that there was
just a little more fire and the belly from the
Pistons a couple of nights ago, and that hasn't happened
a lot for your squad this year.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I think there's a
few things. Obviously, I called the time out halfway through
the quarter when it was nineteen to nineteen and both
teams were kind of scoring at will, and I said,
ron pace for a forty point quarter, given up in
which we never do and so or rarely do. But
it felt like we were scoring well enough and weren't
giving any resistance on the other end. So you know,
(01:32):
we gave that up six, got back in it, obviously
down fifteen, and to take a lead and then be
tied at halftime. So we felt like we woke up
a little bit late, coming off the West Coast trip
early game, all those things. But yeah, bottom line, was
out played us, out hustled us, were more aggressive, and
that has rarely happened this year, so looking forward to
getting back to who we are tonight.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, thirty nine points in the second half obviously was
not what you wanted to see from your squad, though
the defense did settle down. Was it just a night
of offshooting with there are some spots on the floor
that maybe some better shots could have been taken.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
A little bit of both. I think we guarded well enough. Obviously,
they had seventeen in the fourth quarter where we only
scored sixteen, and so other than those six or seven
free throws late in that quarter, we really guarded well.
But to your point, weren't scoring enough. I think they
mix it up with some zone and going after jalen
Oo quite a bit. They guarded I'll be one on
one and we just didn't make him pay. I thought
(02:25):
we saw a lot of blitzes on Jalen early in
the season where we got some practice and we managed
it well, but didn't really take advantage of that there.
And then some of our other guys just missed shots that
they usually make one on one situations, and so it
was a rare off night for a lot of people.
And then once our defense did settle down, we just
didn't score at the rate that we needed to.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, I'll be with a little bit of a difficult
scoring night for himself with eleven points. And Miley's philosophy
on him is this, I don't know what you tell
him in between games and practice and whatnot, is I
don't mind it. I'd rather him go to the basket
and take his chances against some rimp detectors. And Durren's
obviously a different kind of player, but he's gone against
Go Bear and Giannis and some other folks yokicch in
the past. That's when I find my most impressive times
(03:09):
watching outbi is you know what I'll see what I
can do is compared to maybe taking the fade away
and making him maybe a more difficult.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Two point attempt.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
How much do you talk about him going against an
individual defender as the game is progressing.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, I think for him it's if teams are going
to guard in one on one, we have the belief
that he's going to score more often than that. And
so you've seen it done obviously against some of the
best post defenders in the league. And the thing is
to be aggressive and not be hesitant. Whether that's in
the pick and roll, you know, the half role where
you kind of stop halfway instead of going all the
way to the basket or in the post, taking some of
those fadeaways like you mentioned as well. So the rhythm
(03:45):
guy that gets you know, he sees one or two
go down and gets into a rhythm obviously has all
the footwork and moves down there. But first and foremost
would be to be aggressive and go score, especially when
they're garding you one on one, and so it's some
easy ones that he would usually make. Obviously, five for
four is a tough night for him with a lot
of those coming inside. But like I said, a lot
of guys at off nights as well. But we want
(04:06):
all the guys to be aggressive, you know, not give
a defender or a scheme any credit or too much credit.
Attack those like we have and that's when we're at
our best.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
You mentioned the five of fourteen and a shooting percentage
is down from where it's been the last couple of
years and his career.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
What do you attribute that to I had, I mean
him and Jalen. They both had slow starts offensively, you know,
from a percentage standpoint, I think we saw those both
guys come out of those fairly quickly. It was just
a lot of mishots early in the season that we
talked about. You know, our record would have been a
little bit different early on if we scored, and you
know now we're scoring at a high enough clip, and
(04:42):
a big part is our aggressiveness. And so just continue
to be aggressive and take the shots that are there.
Like I said, don't second guess and give a defender
or anybody too much credit. Go do what you do,
especially if they're going to guard you one on one.
You know, we invite the double teams that he attracts
to garner a bunch of a free shots for everybody else.
But when they do guard, you want to want to
(05:02):
go make them pay. And so we have motivated guys
that are obviously very confident, and so look back to
getting to what we do. Tonight.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Rockets head coach Emo A. Dooka was us here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety after tonight eight of nine
games on the road, two sets of four games and
six nights. Is there any sort of conversations about altering
or rotations or keeping guys fresh or is it going
to be business as usual?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We're looking at both I mean, obviously the makeup game
in Atlanta adds one, adds a back to back after
Boston there. And so for us, you know, we talk
about our depth all the time and how we have
very reliable guys and so, you know, Tari coming off
some things and different guys feeling things. Stephen was out
with the Migraine obviously, and so we rely on the
guys that we have in hand. But no, we can
go deeper if we need to. And so yeah, for us,
(05:50):
it's business as usual. I you know, I don't mind
the road schedule at all. I think it builds character
and toughness. And then we've obviously done much better job
this year than last year. So let's get on the
road and it doesn't matter who we're playing or whatever
the case is. We want to hold ourselves to a
certain standard and attack it with the same mentality like
we do at home.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, it certainly has been a tail of two seasons
for this squad fourteen and seven away from totisen in
this year, which has been a lot of fun to
watch and call this Cleveland team. I mean, my goodness,
six losses on the year, they shoot at almost fifty percent.
They're making forty percent of their threes. Now, you're not
going to give us any company secrets, but have you
(06:29):
been able to find something that you kind of say,
all right, if we take advantage of this, we can
get at least one or may hopefully both these games
against the Cavaliers coming up.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, I mean, our thing is be who we are,
and so a lot of teams don't defend at the
love we do with the physicality we do, and so
we're one of the best that taking away three pointers.
They're one of the best in making them. So it's
always a battle as far as that, and we've seen
that throughout the year against certain teams. And so what
we want to do is be aggressive and pose our
will and play our style of basketball, and so a
(07:00):
lot of teams get taken aback by that by our physicality.
I think Detroit did a good job against us with
the blitzes and the physicality they used last game. And
so we understand what works for us regardless of the opponent.
We know a lot of people don't play the way
we do, and so we could present some challenges as
far as that. Other than that, it's we don't look
at the record. We look at how we want to
play where we're trying to get to, and we've beaten
(07:21):
a lot of great opponents this year, and so Cleveland
will present that same challenge.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah, they score one hundred and twenty two points a game.
I'm going to assume that you do you want to
slow things down or do you just want to make
sure that everything in terms of defense is short up
and that the good defense will turn into And we've
seen us so much this year coach better offense for
you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, we're not going to change the way we play.
And what we rely on is, like I said, our
defense and our toughness and the things that we can
try to take away from them. But as you said,
we've been our best and we could turn defense offense,
get down in transition to have those high fast break
numbers and let our guys get out and run and
so get the stops, get out and run. Most teams
are not great and transition defense, and that's what we've
(08:02):
had a good success with this year, getting the steals,
getting in the open court and everybody kind of being
having echo opportunity as far as that. So we'll do that.
We'll be aggressive there and then obviously you got some
guys to worry about Donald Mitchell and Garland. They're playing
a high level. They got some athletic mobile bigs, even
though Mobile's out tonight, So that's why they're so good.
(08:23):
They present a lot of challenges and have a lot
of balance.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And despite the loss of Detree at eighteen steals in
that contest and a lot of them in Freddy out
on guards just poking the ball away And how much
is that is that's basketball one on one for these guys.
Is that a little bit of taking their chances and
hoping that they can go in there and not hopefully steal,
you know, steal the ball away and not commit a foul.
What makes a team and an individual player in your
(08:45):
mind a good guy that oh and Tari does is
too just poking the ball away and forcing turnovers, but
just just a guy just dribbling.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I mean, we have guys are really good hands
and instincts, and so fred is as tough as they come.
As far as that I think I'm in and Taria
through the best in the league, and then dealing with
his body position and physicality. We also will go after
guys at certain points and so we give our guys
freedom to make plays and be aggressive. And like I said,
when our steel numbers are high and they're turnovers high
(09:15):
and we can convert those in transition, we're in good shape.
But a lot has to do with instincts or natural ability.
Is something that's hard to teach, but you know Fred
does that well and obviously the other guys as well. Coach,
thanks for visus always.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
We'll see a letter tonight at the Arena, and best
of luck against the Cavaliers. Thank you, you got it.
You may and Doka with us here on Sports Talk
seven on
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