January 8, 2026 • 11 mins
Ime Udoka Breaks Down Rockets Recent Struggles & the Approach Moving Forward
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Twelve thirty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It is a Matt Thomas show with Wasson here Portland
Rockets call last night to the Blazers. Usually we get
to visit with emay On on a happy note after
a big victory. Unfortunately a tough, tough literal last tenth
second of a moment lost to the Blazers and Amy
had joining us here now, coach, good morning, thank you
for the time. Walk us through if you don't mind
(00:26):
what was going through your mind drawing up the play,
the play itself and then obviously Tari's tipping it was
just a bit bit too late.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Obviously wanted to get in Kevin's hands. You know he
was he was on a hot streak with thirty seven
points and knew he would get a good look and
you know, had confidence to him. And then as always,
we wanted to send everybody to the glass and you know,
try made a great effort real point point one second
too late.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Basically, did you think it went in or was in
the back of your mind going I got to look.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
At rep I definitely had to look at replay because
when you when you look live and you have some
doubt and it's it's you know, it's going to be
close for sure, and my initial looking live was didn't
look great, didn't look good. But from of the video
video guys behind the bench, I thought he got rid
of it. And obviously the other angleish is still on
the finger.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I don't know if you saw it like I did
from up where I was calling it, but literally half
the court was with elation on one side and half
of the other court was yeah, we got it. I
mean I have never seen and we've seen buzzer beaters,
and you've been obviously been a few of them. It
felt like both sides thought they had won the game
on the final play.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Literally, yeah, that's how close it was. And even the
replay showed that. And so you know, he made a
good effort. Like I said, you know, Kevin got a
quality lookoff. You know, heavily contested, but he's gonna shoot
over guys and yeah, but overall, you know, regardless of
that last play, I said to the group that we
probably didn't deserve to win that game. You know, we
(01:57):
didn't really show up and play to our standard for
three and a half quarters, and the last half of
the fourth quarter we really buckled down.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it was literally a tale of two games when
it came to that something that has happened. Look, obviously,
you're right there in front of it. You're still crashing
the offensive boards with great regularity. That's no surprise. Even
with Altpi being gone. You got Adams out there and
even Clint helping you out. The three point shot has
gone away the last three games. What do you chalk
that up to? I mean, this is a team that
(02:25):
has been forty ninety percent of the year, but January
has not been kind from the beyond the arc, what
do you think is going on?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Just a normal slump that teams go through during the season.
At times you hate that. You know, everybody other than
Kevin really is is kind of going through it at
the same time. But to your point that starting with
the Dallas game, in Phoenix, last game and yesterday, if
we shoot anywhere close to I know them, it's a
comfortable fifteen point win. And so but at times you
(02:55):
know that's going to happen during the season. Guy is
gonna miss overshots, and yesterday it really stood out obviously
the amount of wide open looks we had. But you
still have to do the other things, and you know
nobody's trying to miss shots on purpose, you get great
looks and you live with the result. But you know
what we can control is, you know, following the game plan,
guarding specifically the way we want to and taking care
(03:17):
of the ball, and so those things can always happen.
You're going to miss shot at the times, but you
can still lock in onto onto the game plan specifics
and specifically on the Vida, we didn't guard him anywhere
close to the way we wanted to.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Kevin Durant taking the last shot and the last two
games went in on Monday, unfortunately did not last night,
but he was brought here to be a closer. What
is it like for you just as a coach as
opposed to last year? Does it make your life that
much more easy? But also you know the other team
knows that Kevin Durant is probably gonna get the ball
as well.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, I mean regardless, if he gets to a spot,
it doesn't matter you know who's guardening him or how
they're guarding him. You know he's going to get a
quality look and the maker misses has nothing to do
with the defense, honestly. And so you know, he made
a pull up the other night and got a great
look here that kind of rolled off the rim. And
you know, you bring guys in for their efficiency, for
their consistent scoring, and then obviously their closing, which we
(04:11):
had struggled with their times last year. And so it's
good there. But at the same time, you don't want
guys to fully rely on him. You want other guys
to continue to play throughout the game. And last night
it was more so of him doing what he did,
and we would have liked to see other guys that
joined the party offensively.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Rockets head coach Immay Adoka with us here on Sports
Talk seven ninety how is Alprea and Shoon feeling and
do you have any idea as far as a possible
timeline for him coming back?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Doing much better, much better than we thought. You know,
he has the swelling, has kind of getting gun pushed out,
had a really good workout yesterday post shoot around and
just got to moving around and getting up and down
and you know, jumping around, jump rope, doing some things
on the ankle, just to see the flexibility. And we're
happy with the progress. I'm not sure when he'll be back,
(04:57):
but you know, it looked a little more bleak and
this and now he's moving well, paying tolerance is pretty good,
and so hoping to have him back definitely in the
next few games.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
He may is a guy who scores nearly twenty points
a game most night's over, gives you seven or eight assists,
seven or eight rebounds. It's an obvious question, but tell
me from a strategy standpoint, the things you have to
adjust the team, the team things your team has to
adjust with Alpi being out of that lineup, not only
not on the floor, but you know, missing as much
(05:27):
time as he's missed a Laska a handful of games or.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So, he just takes away one one leg of your offense.
And then it's really the post up threat, the isolation
thread around the elbows and the things he's really good at,
and so you kind of go to other actions, other players,
other personnel, and it's a little bit more limited because
of the post up thread. You know, Kevin and Jabari
can get some posts, but not to the extent of
(05:50):
alprind And just like Kevin draws those attention, Alpi does
the same thing. And I think overall guys get more
clean looks with those two on the court.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
All right, Semiloaded questions if you want to just not
answer it all the way I get it. Denny Avdia
shoots a lot of free throws. In fact, he shoots
more than anybody else in the NBA. When you talk
to officials in the offseason, there are some guys that
will chase after fouls and get the free throw line
like he does. Do officials catch on to that or
do they come to you and say contact is contact?
(06:21):
I don't care if the guy goes a free throw
line twelve or thirteen times, it's because a ball in
his hand as much and your guys can't seem to
not fiul. I'm not talking about you in general, but
just in general about whether or not a player like
him or sga In James was certainly like that when
he was here in Houston live at the free throw
line at least ten times per game.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, I mean, it's a discussion that's always had at
the head coaches and meetings of the referee. He is
freedom of movement and who's initiating contact. It's definitely the
hardest thing to officiate in the game. But at the
same time, you know, you hate to see foul batters
be rewarded to that extent. But at the same time
you have to be disciplined as well. And so, yeah,
they're gonna miss them, definitely, They're gonna stole their body around.
(07:03):
And for us, it's being more disciplined, not reaching their
hands in there and then having a nice point of
contact instead of meeting them that low by the rim.
And so weren't as disciplined as we need to be
on him game plan wise, reached in too many times
and you know, bailed him out there. But the things
we wanted to do with him from the start we didn't.
And let him get going, let him get downhill, and
(07:25):
let him draw some of those files.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Uh. You. The schedule has given us a lot of
off days over the first couple of months. I looked
at January. It's a hot mess of games. I'm going
to assuming that the number one thing you can probably
do is eliminate the number of hardcore practices guys getting
their shots in to do what they need to do.
Is that is that the main thing you have to
do here, beyond thinking about how many back to backs
are ahead over this for this team in the next
(07:49):
handful of weeks.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, definitely. I mean it's games every other day and
then a bunch of back to backs coming up, and
so your time is definitely limited. You're very conscious of
resting bodies and you know, saving one trip to the
gym here and there they have their energy and juice
for the game, and so it's always a balance there.
You know, you up the film sessions, up the individual
film sessions and team film sessions to you know, make
(08:13):
sure we're checking boxes on everything that we need to.
But you do want guys, you know, we're professionals, and
I trust our guys. They are grinders that they get
the right amount of work in. They get the rest
they need or the shots they need, and so we
have a lot of optional days and guys are always
in the gym getting up work even if it's not
a mandatory shoot around.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And keeping with that workload. Conversation, I'm in Thompson number
two in minutes per game Kevin Durant number four. I
guess obviously two different conversations with both of those guys
because of their age, But can you kind of take
us through both of those as far as talking with
the player, talking with the trainer, and kind of figuring
out how to try to at least help lighten the
load a little bit.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, there's definitely something we wanted to be, you know,
shaved down to be and we are conscious and aware of.
But at the same time, you know, I'm in there's
you know, Swiss Army Knight for us, you know, with
with Fred and point guards out, he's handling that duty initially,
and then we bring and read or different guys, you know,
with Dorian being out and Tari being out at times
and Jay Shaw and the guys that were injured early.
(09:12):
He was doing so much for us as far as
defensively and playing the two, three four at times, and
so you know, he's a young guy, but we still
want to be conscious and aware of that. With Kevin
obviously in age factor you are as well. You know,
the guys that are missing, we've got to stay afloat
and he's doing such a great job. And Kevin's like Fred,
he'd never once come off the court anyway. But you know,
(09:34):
sometimes you have to save guys from themselves and at
some point we want to save those minutes down while
we're fully hole and have nobody else on many restrictions.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Will Kevin tried to pass up Wilt in the first
quarter at tomorrow night's game.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
We wanted him to get a last night, but uh,
you know, you know he's not. He's been on the
high street lately, and like like I said, without alpering,
there the balls in his hands even more. But you know,
he'll do what he does and he's do need to
pass up people on the list. And more so than that,
we encourage our guys to not sit and watch, but
like I said, join the party. Like last night and
(10:09):
anybody had a normal shooting night. We're in good shape.
So we don't want to fully rely on a thirty
seven year old. Everybody else has to do their part.
And while he does what he does, and his affision
as he is scoring is like he is and closing
like he is.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
All Right, You've got a lot of guys on your
bench behind you that will have notepads, iPads looking at
officials calls. Will one of them be on the Indiana
Oregon game tomorrow night during the game.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
As much as I'd love too, we got a game
to win here and so this is a good chance
for us to get back at what we missed on
last night. Yeah, like I said, if we play offensively better,
you know we'll be in good shape, but shot taking
the follow it or not. And even with you know,
the fifteenth free coaster, have you and us being undisciplined
(10:52):
early and for the first half at least, they still
only scored one oh three and so we could do
some things that definitely be better. And we've been number
one in an offense or defense for the last month
or so, and we need to have another big night
defensively while making shots.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All right, assuming Oregon wins tomorrow, who do you want
them playing ole mister Miami.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
It doesn't matter to me. I love to see him
in the championship.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
We'll leave it at that. Thank you. You may for the time,
enjoy the rest of today. We'll see you tomorrow at
the arena.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Thank you, guys,
Twelve thirty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It is a Matt Thomas show with Wasson here Portland
Rockets call last night to the Blazers. Usually we get
to visit with emay On on a happy note after
a big victory. Unfortunately a tough, tough literal last tenth
second of a moment lost to the Blazers and Amy
had joining us here now, coach, good morning, thank you
for the time. Walk us through if you don't mind
(00:26):
what was going through your mind drawing up the play,
the play itself and then obviously Tari's tipping it was
just a bit bit too late.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Obviously wanted to get in Kevin's hands. You know he
was he was on a hot streak with thirty seven
points and knew he would get a good look and
you know, had confidence to him. And then as always,
we wanted to send everybody to the glass and you know,
try made a great effort real point point one second
too late.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Basically, did you think it went in or was in
the back of your mind going I got to look.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
At rep I definitely had to look at replay because
when you when you look live and you have some
doubt and it's it's you know, it's going to be
close for sure, and my initial looking live was didn't
look great, didn't look good. But from of the video
video guys behind the bench, I thought he got rid
of it. And obviously the other angleish is still on
the finger.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I don't know if you saw it like I did
from up where I was calling it, but literally half
the court was with elation on one side and half
of the other court was yeah, we got it. I
mean I have never seen and we've seen buzzer beaters,
and you've been obviously been a few of them. It
felt like both sides thought they had won the game
on the final play.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Literally, yeah, that's how close it was. And even the
replay showed that. And so you know, he made a
good effort. Like I said, you know, Kevin got a
quality lookoff. You know, heavily contested, but he's gonna shoot
over guys and yeah, but overall, you know, regardless of
that last play, I said to the group that we
probably didn't deserve to win that game. You know, we
(01:57):
didn't really show up and play to our standard for
three and a half quarters, and the last half of
the fourth quarter we really buckled down.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it was literally a tale of two games when
it came to that something that has happened. Look, obviously,
you're right there in front of it. You're still crashing
the offensive boards with great regularity. That's no surprise. Even
with Altpi being gone. You got Adams out there and
even Clint helping you out. The three point shot has
gone away the last three games. What do you chalk
that up to? I mean, this is a team that
(02:25):
has been forty ninety percent of the year, but January
has not been kind from the beyond the arc, what
do you think is going on?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Just a normal slump that teams go through during the season.
At times you hate that. You know, everybody other than
Kevin really is is kind of going through it at
the same time. But to your point that starting with
the Dallas game, in Phoenix, last game and yesterday, if
we shoot anywhere close to I know them, it's a
comfortable fifteen point win. And so but at times you
(02:55):
know that's going to happen during the season. Guy is
gonna miss overshots, and yesterday it really stood out obviously
the amount of wide open looks we had. But you
still have to do the other things, and you know
nobody's trying to miss shots on purpose, you get great
looks and you live with the result. But you know
what we can control is, you know, following the game plan,
guarding specifically the way we want to and taking care
(03:17):
of the ball, and so those things can always happen.
You're going to miss shot at the times, but you
can still lock in onto onto the game plan specifics
and specifically on the Vida, we didn't guard him anywhere
close to the way we wanted to.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Kevin Durant taking the last shot and the last two
games went in on Monday, unfortunately did not last night,
but he was brought here to be a closer. What
is it like for you just as a coach as
opposed to last year? Does it make your life that
much more easy? But also you know the other team
knows that Kevin Durant is probably gonna get the ball
as well.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, I mean regardless, if he gets to a spot,
it doesn't matter you know who's guardening him or how
they're guarding him. You know he's going to get a
quality look and the maker misses has nothing to do
with the defense, honestly. And so you know, he made
a pull up the other night and got a great
look here that kind of rolled off the rim. And
you know, you bring guys in for their efficiency, for
their consistent scoring, and then obviously their closing, which we
(04:11):
had struggled with their times last year. And so it's
good there. But at the same time, you don't want
guys to fully rely on him. You want other guys
to continue to play throughout the game. And last night
it was more so of him doing what he did,
and we would have liked to see other guys that
joined the party offensively.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Rockets head coach Immay Adoka with us here on Sports
Talk seven ninety how is Alprea and Shoon feeling and
do you have any idea as far as a possible
timeline for him coming back?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Doing much better, much better than we thought. You know,
he has the swelling, has kind of getting gun pushed out,
had a really good workout yesterday post shoot around and
just got to moving around and getting up and down
and you know, jumping around, jump rope, doing some things
on the ankle, just to see the flexibility. And we're
happy with the progress. I'm not sure when he'll be back,
(04:57):
but you know, it looked a little more bleak and
this and now he's moving well, paying tolerance is pretty good,
and so hoping to have him back definitely in the
next few games.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
He may is a guy who scores nearly twenty points
a game most night's over, gives you seven or eight assists,
seven or eight rebounds. It's an obvious question, but tell
me from a strategy standpoint, the things you have to
adjust the team, the team things your team has to
adjust with Alpi being out of that lineup, not only
not on the floor, but you know, missing as much
(05:27):
time as he's missed a Laska a handful of games or.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So, he just takes away one one leg of your offense.
And then it's really the post up threat, the isolation
thread around the elbows and the things he's really good at,
and so you kind of go to other actions, other players,
other personnel, and it's a little bit more limited because
of the post up thread. You know, Kevin and Jabari
can get some posts, but not to the extent of
(05:50):
alprind And just like Kevin draws those attention, Alpi does
the same thing. And I think overall guys get more
clean looks with those two on the court.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
All right, Semiloaded questions if you want to just not
answer it all the way I get it. Denny Avdia
shoots a lot of free throws. In fact, he shoots
more than anybody else in the NBA. When you talk
to officials in the offseason, there are some guys that
will chase after fouls and get the free throw line
like he does. Do officials catch on to that or
do they come to you and say contact is contact?
(06:21):
I don't care if the guy goes a free throw
line twelve or thirteen times, it's because a ball in
his hand as much and your guys can't seem to
not fiul. I'm not talking about you in general, but
just in general about whether or not a player like
him or sga In James was certainly like that when
he was here in Houston live at the free throw
line at least ten times per game.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, I mean, it's a discussion that's always had at
the head coaches and meetings of the referee. He is
freedom of movement and who's initiating contact. It's definitely the
hardest thing to officiate in the game. But at the
same time, you know, you hate to see foul batters
be rewarded to that extent. But at the same time
you have to be disciplined as well. And so, yeah,
they're gonna miss them, definitely, They're gonna stole their body around.
(07:03):
And for us, it's being more disciplined, not reaching their
hands in there and then having a nice point of
contact instead of meeting them that low by the rim.
And so weren't as disciplined as we need to be
on him game plan wise, reached in too many times
and you know, bailed him out there. But the things
we wanted to do with him from the start we didn't.
And let him get going, let him get downhill, and
(07:25):
let him draw some of those files.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Uh. You. The schedule has given us a lot of
off days over the first couple of months. I looked
at January. It's a hot mess of games. I'm going
to assuming that the number one thing you can probably
do is eliminate the number of hardcore practices guys getting
their shots in to do what they need to do.
Is that is that the main thing you have to
do here, beyond thinking about how many back to backs
are ahead over this for this team in the next
(07:49):
handful of weeks.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, definitely. I mean it's games every other day and
then a bunch of back to backs coming up, and
so your time is definitely limited. You're very conscious of
resting bodies and you know, saving one trip to the
gym here and there they have their energy and juice
for the game, and so it's always a balance there.
You know, you up the film sessions, up the individual
film sessions and team film sessions to you know, make
(08:13):
sure we're checking boxes on everything that we need to.
But you do want guys, you know, we're professionals, and
I trust our guys. They are grinders that they get
the right amount of work in. They get the rest
they need or the shots they need, and so we
have a lot of optional days and guys are always
in the gym getting up work even if it's not
a mandatory shoot around.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And keeping with that workload. Conversation, I'm in Thompson number
two in minutes per game Kevin Durant number four. I
guess obviously two different conversations with both of those guys
because of their age, But can you kind of take
us through both of those as far as talking with
the player, talking with the trainer, and kind of figuring
out how to try to at least help lighten the
load a little bit.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, there's definitely something we wanted to be, you know,
shaved down to be and we are conscious and aware of.
But at the same time, you know, I'm in there's
you know, Swiss Army Knight for us, you know, with
with Fred and point guards out, he's handling that duty initially,
and then we bring and read or different guys, you know,
with Dorian being out and Tari being out at times
and Jay Shaw and the guys that were injured early.
(09:12):
He was doing so much for us as far as
defensively and playing the two, three four at times, and
so you know, he's a young guy, but we still
want to be conscious and aware of that. With Kevin
obviously in age factor you are as well. You know,
the guys that are missing, we've got to stay afloat
and he's doing such a great job. And Kevin's like Fred,
he'd never once come off the court anyway. But you know,
(09:34):
sometimes you have to save guys from themselves and at
some point we want to save those minutes down while
we're fully hole and have nobody else on many restrictions.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Will Kevin tried to pass up Wilt in the first
quarter at tomorrow night's game.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
We wanted him to get a last night, but uh,
you know, you know he's not. He's been on the
high street lately, and like like I said, without alpering,
there the balls in his hands even more. But you know,
he'll do what he does and he's do need to
pass up people on the list. And more so than that,
we encourage our guys to not sit and watch, but
like I said, join the party. Like last night and
(10:09):
anybody had a normal shooting night. We're in good shape.
So we don't want to fully rely on a thirty
seven year old. Everybody else has to do their part.
And while he does what he does, and his affision
as he is scoring is like he is and closing
like he is.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
All Right, You've got a lot of guys on your
bench behind you that will have notepads, iPads looking at
officials calls. Will one of them be on the Indiana
Oregon game tomorrow night during the game.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
As much as I'd love too, we got a game
to win here and so this is a good chance
for us to get back at what we missed on
last night. Yeah, like I said, if we play offensively better,
you know we'll be in good shape, but shot taking
the follow it or not. And even with you know,
the fifteenth free coaster, have you and us being undisciplined
(10:52):
early and for the first half at least, they still
only scored one oh three and so we could do
some things that definitely be better. And we've been number
one in an offense or defense for the last month
or so, and we need to have another big night
defensively while making shots.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All right, assuming Oregon wins tomorrow, who do you want
them playing ole mister Miami.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
It doesn't matter to me. I love to see him
in the championship.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
We'll leave it at that. Thank you. You may for the time,
enjoy the rest of today. We'll see you tomorrow at
the arena.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Thank you, guys,
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