April 17, 2025 • 47 mins
Is the fifth time the charm? With a first-round series against their nemesis coming up, our Ben DuBose and Paulo Alves explain why 2025 should finally be the time for the Rockets to beat the Warriors in the playoffs.
Discussion topics on our series preview show include key storylines to watch for; predictions for what is likely to happen; and the role of players such as Alperen Sengun, Tari Eason, and Fred VanVleet as potentially crucial variables for the Rockets.
Discussion topics on our series preview show include key storylines to watch for; predictions for what is likely to happen; and the role of players such as Alperen Sengun, Tari Eason, and Fred VanVleet as potentially crucial variables for the Rockets.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Cheers, Rockets fans, Welcome to the lagger Line, an exclusive
podcast from the home of the Rockets, Sports Talk seven ninety.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The Logger Line.
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It's proudly served to you by Carbox Clutch City lagger
It is good. Oh yeah, Red Nation, get Ready, Ready,
get Ready The lagger Line.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It starts now. Welcome aboard, Welcome back to another new
episode of The logger Line, again served to you courtesy
of Clutch City, logger of Carback Brewing. I'm Ben Jubo's,
your host, editor of USA Today's Rocket Square and contributor
to Sports Talk seven ninety official flagship rodiotation of your
(00:52):
Houston Rockets. As always, I'm joined by Powell Alves, or
co host and producer out of Portugal. You can follow
him on Twitter, slash x at Powell Alves NBA me
on They're at Ben Dubo's. So, since we last recorded
earlier this week, the matchup is now set play in.
Tournament had a close game that went down to the wire,
but not surprisingly, Steph Curry found a way to hit
a couple of huge threes in the last two minutes
(01:14):
and Golden State got the one over Memphis and now
it is in fact, the hated Warriors who are on
their way to Houston for the first round of the
Western Conference Playoffs. Game one is Sunday night, and even
though the Warriors are the seventh seed, they're actually favored
by Las Vegas in this series, just as we suspect it.
It's not hard to understand why, because despite the seed gap,
(01:35):
the Warriors only had four fewer wins than the Rockets
this season forty eight versus fifty two, and they also
won three of the five head to head meetings. And then,
as far as not having home court advantage, a team
that's as experienced and top heavy as the Warriors, that's
got big names like Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green
coach by Steve Kerr, the perception among the casual national
(01:59):
observers is going to be that they'll find a way
to win a tough Game five or a Game seven,
even on the road against a Houston team that's pretty
young and unproven. The challenges on the Rockets to prove
them wrong, and I actually think we'll see them rally
around it. I think that's already happening based on what
I've seen at practice this week. I also think they're
(02:19):
going to rally around this whole Warriors perception angle and
the mental hole that people nationally think they have over
the Rockets as a franchise, because while everybody knows what
Steph Curry has done to the Rockets over the years,
this will be the fifth playoff series between these teams
in a span of less than ten years. The first
(02:41):
was in May twenty fifteen. Obviously, the Warriors won all
of those others, and that's why we hate him so much.
But this Rockets team, this Rockets coaching staff, was not
around for any of that. At Wednesday's practice, I absolutely
loved the line that Fred van Fleet, clearly the veteran
leader of this team, had when somebody asked about all
(03:01):
the fan trauma, the baggage as far as facing the
Warriors and whether he understood it. His response was very
matter of fact, Nope, this ain't that team, and that
ain't that team, referring to both the Rockets and the Warriors.
This is not twenty fifteen, it's not twenty sixteen, it's
not twenty eighteen, it's not twenty nineteen. This is a
new era of the Rockets and Powlow. As you talked
(03:23):
about in our pod earlier this week talking about general
thoughts going into the playoffs, and of course we had
some Warriors discussion because it was fifty to fifty Warriors
and Grizzlies. As far as who you would play, how symbolic,
how fitting would it be to start off this new
era in their first playoff appearance, if they can do
what the old era of Rockets couldn't and finally get
past Steph Curry and the Warriors. There's some baggage, but
(03:46):
there's also one hell of an opportunity here. And so
while I think nationally I understand why the Rockets are underdogs,
I understand why most people aren't going to pick them.
I saw six the eight ESPN writers picking Golden State.
But I think the Rockets are going to rally around this,
(04:06):
and I think they can use this in their favor
to some degree. I think they already are with the
intensity of the practices this week. Anyway, as far as
today's show, we'll try and be a bit more concise,
because we already had one episode earlier this week that
went on for almost an hour and a half with
general thoughts going into the playoffs. As far as the
potential matchup, keys to the playoff run for the Rockets,
(04:27):
what we saw from the clothes to the regular season,
and so on and so forth. Today we'll try and
be a bit more concise and we'll start with some
initial thoughts about the matchup. We'll move into one area
of encouragement in one area of concern, and then we'll
finish out with both of us making our predictions going
into the series. As far as initial thoughts, for me,
I think this is a fascinating series because there's actually
(04:50):
not much to talk about going in. As I see it,
it's more about execution. These teams know each other so
well that they've already thrown the kitchen sink against one another.
At least it feels that way. You go back to
April of twenty four, these teams have met six times,
and many of these were high pressure games. I mean,
(05:13):
there's always an extra edge because clearly these teams don't
like one another. We know the history between Steph Curry,
Draymond Green and this franchise. We know Tari Easton with
the Warriors, come out and play. I think the players here,
even if they weren't around for that Golden State dominance
earlier in well, not this decade, but last decade. They
certainly feel it around town, around this fan community, around
(05:36):
this organization, and so it's led to the Rockets taking
the Warriors very seriously. Also, I think the Warriors with
staff are sort of the gold standard until he retires,
they will be. So from a Rockets perspective, they've always
looked at these matchups as something of a measuring stick.
And last year we know that was the closest team
(05:57):
to the Rockets in the play and race, and so
in early April a year ago, the Rockets built up
that game against Golden State as a de facto playoff
game because they basically had to win it to stay
in contention for a play in spot. Obviously, it didn't
go well, but that's part of the learning process as
a young team tries to get better and takes its
(06:17):
lumps and learns what it feels like to be in
a high pressure situation. And then this year they met
five times, the four scheduled meetings and the fifth added
on as an elimination game in the NBA Cup quarterfinal.
We heard Draymond Green after that loss calling it the
most painful one since Game seven of the twenty sixteen
(06:37):
NBA Finals. Think about that statement. We saw Steve Kerr
having an all out tie raid on Bill Kennedy with
the controversial call, although the correct call sending Jalen Green
to the line for the two winning free throws in
that one. So the Rockets don't like the Warriors and
they take those games seriously. But the Warriors also don't
(06:58):
like the Rockets, and they literally took the NBA Cup
loss seriously. Look at how Draymond and Steve Kerr, their
veteran leaders, were reacting in the aftermath. So it's not
just that these teams have played. They have played in
high pressure situations. They don't like one another. There is
always an edge, a chippiness to these games. We saw
(07:19):
what happened with Draymond Green and all Pria in Shangoon
right before halftime. In the meeting earlier this month from
San Francisco. These teams have already thrown the kitchen sink
against one another in these meetings, and so that makes
this series in some ways less interesting to talk about
because I don't think there's some silver bullet or some
(07:40):
magic lever that either Steve Kerr imy Udoka is going
to be able to pull These teams have already tried that.
They have taken these games extremely seriously. It's just gonna
be who goes out and makes one or two more plays.
It's just gonna come down to execution. And so that's
what I'm thinking going into this series, even the changes
(08:01):
these two teams have made over the season. The Rockets
have played the Warriors twice with Jimmy Butler. The Warriors
have played the Rockets since they started going more double
bid with all for Inchmngon and Steven Adams. So I
don't think there's gonna be a lot of surprises. I
think both teams know what they need to do against
the other. It's just about going out there and doing
(08:23):
it again. Six games since the start of April a
year ago, most of them in very high pressure situations.
They've each won on the other team's home floor. By
the way, even though the Warriors won three of five,
the Rockets won two of the last three, including one
by double digits earlier this month in San Francisco. So
I don't think there's any fear that the Rockets have
(08:44):
of the Warriors. There's certainly not any fear that the
Warriors have of the Rockets. Both teams have already gone
all out for these games against one another, So I
don't think there's gonna be any huge surprises or tactical
you know, chess moves if you will, that we haven't
seen already. No, it's just gonna be who goes out
and steps up in the highest pressure moments and gets
it done. That's my thought going into this series, at
(09:07):
least as far as the on court side. There is,
of course the emotional side as well, and as mentioned earlier,
I think that's more a fan thing than a player
and coach thing. I think that's more what we're feeling
watching the series, not so much, but the players and
coaches on the Houston side are feeling themselves. But for me,
and this is a fan podcast, so I do want
(09:28):
to address it. I'm not gonna lie. When Golden State
won that game against Memphis, there was a big part
of me that was cheering for the Grizzlies, partly because
I think it's a little bit better matchup. They don't
have the experience edge they did just fire the coach
and the stuff we talked about earlier this week, but
also there's a pit in my stomach. I'm not gonna lie.
It would suck to lose to the Warriors for a
(09:51):
fifth time in under ten years in the playoffs. Now, conversely,
as you laid out the other day, Pallo, it's amazing
if you win, but it's terrible if you lose. And
even if logically it's understandable, we can point to the
broader contacts. Hey, this is the Rocket's first playoff appearance
with this group, they're very young, and if they lose
as long as the serious as at least somewhat competitive
(10:11):
and they don't get swept losing by twenty five thirty
points a game, it's understandable. You can look back and
logically say this team needed more seasoning. If they end
up losing a hard fought series to Steph Curry and
the Warriors, it wouldn't be something that makes you feel
all of a sudden like, oh, this team is doomed
and the rebuilds of failure and it's not going to
work out. No, it's nothing like that. But from a
(10:32):
fan perspective, yeah, it would suck if you lose to
Steph and Draymond again and got meaned into oblivion. Yeah,
it would suck. I get it, and so that's why
I've had a pit in my stomach, because, yeah, there's
a lot of nerves, a lot of baggage that comes
from playing the Warriors again. Somehow, they are the first
team you draw in a playoff game in this new era,
(10:55):
the first playoff game since May of twenty nineteen, that
horrible loss games of the twenty nineteen second run series
that basically with the end of the James Harden and
Chris Paul era Rockets and basically the end of the
James Harden era Rockets and sent them into a rebuild
because Russell Westbrook, that deal was just to hail Mary. Yeah,
it feels terrible that the first game back is going
(11:16):
to be against those hated Warriors again, but in some
ways it's all the more fitting, and the more I
think about it, the more I'm rallying around it. Just
as I think the team is itself, I think the
fan base should as well, because that Pitt and our stomachs,
that's why we're diehard fans of sports. That's why if
(11:39):
you're out there listening to folks like me and Powell
ramble for an hour plus every week, that's why you care.
That's why you're not watching scripted movies or television shows
or doing something else for a hobby. Sports is the
greatest reality show there is. And so with a series
like this, yeah, there's a huge variance in terms of
(12:02):
it's going to feel amazing if you win, terrible if
you lose. And in some ways it'd be easier emotionally
to play a nondescript opponent like the Memphis Grizzlies that
it wouldn't feel as awful if you lose too. But
this is why we're fans of sports. This is why
you play the games. This is why you care enough
(12:23):
to listen to podcasts like this, to invest yourself into
a sport with eighty two regular season games now as
many as four playoff series that are best of seven.
This is why we do it. The upside, the feeling,
the rush you get if you win a series like this.
It feels like, you know, the Rockets have given me
some incredible moments against the Warriors over the years. I
(12:43):
can think back to some of the individual games they've
won in the hardened era, and yet they didn't even
win a single playoff series against them. Imagine what it
feels like for a young team if they win their
first playoff series against these guys that rush that adrenaline.
This is why we do it. And so, yeah, I'm nervous.
I my mood this week. It's the saved by the
(13:06):
Bell mean, the Jesse Spanno. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.
I'm so scared caffeine will freak out. Yeah, that's how
I feel. But that's why we care so much about sports.
That's why we do it. We're not playing sports. This
is a hobby for us. We're watching. If we weren't
doing this, we'd be doing something else. This is what
makes sports special. And so I have nerves. It would
suck to lose, it'd be amazing to win. Yeah, to
(13:29):
some degree, I'm walking on eggshells. But Paolo, this is
why we do it. The more I think about it, yeah,
I'm still nervous. There's the irrational side of me that thinks,
hashtag Houston sports, this isn't gonna go well. But when
I zoom out and I think about why we do this,
and I think about why we invest so much time
and effort into podcasting and tweeting and basically building our
(13:53):
lives at least to an extent, around watching and supporting
a team like this, a high stakes matchup like this
against a dynasty type team. I know they're not a
dynasty anymore, but they still have the foundation of a
team that was. And now you add playouttion me Butler
on top of that as well. Hollo, this is why
we do it. I'm nervous, Jesse Spano meme. That's me
(14:15):
right now and it probably will be for the next
two weeks. But the more I think about it, the
more I'm rallying around it and saying, hey, let's embrace this,
let's see how it goes and hope for the best.
That's my thirty thousand foot view going into the series. Polo,
how have you felt the last two days since the
Warriors got that one over the Grizzlies in the playing tournament.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, as you guys know if you listen to the
last podcast, I actually picked the Rockets to pick the
Warriors as my favorite Mattet part of the first round
because I'm not going to get into the same pluss
that I said before, but because I think the current
Warriors want to make this as well best right, And
that's exactly what the Rockets want. The lower the scoring
is in the game, the better, the better off the
(14:55):
Rockets are, and so I wanted the Warriors. So I
didn't really dare how it went. I didn't watch the game.
I picked it up in the morning and I watched
the last few minutes, and I saw the stats, and
I thought, we're probably going to be playing against the
Warriors and the refs, because the refs may really been
sure that, you know, the Warriors were going to have
the lead in that game, and then they choked it
(15:16):
and then some favorable calls went to Grizzlies way. But
ultimately when it came down to it, obviously that five
second violations absolutely Bogus and John Brant and Jon Jackson
Junior are both being there at the time that the
violations called. So whatever, I'm going to get into that,
but I will talk about specific things about how I
think the match up will go. I won't keep you
(15:37):
my prodition that's in ATMO, this little bop type thing,
but I will say a few trends that I think
are important. The Warriors have been a pretty good rebounding team,
you know, for the season, but when you look at
the last few games, the ones that actually matter. Against
the Grizzlies, they were all rebounded by eleven. Against the Clippers,
they were all rebounded by Wow, it's even more than
(15:58):
I expected. They were all rebounded by seventeen the Rockets.
The Warriors currently are playing small wall. They played Raymond
at the five, and they play, you know, prototypical Warriors
small wall and that cannot be arrested, and they were
just unable to. They don't have the shooters to punish
you if you go bigger to Counterdack. And so I
think the Rockets will be more than free to play
(16:19):
Steven Adams all the time he wants. If you look
at the Warriors versus Rockets matchups since Steven Adams has
been back in all form, if I just play won
the last game, and Steven Adams was a plus seven
in the minutes he was on the floor, which were
about sixteen if I'm not mistaken, And the previous to
that where the Rockets lost, Steven Adams played only six minutes,
(16:41):
although he maye pull the starters like about halfway through
the game or in the third quarter. But still I
think you said, you don't think that there's anything new
that they can that both coaches can bring out. I
think the double big line up something that's to give
the Warriors a latter trouble.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
It can, but you did it a little bit in
the last game. That's all I'm saying is that it's
not the drastic.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I just don't know how. I just don't know how
they deal with it. And I think that's a big
camera for us. And then when you look at it,
as we talked about, the Rockets have just a combination
of different types of the featherers, different planes, different speeds,
different off Paul instincts that are pretty much tailor made
(17:23):
to Negate other team superstars, and the Warriors, more than
any other team in the league, our team that is
the most reliant on their superstars. They have Steph Kurians,
Mean Butler, and then besides that mostes. I mean, I
don't want to knock on wood because this is the Rockets.
But Brendan Zimski is not a good shooter. Moody is
an okay shooter. Looney no queennan post. He's a big
(17:47):
man shooter, but he's a rookie. Are really gonna trust
him in the playoffs. Kaminga has not played the last
few games. Who knows what his relationship is with the
current with Steve Clair, for example, it's this is they
were made series for the way the Rockets play. It's
not a high scoring team. It's a team that has
two stars, that has no other shot creators that actually
(18:08):
can just use a combination of Amen Coms and Tarry's
and Javaris Smith Hillen Brooks put on them. And even
Chiln Green did a pretty good job on Steph Curry
when times d he that he was matched up with him,
because you know, that's not going to bully Jaman with
his physicality, and Joe's quick enough to keep up with them.
And this is to say that I am you know,
I'm not gonna make my prediction and yet, but I
(18:29):
think this is a pretty good matchup for us. But
I do think that there's a couple of things that
work against us. First of all, the refs are obviously
going to be against us, and then after that, there's
something unique to the combination between Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry,
and the fact is just a big red flag. Something
that you need look has to be drilling into these
players' minds is that you play tough, You'll play rough.
(18:52):
You play physical in the beginning. If the russ are
calling piles, you gotta stop. And then you hate to
let the officiat define how you play. But if Jimmy Butler,
who's one of the best Paul rowers in the league,
is getting you in foul trouble early on in every
quarter and then you're trying to offend physical arms Steph Curry,
you're basically Jimmy is getting you in fault trouble and
(19:13):
Steph is a calling ticke attack Foles is giving is
getting You're giving a ninety percent free throw shooter to
the three throws which is basically a layup for him
on files that are nowhere near the basket, and get
into a situation where you're not really needing to actually
create advantages because you're giving up a lot of three
(19:33):
points in that way. And it's we have to manytion
but an all time great skater shooter that moves a
lot around, screens a lot and can get those types
of fowls and the guy that's just really adept at
drawing those types of pats. So that's something that I'm
looking out for. I wonder how he made the will
kind of manage that because it's not really about someone
getting objected. It's really about being in seeming foul trouble, right,
(19:56):
So being in the bonus obviously, So that's another thing
that I'm working out for. But other than that, I
think you just if you're able to generate the second
stance points that the Rockets has been able to generate
ball season, I think you will be able to because
if you go big and they go small, they're giving
up a lot of rebounds and they don't shooting to
make up besides Seth Curry and then besides that, oh
(20:20):
and they don't have the shooting. I wanted to forgot
to mention they have Buddy Heal, but he shows someone
that just last year was unplayable in the playoffs in
the Sixers literature. So if he's on the court, you
have to be able to exploit the five that he's
on the court. And so, and the other thing that
I was going to mention is even if they decide
to play wounding a lot of minutes and play posts
(20:40):
a lot of minutes, posts the player, guys, please don't
think I think I'm talking about the post. If that's
then that they're doing. You can go bigger than them
even then, because Approaching Loon and Steven Adams are much
bigger than whatever bigs they can fill out there. And
so I just say that I think we're a good
matchup against them, And I do agree with furtherm Forvently
(21:00):
that that's mental kind of breakthrough thing already happened this season.
You know, I don't think it's wingdering from when the
Rockets were back. I think it's flingering because as Rockets
were growing, they always lost to the Warriors. But they
broke that streak this year, and then there last matchup
they beat them pretty convincingly, and so I think that
(21:20):
it will be a good matchup. There's a few trendses.
I'm moving at the trends that I just talked about,
but I think if the Rockets played their game and
their style, and I think the Warriors will see into
that style, they'll have a pretty good chance.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
All Yeah, And I think that fifteen game losing streak
which the Rockets snapped with the NBA Cup win in December,
it was extremely frustrating to the fan base and we
had multiple episodes about it, but it was because of
a combination of two things that were actually unrelated. It
was the streak and the obvious baggage with the Warriors
(21:54):
and the Rockets dating back ten years to all those
James Harden led player losses against those two. It was
the confluence of those two things, and so for the
fans it was absolutely awful. But to the team itself,
they just needed to get a win, and that fifteen
game skined. As frustrating as it was. What gets lost
(22:18):
is that the Rockets they were the worst team in
the Western Conference for three straight years, so they were
bad against everybody. Those fifteen straight losses were not a
reflection of anything specific about the Warriors. A lot of
that was the years the Rockets were rebuilding slash tanking,
and so it's not as much as you would think
(22:39):
for the fan base. It was all the losses and
the baggage that was already built up going in. For
the team itself, again, a lot of it is unrelated
to them. Steven Silas years, James Harden years. That's not
that they need to see a couple of things go right.
They've now won two of the last three, as you mentioned,
the last convincingly, So I don't think that's a factor anymore.
I'm with Fred on that as far as my areas
(23:02):
of encouragement and concern. The more I look at it,
I don't know if it's a great matchup for all
per in Shin Gooon, but it's a good one. And
when you think about what the Rockets need to win
this series, I think as long as Shinggoon can stay
on the floor and provide value as a hub, because
as you mentioned, Paolo, these are games that they are
(23:23):
going to be played in the mud. The offensive ratings
each team against the other would be dead last in
the NBA. They barely averaged more than a hundred points
a game against one another this season. So Rockets need
their all star, their top facilitator, their top gravity guy,
maybe their top playmaker. And so you look at Shinggoon's
line against the Warriors this year, played all five games,
average seventeen points, eleven boards, four and a half assists
(23:45):
in twenty eight minutes, shot forty seven percent from the field,
which feels a little underwhelming, but it was a bad
year for Shingoon and from definishing overall, he was at
forty nine percent for the season. There were a couple
of games that the starters the Rockets fell behind and
the starters and men Thompson excluded didn't finish the game
or or benched for extended strutchers in the second half,
(24:06):
So that's when the minutes are a little low. He
averaged thirty one to thirty two for the seasons, all
twenty eight against the Warriors, but seventeen eleven and four
and a half assists in those twenty eight minutes is
pretty solid. And I think Shangoon is a guy who
especially is going to benefit from the Rockets going into
this series knowing how the Warriors will attack and defend him.
(24:27):
I think a lot of what happens to Shangoon and
traditional big men like him in the playoffs when as
we talked about the last pod, that's always the challenge.
How are they going to hold up in the playoffs
when there are more team specific game plans that are
drawn up in terms of trying to attack these guys
defensively with athleticism, spacing the floor, those types of things.
(24:48):
I think where it gets problematic from Shangoon. He's not
a soft player. There's that stereotype of times with European
big man. I don't think that's the case. Just as Raymond,
we saw how Alpi responded physically after that sequence in
the last It's more that he can get a little
bit indecisive when he doesn't know the way he's being covered.
He's not quite sure how he wants to attack. He's unselfish.
(25:09):
He wants his teammates to get involved. If he doesn't
fully trust what he's seeing or what's gonna come at
him from the defense, he'll be deferential the guys like
Jalen Green, Fred Van Fleet, Aman Thompson and let them
get creation reps. And then if Shaangoun is not scoring
enough or playmaking enough offensively, combine that with his archetype
having certain limitations defensively, at some point the net of
(25:32):
what he gives up isn't enough. Well, he's not giving
you enough offensively to offset what he's giving up on
the other end. So he needs to score, he needs
to rebound, he needs to play make at a high level.
And I think when he doesn't do that it's because
he's indecisive. I don't think he'll be indecisive in this series.
The Warriors will try and space him, they'll try and
(25:53):
play Draymond at the five, but he's used to the
way Draymond Green and Steve Kerr try to do it.
There won't be any confusion. He knows going in from
those previous six matchups exactly what the Warriors are going
to try to do. He just needs to go out
and win his matchup. He knows what's coming and so
(26:13):
because of that, I don't know if it's going to
be a great matchup for Shimgoon. I'm not saying he's
gonna go out there average like thirty and fifteen, but
I think he'll be good. And if you get a
good version of All par Eension Goon and All Star
this season and combine it with a top five defense,
that should be enough against a team that you already
match up well with defensively. And by the way, I'm
(26:35):
not even mentioning we could also say as far as
Area's encouragement, Yeah, Amen Thompson as the lead guy on Curry,
that was the first thing I thought of, But honestly,
that's low hanging fruit, Like that's just foundational. You've got
to have a men and Tari and Dylan defending well
for the Rockets to have a chance in this series
that's baked in. If it's a shootout, the Warriors, led
(26:56):
by the greatest shooter of all time, are going to
put up more points. They are going to make more shots. So, yes,
the Rockets has some advantagers defensively, but they have to
they have to rely on their athleticism, they're cumulative death
to have a chance. Otherwise, the Warriors are just going
to score more points. That's how it works. So yeah,
that's obviously the biggest area of encouragement. I'm just not
(27:17):
I don't really see as a variable. It's just foundational
that's got to work out for you to win this series.
I'm also not talking about the officiating. You mentioned Apollo. Yeah,
I know there's a financial incident to have Warriors Lakers
Steph Lebron in round two. Honestly, that's an act of God.
It's largely out of your control. Yeah, Ema should work
the rough, Yeabrafelstone should send clips between games, YadA, YadA.
(27:39):
But let's focus on what the Rockets have within their control.
The officiating is what it is. I'll be frustrated during
the games, I'm sure, but there's not a whole lot
the Rockets can do about it. And honestly, they just
need to focus on being good enough in other areas
and trying to overcome it. It sucks, but it is
what it is. So area of encouragement for me, as
far as realistic variables would be Shongoon. I think he
(28:00):
knows what's coming that will be a good matchup. Theory
of concern I have would be the shooting from guards.
Fred van Fleet twenty two percent overall, twenty two percent
on threes against the Warriors this year, Jalen Green thirty
one percent overall, twenty five percent on threes. It's amazing
the Rockets whereas competitive with the Warriors as they were
in one twice with those numbers. Because that's not going
to be good enough to win a playoff series. I
feel confident in saying that. And you know, let's give
(28:22):
some credit to the Warriors. A lot of their role
players are good defensively, Gary Payton, Moses Moody. We know
the limitations offensively, but defensively, they're very sound towards the rim,
Draymond Green, Cavan Looney. They're physical, they go vertical without fouling.
It's tough to get easy buckets. Yeah, you can hunt
out Steph Curry, and that's something the Rockets need to
(28:43):
do a little bit more in this series. Who saw
Jalen get going in the fourth quarter of the last
matchup against the Warriors by doing that. But overall, it's
a good defensive team for Golden State. They're well coached,
they're disciplined, and I think that's reflected in the shooting percentages. Now.
I don't think they should be quite that low. It
should normalize a little bit, but it needs to happen
because twenty two percent from Fred, thirty one percent from Jalen,
(29:05):
that's just not going to be enough. I'm less concerned
about Jalen because I think some of Jalen's low percentages
are because the Rockets need him to take tough shots,
and against the Warriors there are more of those. I
think he did get going for stretches, certainly the last
game against the Warriors when he finish for twenty one.
The NBA Cup game that took place in December, there
was a stretch in the second quarter that he was otherworldly.
(29:28):
I think Jalen can get going. You can hunt the
Curry mismatches war screen to get that. It's Fred who
I see as a variable especially coming off the ankle.
And we know the Warriors have a lot of player
movement on offense, so they make you run a lot defensively,
cover a lot of ground. So if you have a
bad wheel, that can contribute to bad shooting because you're
a little bit tired out to the effort you put
(29:49):
in on the other side of the floor. So for me,
that's the big variable. Fred needs to be better. I
trust him to. He's come through against the Warriors in
the playoffs before, look at the twenty nineteen finals with Toronto.
But I would also like to see he may perhaps
give Aaron Holliday a look, not just because Aaron Holliday
can knock down shots and the Rockets are good defensively,
they just need to make shots to win this series.
And we know how good Aaron's been as a shooter
(30:10):
this year forty percent overall on threes, about fifty percent
since the calendar turned to March. But also to keep
Fred fresh so that the legs for guys like most
notably Fred van Flee because of the bad ankle, but also
to an extent Jalen Green as well, aren't getting worn
down because ultimately it's going to come down to can
the Rockets make enough shots and then only does Aaron
Holliday potentially provide you another shooter. He's also quick laterally,
(30:33):
so he can help you with defense on stuff if
you need it, but can also keep your starting guards
more fresh. So that's the concern for me when I
look at the data, at least one of Fred or
Jalen needs to be a lot better than they were
in the regular season. I think it can happen. I
think some of it is, you know, small sample sized theater,
but they've got to step up. And as far as
what the Rockets can do, I would love to see
them give Aaron Holliday a look, both in terms of
(30:55):
his ability to make shots and also his ability to
keep Fred and Jalen fresher that when they're out there,
those legs aren't getting tired. Those are my areas of
concern and encouragement. Now we'll wind down with productions.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
How I'll let you start, Yeah, let me just really
quick give you give you my mix. Two areas that
is concerned because I have specific ones picked up beside
the ones I just pointed out. But I'll be really
quick about it. Area of concern to me is going.
It's going to be and I mentioned this on the
last plot, the willingness for you may you to move
(31:27):
away from preventively if he doesn't have it going, just
because I think there's lineups where Jalen's the point guard
and we're just big at everyone else that have great ratings,
and everybody always points out how the light umps with
jail and are a lot worse well actually with Kalen
without Freds. I believe it actually not that but worse
than some of them have even sixteen point sixteen positive
(31:49):
net rating the side. And then my my area for
kind of encouragement is the stories and in general against
the Warriors. If we look at the last or the
games that they played this year. The first game was
actually the overtime game where Saris was the reason we
even got to overtime. The main leason him them and Thompson.
So we have that game we lost, but you know,
(32:09):
Tarresa was, you know, anybody else on this team plays
even decent. And then we win that game and or
the Warriors, and we win that game, and then the
next game we lose to the Warriors, star Reson is
not playing the game. After that we win and tar
Reason is playing the game. After that we lose, it's
back to back, we lose to the Warrior Studies and
is not playing back to backs, and then the game
(32:30):
we win again the last one ver Reason is playing.
There's the clear there's a clear level up that ar
Reason has when he plays against the Warriors. You know
that come back in overtime, and the two wins are
within the two bosses. Besides the time the overtime loss
are without him. So I think that's that speaks for itself.
(32:50):
And then my prediction is probably going to be more
confident than most people's, and I don't think there will
be a lot of people that that agree with me.
But I am actually with Bobby Martz, who is the
only ESPN analyst that got the Rockets winning. I got
Rockets in six. I think that we just too good
of a matchup against them. I think that mental side
(33:13):
of things is not going to play out too much.
And I think there are They are an old team
that's been playing for their lives for the last twenty
games since the Jimmy Bottler trade. They've had high intensity
game after high intensity game, and it feels like they're
wearing out. They also have an extra game play in
the play in they only have for the rest compared
to the Rockets a week, which is basically two weeks,
(33:35):
because we only put it one game in the last
two weeks, and so I think that it won't be
as close as people expected. I don't think it will
be seven games series. I don't think it will be
an easy four or five game series win. But I
do think that in six games Rockets will win. And
then besides that, I just wanted to touch on how
ironic and how poetic it is that our first playoff
(33:57):
series back is the gamest the Warriors. All people are
saying this, like the Warriors took us out, and if
we want to get back into contention, the Warriors are
the first thing we have to beat on this journey,
and I do think we will beat them. But I
think there's another angle that people aren't really considering. The
first time we lost to the Warriors back in twenty fifteen,
(34:17):
it was the famous Harden Karashian year where Kevin Brant
was about to get free agency. There were signs that
he might have wanted to come to Houston. Arden has
a terrible season. Rockets go basically play five hundred ball
if I'm almost taken in forty one and forty one
and lost to.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
The Warriors again in twenty sixteen, like two months before
Kade's free agency.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, yeah, and these are you know, obviously they kind
of took away KD from us and kat went to
the Warriors instead, and now we might be coming back
and in the same offseason after we potentially beat the Wards,
which I think we will do. There's a lot of
talk about the KD wanting to come to the Rockets
and Rockets having mutual interest with KD. I'm not going
(34:57):
to get into all of those arguments, but I do
think it's poetic and I do think that that's what
will happen, and I think seven games will not be necessary.
I think we'll get it in six and even if
we can't, even if we go to the seven games series,
the longer the series is, the more it benefits the
younger team, especially considering out high intensity the Warriors have
(35:19):
to play with the rather hitched out roster over the
last a couple of months. So yeah, those are predicts.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Good stuff. Yeah. It should also be noted that the
schedule itself could lend itself to that dynamic in that
the first three games have two days off between them Sunday, Wednesday,
and Saturday of next week, and then from Game four
onward there's only one day off between games. So the
longer the series goes, the more the Warriors mileage and
(35:54):
their age could be a factor because the first week,
the first three games, you're going to be a little
bit more rest going in. There is travel between game
two and Game three. Once you get to Game four,
and the Warriors are going to be having a deal
with not only their own age, but the cumulative told
it goes that comes from playing top shelf defenders like
a Men Thompson, Dylan Brooks, Tarry Eason every single game
(36:16):
for forty eight plus minutes. Yeah, I could see as
the series goes along, the cumulative depth and youth advantage
from the Rockets having a greater significance and becoming a
bigger part of the storyline, especially because we've already seen it.
We can look at you know, just Tuesday's playing game,
the Warriors got out to a twenty point lead by
(36:38):
the middle point second quarter and they had to hold
on for dear life at home against a Grizzlies team
that was playing shorthanded and one that just fired their
coach a couple of weeks ago. It felt like the
Warriors tried to hit them with a haymaker early in
that game, perhaps knowing that they didn't have a ton
in the tank, and to their credit, that lead was
enough that it held up barely. But I do think
(37:02):
this is a team and the issues with Jimmy having
the bruised squad and Steph with the thumb that's been
ongoing issue for weeks, if not months, those are things
that especially as the series gets into an every other
day format the way we'll see next week, starting with
Game four, well, I guess the week after next that's
(37:24):
where the Rockets could really have an edge. They do
have to win at least a game or two in
those first three to get it there. They can't get
overwhelmed by the playoff environment, they experience of the Warriors,
all the factors we mentioned earlier. They've got to come
out of the gate strong. But assuming they do that,
assuming they are competitive, then yeah, the deeper the series goes,
the more it should lean Houston. So as far as
(37:50):
my prediction, I'm not as pelishous powlo. My thought going
into this was my head says Warriors in seven. My
heart says Rockets in seven. In my head says Warriors
in seven, is pretty much what we saw in the
play in game against Memphis. If it's close, Steph Curry
will find a way. Quite frankly, he almost did in
(38:10):
that regular season finale against the Clippers, who were phenomenal
in that game with both James Harden and Kawhi Leonard,
two future Hall of famers playing at basically the peak
of their powers, and Steph in the fourth quarter almost
won it by himself, even with a fairly limited team
around him. So my inclination, looking at the Rockets inexperience
(38:30):
and perhaps trying to brace myself for a bad outcome,
was to say that Steph will figure out a way
in Houston, where he's had so much success over the years,
to win a pivotal Game five or a Game seven,
and much the same way that he did in Sacramento.
You know, there's a Warriors Kings rivalry that series, even
with the Warriors at the lower seed the six against
(38:51):
the Kings, who had home court advantage as the three
that's been thrown out as a parallel from two years ago,
and Steph dropped fifty in Gage seven and basically willed
the Warriors the win. And so my first thought going
into the series was that this could be something similar.
And I'm not saying the Rockets will turn out the
same way as those Kings. I think there's a lot
(39:11):
more to this team's foundation than what those Kings had,
But in terms of this particular matchup, that's my concern. However,
my heart tells me Rockets and seven. Because obviously I'm
a fan, I want this team to win. But then
the more I think about it and the reason I'm
gonna embrace it, Game sevens are often about heart and
the difference between these Rockets and those Kings. That was
(39:33):
a very limited Sacramento team defensively, and so it wasn't
a shock to see Steph Curry be able to find
the best version of himself in Game seven and go
out and drop fifty. It's not going to be as
easy against a top five defense led by Imo Riyoka
with waves of defenders a men Dylan Tari Jabari. Even
(39:55):
switches are not guaranteed to give you a favorable matchup.
You look at what happened and in San Francisco. I
thought Jalen Green played pretty good defense against Steph Curry
as well. Game sevens are often low scoring. Well, any
game between the Rockets and Warriors this season has been
low scoring, but Game sevens, because of the intensity, because
of the nerves, are often played in the mud. They're
(40:16):
often eighty to seventy eight type games. I think back
to that series in the NBA Bubble where Donovan Mitchell
and Jamal Murray were throwing haymakers at each other. The
whole series the Jazz and the Nuggets and the Game seven,
it felt like neither team could get going at all
because the defense was so locked in there were so
many nerves. I think that's the way a pivotal Game seven,
(40:39):
maybe even a Game five, between these two teams that
know each other so well, that hate each other so much,
would be likely to play and are good defensively to
start with. They have a lot of pieces, and that's
where this Rockets team is so different than those Kings
from two years ago. They are comfortable playing in the mud.
That is the identity of this team. That's what Imo
Udoka said at when Stay's practice, when they first started
(41:02):
getting ready for the Warriors. The quote I'm pulling it
up right now on Rockets Wire. This really resonated with me.
I think what we do well favors us in the playoffs,
being physical, being aggressive. We don't have to flip a
switch and become who we haven't been all year. That's
what we've done. And to be clear, Emays not saying
that the Warriors need to flip a switch. But I
(41:23):
think the big question with a young team going into
the playoffs and why a lot of young teams fail
at least in their first go Young teams, especially if
they're playing an experienced team that's been there, done that
knows what's going to becoming and what is needed to
succeed in the playoffs. Young teams with young players that
typically don't defend all that well, there can be a
(41:44):
little bit of stage fright. To use the Jared Allen meme,
the lights can be too bright. That's not going to
happen to these Rockets. They want the challenge. They are
about the fight and going right at the Warriors. They
embrace this stuff. And so if it gets to a
Game seven where offense is at a premium and it
(42:05):
just comes down to will, which is the way most
Game sevens go. It didn't with well, I guess in
a way it did with Warriors Kings, but something of
an outlier because the Kings just were not set up
to defend at nearly that level two years ago. If
it's more of a typical Game seven that's played in
the mud, I like the Rockets chances, especially at home
(42:27):
where they've been so good this year. And how fitting
would it be the two losses, the most painful ones
that we've experienced, and this era is Rockets fans obviously
twenty eighteen Game seven, and then the last playoff game
played inside Toyota Center twenty nineteen Game six, the elimination
losses to the Warriors. Both of those were in Houston.
(42:49):
How fitting would it be not only for this new
era version of the Rockets to get a series win
against the Warriors and move on, perhaps put the Steph
Curry generation out pasture, but for the Rockets to also
do all that with the clinching game in Houston. Not
just for the fans to celebrate, obviously that's part of it,
(43:10):
but just the symbolic nature of succeeding on the same court,
in the same building against a similar Warriors team in
a way that their predecessors, that James Harden generation couldn't.
It would only be fitting if the Rockets are able
to win this series at home. I think the Rockets
get it done. It'll be close. Won't shock me if
the Warriors win, and you shouldn't feel terrible if they do.
(43:34):
But I think the Rockets pulled us out in seven.
I think they have just enough defensively, and I like
their character, I like their fight, and I think they
ultimately find a way to get this done. And my
suspicion I mentioned my area of concern being the shooting
from Houston's guards. I think there's at least one coin
flip game in this series. And maybe it's Game seven,
maybe it's earlier, but I think there's at least one
(43:56):
coin flip game this series that Fred VanVleet wins. I
think the twenty two percent against the Warriors. I know
it's been a down year for Fred, but that's unsustainably poor.
He should be due for some good shooting against this team.
We know he gets it done in the clutch. He's
done it at times this season in some of Houston's
biggest wins. Actually, he's done it against the Warriors, specifically
(44:19):
in the past. Just look at twenty nineteen Game six,
the clinching game of the NBA Finals for the Raptors.
He succeeded against the Warriors, even on the road. He's
been there, done that. He wants the moment. I did
think after he rested some him down the stretch of
the regular season, he looked better. He had a couple
of games, certainly the win against the Thunder earlier this month,
(44:40):
but also the finale against the Nuggets where he hits
the threes. Seemed to be moving better. And now you
have more than a week off between the regular season
finale and when the playoffs start on Sunday. I think
Fred's going to be better. I think he's due. I
like his mental makeup, and I think in a series
it's going to be close. He's going to have at
least one game or he hits a dager three or
(45:01):
maybe even two of those in the last two or
three minutes. That swings at Houston's way. And for a
guy that we've criticized for a lot of this year,
he hasn't been as good in year two with the
Rockets as he was in year one. This is why
you get someone like Fred la Fleet. You trust him
to step up when it matters. You like his mental makeup,
you like his approach that should shine on this stage,
(45:23):
even if he's a little bit limited physically. Again, there's
things the Rockets can do a little bit in terms
of managing his minutes to perhaps mitigate the impact of
that a lot of it when it comes to the
final minutes of close playoff games, it's not about the
physical side of things. It's about the mental. Everybody's tired,
everybody's got nagging injuries, everybody's playing through something. It's about
(45:43):
who can rise above it and just go out there
and make a play. I trust Fred van Fleet. It
could even be a contract postseason for him, depending on
what the Rockets choose to do with his team option
this offseason. So he needs to show his value to
the Rockets and perhaps the league. I think he does
it this series. I think we get from of the
old Fred vin Fleet and he finds a way to
get the Rockets to the finish line. Rockets and seven.
(46:05):
That's my pick anyway. On that happy note, that's where
we'll wrap things for today's episode. That'll do it for us.
As far as pre series commentary. We'll be back during
the series, of course, with updates talking about how the
Rockets play, hopefully reacting to Rockets wins, but time will tell.
We'll be back probably between games one and game two,
if not, certainly between Game two and Game three later
in the week. Anyway, if you want more content before
(46:27):
our next podcast, the best place to hear from MOTS
is online, where you can follow me on Twitter, slash
x at, then Dubo's at Palo Alps, NBA, and the
show at the logger line. If you want to support
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(46:50):
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their content as well. All right, with those points, plee,
we will journ for today for Paolo. I'm Ben, thanks
it always for listening and please come back soon for
another new episode of the logry line, Go Rockets,
Cheers, Rockets fans, Welcome to the lagger Line, an exclusive
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It starts now. Welcome aboard, Welcome back to another new
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(00:52):
Houston Rockets. As always, I'm joined by Powell Alves, or
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him on Twitter, slash x at Powell Alves NBA me
on They're at Ben Dubo's. So, since we last recorded
earlier this week, the matchup is now set play in.
Tournament had a close game that went down to the wire,
but not surprisingly, Steph Curry found a way to hit
a couple of huge threes in the last two minutes
(01:14):
and Golden State got the one over Memphis and now
it is in fact, the hated Warriors who are on
their way to Houston for the first round of the
Western Conference Playoffs. Game one is Sunday night, and even
though the Warriors are the seventh seed, they're actually favored
by Las Vegas in this series, just as we suspect it.
It's not hard to understand why, because despite the seed gap,
(01:35):
the Warriors only had four fewer wins than the Rockets
this season forty eight versus fifty two, and they also
won three of the five head to head meetings. And then,
as far as not having home court advantage, a team
that's as experienced and top heavy as the Warriors, that's
got big names like Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green
coach by Steve Kerr, the perception among the casual national
(01:59):
observers is going to be that they'll find a way
to win a tough Game five or a Game seven,
even on the road against a Houston team that's pretty
young and unproven. The challenges on the Rockets to prove
them wrong, and I actually think we'll see them rally
around it. I think that's already happening based on what
I've seen at practice this week. I also think they're
(02:19):
going to rally around this whole Warriors perception angle and
the mental hole that people nationally think they have over
the Rockets as a franchise, because while everybody knows what
Steph Curry has done to the Rockets over the years,
this will be the fifth playoff series between these teams
in a span of less than ten years. The first
(02:41):
was in May twenty fifteen. Obviously, the Warriors won all
of those others, and that's why we hate him so much.
But this Rockets team, this Rockets coaching staff, was not
around for any of that. At Wednesday's practice, I absolutely
loved the line that Fred van Fleet, clearly the veteran
leader of this team, had when somebody asked about all
(03:01):
the fan trauma, the baggage as far as facing the
Warriors and whether he understood it. His response was very
matter of fact, Nope, this ain't that team, and that
ain't that team, referring to both the Rockets and the Warriors.
This is not twenty fifteen, it's not twenty sixteen, it's
not twenty eighteen, it's not twenty nineteen. This is a
new era of the Rockets and Powlow. As you talked
(03:23):
about in our pod earlier this week talking about general
thoughts going into the playoffs, and of course we had
some Warriors discussion because it was fifty to fifty Warriors
and Grizzlies. As far as who you would play, how symbolic,
how fitting would it be to start off this new
era in their first playoff appearance, if they can do
what the old era of Rockets couldn't and finally get
past Steph Curry and the Warriors. There's some baggage, but
(03:46):
there's also one hell of an opportunity here. And so
while I think nationally I understand why the Rockets are underdogs,
I understand why most people aren't going to pick them.
I saw six the eight ESPN writers picking Golden State.
But I think the Rockets are going to rally around this,
(04:06):
and I think they can use this in their favor
to some degree. I think they already are with the
intensity of the practices this week. Anyway, as far as
today's show, we'll try and be a bit more concise,
because we already had one episode earlier this week that
went on for almost an hour and a half with
general thoughts going into the playoffs. As far as the
potential matchup, keys to the playoff run for the Rockets,
(04:27):
what we saw from the clothes to the regular season,
and so on and so forth. Today we'll try and
be a bit more concise and we'll start with some
initial thoughts about the matchup. We'll move into one area
of encouragement in one area of concern, and then we'll
finish out with both of us making our predictions going
into the series. As far as initial thoughts, for me,
I think this is a fascinating series because there's actually
(04:50):
not much to talk about going in. As I see it,
it's more about execution. These teams know each other so
well that they've already thrown the kitchen sink against one another.
At least it feels that way. You go back to
April of twenty four, these teams have met six times,
and many of these were high pressure games. I mean,
(05:13):
there's always an extra edge because clearly these teams don't
like one another. We know the history between Steph Curry,
Draymond Green and this franchise. We know Tari Easton with
the Warriors, come out and play. I think the players here,
even if they weren't around for that Golden State dominance
earlier in well, not this decade, but last decade. They
certainly feel it around town, around this fan community, around
(05:36):
this organization, and so it's led to the Rockets taking
the Warriors very seriously. Also, I think the Warriors with
staff are sort of the gold standard until he retires,
they will be. So from a Rockets perspective, they've always
looked at these matchups as something of a measuring stick.
And last year we know that was the closest team
(05:57):
to the Rockets in the play and race, and so
in early April a year ago, the Rockets built up
that game against Golden State as a de facto playoff
game because they basically had to win it to stay
in contention for a play in spot. Obviously, it didn't
go well, but that's part of the learning process as
a young team tries to get better and takes its
(06:17):
lumps and learns what it feels like to be in
a high pressure situation. And then this year they met
five times, the four scheduled meetings and the fifth added
on as an elimination game in the NBA Cup quarterfinal.
We heard Draymond Green after that loss calling it the
most painful one since Game seven of the twenty sixteen
(06:37):
NBA Finals. Think about that statement. We saw Steve Kerr
having an all out tie raid on Bill Kennedy with
the controversial call, although the correct call sending Jalen Green
to the line for the two winning free throws in
that one. So the Rockets don't like the Warriors and
they take those games seriously. But the Warriors also don't
(06:58):
like the Rockets, and they literally took the NBA Cup
loss seriously. Look at how Draymond and Steve Kerr, their
veteran leaders, were reacting in the aftermath. So it's not
just that these teams have played. They have played in
high pressure situations. They don't like one another. There is
always an edge, a chippiness to these games. We saw
(07:19):
what happened with Draymond Green and all Pria in Shangoon
right before halftime. In the meeting earlier this month from
San Francisco. These teams have already thrown the kitchen sink
against one another in these meetings, and so that makes
this series in some ways less interesting to talk about
because I don't think there's some silver bullet or some
(07:40):
magic lever that either Steve Kerr imy Udoka is going
to be able to pull These teams have already tried that.
They have taken these games extremely seriously. It's just gonna
be who goes out and makes one or two more plays.
It's just gonna come down to execution. And so that's
what I'm thinking going into this series, even the changes
(08:01):
these two teams have made over the season. The Rockets
have played the Warriors twice with Jimmy Butler. The Warriors
have played the Rockets since they started going more double
bid with all for Inchmngon and Steven Adams. So I
don't think there's gonna be a lot of surprises. I
think both teams know what they need to do against
the other. It's just about going out there and doing
(08:23):
it again. Six games since the start of April a
year ago, most of them in very high pressure situations.
They've each won on the other team's home floor. By
the way, even though the Warriors won three of five,
the Rockets won two of the last three, including one
by double digits earlier this month in San Francisco. So
I don't think there's any fear that the Rockets have
(08:44):
of the Warriors. There's certainly not any fear that the
Warriors have of the Rockets. Both teams have already gone
all out for these games against one another, So I
don't think there's gonna be any huge surprises or tactical
you know, chess moves if you will, that we haven't
seen already. No, it's just gonna be who goes out
and steps up in the highest pressure moments and gets
it done. That's my thought going into this series, at
(09:07):
least as far as the on court side. There is,
of course the emotional side as well, and as mentioned earlier,
I think that's more a fan thing than a player
and coach thing. I think that's more what we're feeling
watching the series, not so much, but the players and
coaches on the Houston side are feeling themselves. But for me,
and this is a fan podcast, so I do want
(09:28):
to address it. I'm not gonna lie. When Golden State
won that game against Memphis, there was a big part
of me that was cheering for the Grizzlies, partly because
I think it's a little bit better matchup. They don't
have the experience edge they did just fire the coach
and the stuff we talked about earlier this week, but
also there's a pit in my stomach. I'm not gonna lie.
It would suck to lose to the Warriors for a
(09:51):
fifth time in under ten years in the playoffs. Now, conversely,
as you laid out the other day, Pallo, it's amazing
if you win, but it's terrible if you lose. And
even if logically it's understandable, we can point to the
broader contacts. Hey, this is the Rocket's first playoff appearance
with this group, they're very young, and if they lose
as long as the serious as at least somewhat competitive
(10:11):
and they don't get swept losing by twenty five thirty
points a game, it's understandable. You can look back and
logically say this team needed more seasoning. If they end
up losing a hard fought series to Steph Curry and
the Warriors, it wouldn't be something that makes you feel
all of a sudden like, oh, this team is doomed
and the rebuilds of failure and it's not going to
work out. No, it's nothing like that. But from a
(10:32):
fan perspective, yeah, it would suck if you lose to
Steph and Draymond again and got meaned into oblivion. Yeah,
it would suck. I get it, and so that's why
I've had a pit in my stomach, because, yeah, there's
a lot of nerves, a lot of baggage that comes
from playing the Warriors again. Somehow, they are the first
team you draw in a playoff game in this new era,
(10:55):
the first playoff game since May of twenty nineteen, that
horrible loss games of the twenty nineteen second run series
that basically with the end of the James Harden and
Chris Paul era Rockets and basically the end of the
James Harden era Rockets and sent them into a rebuild
because Russell Westbrook, that deal was just to hail Mary. Yeah,
it feels terrible that the first game back is going
(11:16):
to be against those hated Warriors again, but in some
ways it's all the more fitting, and the more I
think about it, the more I'm rallying around it. Just
as I think the team is itself, I think the
fan base should as well, because that Pitt and our stomachs,
that's why we're diehard fans of sports. That's why if
(11:39):
you're out there listening to folks like me and Powell
ramble for an hour plus every week, that's why you care.
That's why you're not watching scripted movies or television shows
or doing something else for a hobby. Sports is the
greatest reality show there is. And so with a series
like this, yeah, there's a huge variance in terms of
(12:02):
it's going to feel amazing if you win, terrible if
you lose. And in some ways it'd be easier emotionally
to play a nondescript opponent like the Memphis Grizzlies that
it wouldn't feel as awful if you lose too. But
this is why we're fans of sports. This is why
you play the games. This is why you care enough
(12:23):
to listen to podcasts like this, to invest yourself into
a sport with eighty two regular season games now as
many as four playoff series that are best of seven.
This is why we do it. The upside, the feeling,
the rush you get if you win a series like this.
It feels like, you know, the Rockets have given me
some incredible moments against the Warriors over the years. I
(12:43):
can think back to some of the individual games they've
won in the hardened era, and yet they didn't even
win a single playoff series against them. Imagine what it
feels like for a young team if they win their
first playoff series against these guys that rush that adrenaline.
This is why we do it. And so, yeah, I'm nervous.
I my mood this week. It's the saved by the
(13:06):
Bell mean, the Jesse Spanno. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.
I'm so scared caffeine will freak out. Yeah, that's how
I feel. But that's why we care so much about sports.
That's why we do it. We're not playing sports. This
is a hobby for us. We're watching. If we weren't
doing this, we'd be doing something else. This is what
makes sports special. And so I have nerves. It would
suck to lose, it'd be amazing to win. Yeah, to
(13:29):
some degree, I'm walking on eggshells. But Paolo, this is
why we do it. The more I think about it, yeah,
I'm still nervous. There's the irrational side of me that thinks,
hashtag Houston sports, this isn't gonna go well. But when
I zoom out and I think about why we do this,
and I think about why we invest so much time
and effort into podcasting and tweeting and basically building our
(13:53):
lives at least to an extent, around watching and supporting
a team like this, a high stakes matchup like this
against a dynasty type team. I know they're not a
dynasty anymore, but they still have the foundation of a
team that was. And now you add playouttion me Butler
on top of that as well. Hollo, this is why
we do it. I'm nervous, Jesse Spano meme. That's me
(14:15):
right now and it probably will be for the next
two weeks. But the more I think about it, the
more I'm rallying around it and saying, hey, let's embrace this,
let's see how it goes and hope for the best.
That's my thirty thousand foot view going into the series. Polo,
how have you felt the last two days since the
Warriors got that one over the Grizzlies in the playing tournament.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, as you guys know if you listen to the
last podcast, I actually picked the Rockets to pick the
Warriors as my favorite Mattet part of the first round
because I'm not going to get into the same pluss
that I said before, but because I think the current
Warriors want to make this as well best right, And
that's exactly what the Rockets want. The lower the scoring
is in the game, the better, the better off the
(14:55):
Rockets are, and so I wanted the Warriors. So I
didn't really dare how it went. I didn't watch the game.
I picked it up in the morning and I watched
the last few minutes, and I saw the stats, and
I thought, we're probably going to be playing against the
Warriors and the refs, because the refs may really been
sure that, you know, the Warriors were going to have
the lead in that game, and then they choked it
(15:16):
and then some favorable calls went to Grizzlies way. But
ultimately when it came down to it, obviously that five
second violations absolutely Bogus and John Brant and Jon Jackson
Junior are both being there at the time that the
violations called. So whatever, I'm going to get into that,
but I will talk about specific things about how I
think the match up will go. I won't keep you
(15:37):
my prodition that's in ATMO, this little bop type thing,
but I will say a few trends that I think
are important. The Warriors have been a pretty good rebounding team,
you know, for the season, but when you look at
the last few games, the ones that actually matter. Against
the Grizzlies, they were all rebounded by eleven. Against the Clippers,
they were all rebounded by Wow, it's even more than
(15:58):
I expected. They were all rebounded by seventeen the Rockets.
The Warriors currently are playing small wall. They played Raymond
at the five, and they play, you know, prototypical Warriors
small wall and that cannot be arrested, and they were
just unable to. They don't have the shooters to punish
you if you go bigger to Counterdack. And so I
think the Rockets will be more than free to play
(16:19):
Steven Adams all the time he wants. If you look
at the Warriors versus Rockets matchups since Steven Adams has
been back in all form, if I just play won
the last game, and Steven Adams was a plus seven
in the minutes he was on the floor, which were
about sixteen if I'm not mistaken, And the previous to
that where the Rockets lost, Steven Adams played only six minutes,
(16:41):
although he maye pull the starters like about halfway through
the game or in the third quarter. But still I
think you said, you don't think that there's anything new
that they can that both coaches can bring out. I
think the double big line up something that's to give
the Warriors a latter trouble.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
It can, but you did it a little bit in
the last game. That's all I'm saying is that it's
not the drastic.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I just don't know how. I just don't know how
they deal with it. And I think that's a big
camera for us. And then when you look at it,
as we talked about, the Rockets have just a combination
of different types of the featherers, different planes, different speeds,
different off Paul instincts that are pretty much tailor made
(17:23):
to Negate other team superstars, and the Warriors, more than
any other team in the league, our team that is
the most reliant on their superstars. They have Steph Kurians,
Mean Butler, and then besides that mostes. I mean, I
don't want to knock on wood because this is the Rockets.
But Brendan Zimski is not a good shooter. Moody is
an okay shooter. Looney no queennan post. He's a big
(17:47):
man shooter, but he's a rookie. Are really gonna trust
him in the playoffs. Kaminga has not played the last
few games. Who knows what his relationship is with the
current with Steve Clair, for example, it's this is they
were made series for the way the Rockets play. It's
not a high scoring team. It's a team that has
two stars, that has no other shot creators that actually
(18:08):
can just use a combination of Amen Coms and Tarry's
and Javaris Smith Hillen Brooks put on them. And even
Chiln Green did a pretty good job on Steph Curry
when times d he that he was matched up with him,
because you know, that's not going to bully Jaman with
his physicality, and Joe's quick enough to keep up with them.
And this is to say that I am you know,
I'm not gonna make my prediction and yet, but I
(18:29):
think this is a pretty good matchup for us. But
I do think that there's a couple of things that
work against us. First of all, the refs are obviously
going to be against us, and then after that, there's
something unique to the combination between Jimmy Butler and Steph Curry,
and the fact is just a big red flag. Something
that you need look has to be drilling into these
players' minds is that you play tough, You'll play rough.
(18:52):
You play physical in the beginning. If the russ are
calling piles, you gotta stop. And then you hate to
let the officiat define how you play. But if Jimmy Butler,
who's one of the best Paul rowers in the league,
is getting you in foul trouble early on in every
quarter and then you're trying to offend physical arms Steph Curry,
you're basically Jimmy is getting you in fault trouble and
(19:13):
Steph is a calling ticke attack Foles is giving is
getting You're giving a ninety percent free throw shooter to
the three throws which is basically a layup for him
on files that are nowhere near the basket, and get
into a situation where you're not really needing to actually
create advantages because you're giving up a lot of three
(19:33):
points in that way. And it's we have to manytion
but an all time great skater shooter that moves a
lot around, screens a lot and can get those types
of fowls and the guy that's just really adept at
drawing those types of pats. So that's something that I'm
looking out for. I wonder how he made the will
kind of manage that because it's not really about someone
getting objected. It's really about being in seeming foul trouble, right,
(19:56):
So being in the bonus obviously, So that's another thing
that I'm working out for. But other than that, I
think you just if you're able to generate the second
stance points that the Rockets has been able to generate
ball season, I think you will be able to because
if you go big and they go small, they're giving
up a lot of rebounds and they don't shooting to
make up besides Seth Curry and then besides that, oh
(20:20):
and they don't have the shooting. I wanted to forgot
to mention they have Buddy Heal, but he shows someone
that just last year was unplayable in the playoffs in
the Sixers literature. So if he's on the court, you
have to be able to exploit the five that he's
on the court. And so, and the other thing that
I was going to mention is even if they decide
to play wounding a lot of minutes and play posts
(20:40):
a lot of minutes, posts the player, guys, please don't
think I think I'm talking about the post. If that's
then that they're doing. You can go bigger than them
even then, because Approaching Loon and Steven Adams are much
bigger than whatever bigs they can fill out there. And
so I just say that I think we're a good
matchup against them, And I do agree with furtherm Forvently
(21:00):
that that's mental kind of breakthrough thing already happened this season.
You know, I don't think it's wingdering from when the
Rockets were back. I think it's flingering because as Rockets
were growing, they always lost to the Warriors. But they
broke that streak this year, and then there last matchup
they beat them pretty convincingly, and so I think that
(21:20):
it will be a good matchup. There's a few trendses.
I'm moving at the trends that I just talked about,
but I think if the Rockets played their game and
their style, and I think the Warriors will see into
that style, they'll have a pretty good chance.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
All Yeah, And I think that fifteen game losing streak
which the Rockets snapped with the NBA Cup win in December,
it was extremely frustrating to the fan base and we
had multiple episodes about it, but it was because of
a combination of two things that were actually unrelated. It
was the streak and the obvious baggage with the Warriors
(21:54):
and the Rockets dating back ten years to all those
James Harden led player losses against those two. It was
the confluence of those two things, and so for the
fans it was absolutely awful. But to the team itself,
they just needed to get a win, and that fifteen
game skined. As frustrating as it was. What gets lost
(22:18):
is that the Rockets they were the worst team in
the Western Conference for three straight years, so they were
bad against everybody. Those fifteen straight losses were not a
reflection of anything specific about the Warriors. A lot of
that was the years the Rockets were rebuilding slash tanking,
and so it's not as much as you would think
(22:39):
for the fan base. It was all the losses and
the baggage that was already built up going in. For
the team itself, again, a lot of it is unrelated
to them. Steven Silas years, James Harden years. That's not
that they need to see a couple of things go right.
They've now won two of the last three, as you mentioned,
the last convincingly, So I don't think that's a factor anymore.
I'm with Fred on that as far as my areas
(23:02):
of encouragement and concern. The more I look at it,
I don't know if it's a great matchup for all
per in Shin Gooon, but it's a good one. And
when you think about what the Rockets need to win
this series, I think as long as Shinggoon can stay
on the floor and provide value as a hub, because
as you mentioned, Paolo, these are games that they are
(23:23):
going to be played in the mud. The offensive ratings
each team against the other would be dead last in
the NBA. They barely averaged more than a hundred points
a game against one another this season. So Rockets need
their all star, their top facilitator, their top gravity guy,
maybe their top playmaker. And so you look at Shinggoon's
line against the Warriors this year, played all five games,
average seventeen points, eleven boards, four and a half assists
(23:45):
in twenty eight minutes, shot forty seven percent from the field,
which feels a little underwhelming, but it was a bad
year for Shingoon and from definishing overall, he was at
forty nine percent for the season. There were a couple
of games that the starters the Rockets fell behind and
the starters and men Thompson excluded didn't finish the game
or or benched for extended strutchers in the second half,
(24:06):
So that's when the minutes are a little low. He
averaged thirty one to thirty two for the seasons, all
twenty eight against the Warriors, but seventeen eleven and four
and a half assists in those twenty eight minutes is
pretty solid. And I think Shangoon is a guy who
especially is going to benefit from the Rockets going into
this series knowing how the Warriors will attack and defend him.
(24:27):
I think a lot of what happens to Shangoon and
traditional big men like him in the playoffs when as
we talked about the last pod, that's always the challenge.
How are they going to hold up in the playoffs
when there are more team specific game plans that are
drawn up in terms of trying to attack these guys
defensively with athleticism, spacing the floor, those types of things.
(24:48):
I think where it gets problematic from Shangoon. He's not
a soft player. There's that stereotype of times with European
big man. I don't think that's the case. Just as Raymond,
we saw how Alpi responded physically after that sequence in
the last It's more that he can get a little
bit indecisive when he doesn't know the way he's being covered.
He's not quite sure how he wants to attack. He's unselfish.
(25:09):
He wants his teammates to get involved. If he doesn't
fully trust what he's seeing or what's gonna come at
him from the defense, he'll be deferential the guys like
Jalen Green, Fred Van Fleet, Aman Thompson and let them
get creation reps. And then if Shaangoun is not scoring
enough or playmaking enough offensively, combine that with his archetype
having certain limitations defensively, at some point the net of
(25:32):
what he gives up isn't enough. Well, he's not giving
you enough offensively to offset what he's giving up on
the other end. So he needs to score, he needs
to rebound, he needs to play make at a high level.
And I think when he doesn't do that it's because
he's indecisive. I don't think he'll be indecisive in this series.
The Warriors will try and space him, they'll try and
(25:53):
play Draymond at the five, but he's used to the
way Draymond Green and Steve Kerr try to do it.
There won't be any confusion. He knows going in from
those previous six matchups exactly what the Warriors are going
to try to do. He just needs to go out
and win his matchup. He knows what's coming and so
(26:13):
because of that, I don't know if it's going to
be a great matchup for Shimgoon. I'm not saying he's
gonna go out there average like thirty and fifteen, but
I think he'll be good. And if you get a
good version of All par Eension Goon and All Star
this season and combine it with a top five defense,
that should be enough against a team that you already
match up well with defensively. And by the way, I'm
(26:35):
not even mentioning we could also say as far as
Area's encouragement, Yeah, Amen Thompson as the lead guy on Curry,
that was the first thing I thought of, But honestly,
that's low hanging fruit, Like that's just foundational. You've got
to have a men and Tari and Dylan defending well
for the Rockets to have a chance in this series
that's baked in. If it's a shootout, the Warriors, led
(26:56):
by the greatest shooter of all time, are going to
put up more points. They are going to make more shots. So, yes,
the Rockets has some advantagers defensively, but they have to
they have to rely on their athleticism, they're cumulative death
to have a chance. Otherwise, the Warriors are just going
to score more points. That's how it works. So yeah,
that's obviously the biggest area of encouragement. I'm just not
(27:17):
I don't really see as a variable. It's just foundational
that's got to work out for you to win this series.
I'm also not talking about the officiating. You mentioned Apollo. Yeah,
I know there's a financial incident to have Warriors Lakers
Steph Lebron in round two. Honestly, that's an act of God.
It's largely out of your control. Yeah, Ema should work
the rough, Yeabrafelstone should send clips between games, YadA, YadA.
(27:39):
But let's focus on what the Rockets have within their control.
The officiating is what it is. I'll be frustrated during
the games, I'm sure, but there's not a whole lot
the Rockets can do about it. And honestly, they just
need to focus on being good enough in other areas
and trying to overcome it. It sucks, but it is
what it is. So area of encouragement for me, as
far as realistic variables would be Shongoon. I think he
(28:00):
knows what's coming that will be a good matchup. Theory
of concern I have would be the shooting from guards.
Fred van Fleet twenty two percent overall, twenty two percent
on threes against the Warriors this year, Jalen Green thirty
one percent overall, twenty five percent on threes. It's amazing
the Rockets whereas competitive with the Warriors as they were
in one twice with those numbers. Because that's not going
to be good enough to win a playoff series. I
feel confident in saying that. And you know, let's give
(28:22):
some credit to the Warriors. A lot of their role
players are good defensively, Gary Payton, Moses Moody. We know
the limitations offensively, but defensively, they're very sound towards the rim,
Draymond Green, Cavan Looney. They're physical, they go vertical without fouling.
It's tough to get easy buckets. Yeah, you can hunt
out Steph Curry, and that's something the Rockets need to
(28:43):
do a little bit more in this series. Who saw
Jalen get going in the fourth quarter of the last
matchup against the Warriors by doing that. But overall, it's
a good defensive team for Golden State. They're well coached,
they're disciplined, and I think that's reflected in the shooting percentages. Now.
I don't think they should be quite that low. It
should normalize a little bit, but it needs to happen
because twenty two percent from Fred, thirty one percent from Jalen,
(29:05):
that's just not going to be enough. I'm less concerned
about Jalen because I think some of Jalen's low percentages
are because the Rockets need him to take tough shots,
and against the Warriors there are more of those. I
think he did get going for stretches, certainly the last
game against the Warriors when he finish for twenty one.
The NBA Cup game that took place in December, there
was a stretch in the second quarter that he was otherworldly.
(29:28):
I think Jalen can get going. You can hunt the
Curry mismatches war screen to get that. It's Fred who
I see as a variable especially coming off the ankle.
And we know the Warriors have a lot of player
movement on offense, so they make you run a lot defensively,
cover a lot of ground. So if you have a
bad wheel, that can contribute to bad shooting because you're
a little bit tired out to the effort you put
(29:49):
in on the other side of the floor. So for me,
that's the big variable. Fred needs to be better. I
trust him to. He's come through against the Warriors in
the playoffs before, look at the twenty nineteen finals with Toronto.
But I would also like to see he may perhaps
give Aaron Holliday a look, not just because Aaron Holliday
can knock down shots and the Rockets are good defensively,
they just need to make shots to win this series.
And we know how good Aaron's been as a shooter
(30:10):
this year forty percent overall on threes, about fifty percent
since the calendar turned to March. But also to keep
Fred fresh so that the legs for guys like most
notably Fred van Flee because of the bad ankle, but also
to an extent Jalen Green as well, aren't getting worn
down because ultimately it's going to come down to can
the Rockets make enough shots and then only does Aaron
Holliday potentially provide you another shooter. He's also quick laterally,
(30:33):
so he can help you with defense on stuff if
you need it, but can also keep your starting guards
more fresh. So that's the concern for me when I
look at the data, at least one of Fred or
Jalen needs to be a lot better than they were
in the regular season. I think it can happen. I
think some of it is, you know, small sample sized theater,
but they've got to step up. And as far as
what the Rockets can do, I would love to see
them give Aaron Holliday a look, both in terms of
(30:55):
his ability to make shots and also his ability to
keep Fred and Jalen fresher that when they're out there,
those legs aren't getting tired. Those are my areas of
concern and encouragement. Now we'll wind down with productions.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
How I'll let you start, Yeah, let me just really
quick give you give you my mix. Two areas that
is concerned because I have specific ones picked up beside
the ones I just pointed out. But I'll be really
quick about it. Area of concern to me is going.
It's going to be and I mentioned this on the
last plot, the willingness for you may you to move
(31:27):
away from preventively if he doesn't have it going, just
because I think there's lineups where Jalen's the point guard
and we're just big at everyone else that have great ratings,
and everybody always points out how the light umps with
jail and are a lot worse well actually with Kalen
without Freds. I believe it actually not that but worse
than some of them have even sixteen point sixteen positive
(31:49):
net rating the side. And then my my area for
kind of encouragement is the stories and in general against
the Warriors. If we look at the last or the
games that they played this year. The first game was
actually the overtime game where Saris was the reason we
even got to overtime. The main leason him them and Thompson.
So we have that game we lost, but you know,
(32:09):
Tarresa was, you know, anybody else on this team plays
even decent. And then we win that game and or
the Warriors, and we win that game, and then the
next game we lose to the Warriors, star Reson is
not playing the game. After that we win and tar
Reason is playing the game. After that we lose, it's
back to back, we lose to the Warrior Studies and
is not playing back to backs, and then the game
(32:30):
we win again the last one ver Reason is playing.
There's the clear there's a clear level up that ar
Reason has when he plays against the Warriors. You know
that come back in overtime, and the two wins are
within the two bosses. Besides the time the overtime loss
are without him. So I think that's that speaks for itself.
(32:50):
And then my prediction is probably going to be more
confident than most people's, and I don't think there will
be a lot of people that that agree with me.
But I am actually with Bobby Martz, who is the
only ESPN analyst that got the Rockets winning. I got
Rockets in six. I think that we just too good
of a matchup against them. I think that mental side
(33:13):
of things is not going to play out too much.
And I think there are They are an old team
that's been playing for their lives for the last twenty
games since the Jimmy Bottler trade. They've had high intensity
game after high intensity game, and it feels like they're
wearing out. They also have an extra game play in
the play in they only have for the rest compared
to the Rockets a week, which is basically two weeks,
(33:35):
because we only put it one game in the last
two weeks, and so I think that it won't be
as close as people expected. I don't think it will
be seven games series. I don't think it will be
an easy four or five game series win. But I
do think that in six games Rockets will win. And
then besides that, I just wanted to touch on how
ironic and how poetic it is that our first playoff
(33:57):
series back is the gamest the Warriors. All people are
saying this, like the Warriors took us out, and if
we want to get back into contention, the Warriors are
the first thing we have to beat on this journey,
and I do think we will beat them. But I
think there's another angle that people aren't really considering. The
first time we lost to the Warriors back in twenty fifteen,
(34:17):
it was the famous Harden Karashian year where Kevin Brant
was about to get free agency. There were signs that
he might have wanted to come to Houston. Arden has
a terrible season. Rockets go basically play five hundred ball
if I'm almost taken in forty one and forty one
and lost to.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
The Warriors again in twenty sixteen, like two months before
Kade's free agency.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, yeah, and these are you know, obviously they kind
of took away KD from us and kat went to
the Warriors instead, and now we might be coming back
and in the same offseason after we potentially beat the Wards,
which I think we will do. There's a lot of
talk about the KD wanting to come to the Rockets
and Rockets having mutual interest with KD. I'm not going
(34:57):
to get into all of those arguments, but I do
think it's poetic and I do think that that's what
will happen, and I think seven games will not be necessary.
I think we'll get it in six and even if
we can't, even if we go to the seven games series,
the longer the series is, the more it benefits the
younger team, especially considering out high intensity the Warriors have
(35:19):
to play with the rather hitched out roster over the
last a couple of months. So yeah, those are predicts.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Good stuff. Yeah. It should also be noted that the
schedule itself could lend itself to that dynamic in that
the first three games have two days off between them Sunday, Wednesday,
and Saturday of next week, and then from Game four
onward there's only one day off between games. So the
longer the series goes, the more the Warriors mileage and
(35:54):
their age could be a factor because the first week,
the first three games, you're going to be a little
bit more rest going in. There is travel between game
two and Game three. Once you get to Game four,
and the Warriors are going to be having a deal
with not only their own age, but the cumulative told
it goes that comes from playing top shelf defenders like
a Men Thompson, Dylan Brooks, Tarry Eason every single game
(36:16):
for forty eight plus minutes. Yeah, I could see as
the series goes along, the cumulative depth and youth advantage
from the Rockets having a greater significance and becoming a
bigger part of the storyline, especially because we've already seen it.
We can look at you know, just Tuesday's playing game,
the Warriors got out to a twenty point lead by
(36:38):
the middle point second quarter and they had to hold
on for dear life at home against a Grizzlies team
that was playing shorthanded and one that just fired their
coach a couple of weeks ago. It felt like the
Warriors tried to hit them with a haymaker early in
that game, perhaps knowing that they didn't have a ton
in the tank, and to their credit, that lead was
enough that it held up barely. But I do think
(37:02):
this is a team and the issues with Jimmy having
the bruised squad and Steph with the thumb that's been
ongoing issue for weeks, if not months, those are things
that especially as the series gets into an every other
day format the way we'll see next week, starting with
Game four, well, I guess the week after next that's
(37:24):
where the Rockets could really have an edge. They do
have to win at least a game or two in
those first three to get it there. They can't get
overwhelmed by the playoff environment, they experience of the Warriors,
all the factors we mentioned earlier. They've got to come
out of the gate strong. But assuming they do that,
assuming they are competitive, then yeah, the deeper the series goes,
the more it should lean Houston. So as far as
(37:50):
my prediction, I'm not as pelishous powlo. My thought going
into this was my head says Warriors in seven. My
heart says Rockets in seven. In my head says Warriors
in seven, is pretty much what we saw in the
play in game against Memphis. If it's close, Steph Curry
will find a way. Quite frankly, he almost did in
(38:10):
that regular season finale against the Clippers, who were phenomenal
in that game with both James Harden and Kawhi Leonard,
two future Hall of famers playing at basically the peak
of their powers, and Steph in the fourth quarter almost
won it by himself, even with a fairly limited team
around him. So my inclination, looking at the Rockets inexperience
(38:30):
and perhaps trying to brace myself for a bad outcome,
was to say that Steph will figure out a way
in Houston, where he's had so much success over the years,
to win a pivotal Game five or a Game seven,
and much the same way that he did in Sacramento.
You know, there's a Warriors Kings rivalry that series, even
with the Warriors at the lower seed the six against
(38:51):
the Kings, who had home court advantage as the three
that's been thrown out as a parallel from two years ago,
and Steph dropped fifty in Gage seven and basically willed
the Warriors the win. And so my first thought going
into the series was that this could be something similar.
And I'm not saying the Rockets will turn out the
same way as those Kings. I think there's a lot
(39:11):
more to this team's foundation than what those Kings had,
But in terms of this particular matchup, that's my concern. However,
my heart tells me Rockets and seven. Because obviously I'm
a fan, I want this team to win. But then
the more I think about it and the reason I'm
gonna embrace it, Game sevens are often about heart and
the difference between these Rockets and those Kings. That was
(39:33):
a very limited Sacramento team defensively, and so it wasn't
a shock to see Steph Curry be able to find
the best version of himself in Game seven and go
out and drop fifty. It's not going to be as
easy against a top five defense led by Imo Riyoka
with waves of defenders a men Dylan Tari Jabari. Even
(39:55):
switches are not guaranteed to give you a favorable matchup.
You look at what happened and in San Francisco. I
thought Jalen Green played pretty good defense against Steph Curry
as well. Game sevens are often low scoring. Well, any
game between the Rockets and Warriors this season has been
low scoring, but Game sevens, because of the intensity, because
of the nerves, are often played in the mud. They're
(40:16):
often eighty to seventy eight type games. I think back
to that series in the NBA Bubble where Donovan Mitchell
and Jamal Murray were throwing haymakers at each other. The
whole series the Jazz and the Nuggets and the Game seven,
it felt like neither team could get going at all
because the defense was so locked in there were so
many nerves. I think that's the way a pivotal Game seven,
(40:39):
maybe even a Game five, between these two teams that
know each other so well, that hate each other so much,
would be likely to play and are good defensively to
start with. They have a lot of pieces, and that's
where this Rockets team is so different than those Kings
from two years ago. They are comfortable playing in the mud.
That is the identity of this team. That's what Imo
Udoka said at when Stay's practice, when they first started
(41:02):
getting ready for the Warriors. The quote I'm pulling it
up right now on Rockets Wire. This really resonated with me.
I think what we do well favors us in the playoffs,
being physical, being aggressive. We don't have to flip a
switch and become who we haven't been all year. That's
what we've done. And to be clear, Emays not saying
that the Warriors need to flip a switch. But I
(41:23):
think the big question with a young team going into
the playoffs and why a lot of young teams fail
at least in their first go Young teams, especially if
they're playing an experienced team that's been there, done that
knows what's going to becoming and what is needed to
succeed in the playoffs. Young teams with young players that
typically don't defend all that well, there can be a
(41:44):
little bit of stage fright. To use the Jared Allen meme,
the lights can be too bright. That's not going to
happen to these Rockets. They want the challenge. They are
about the fight and going right at the Warriors. They
embrace this stuff. And so if it gets to a
Game seven where offense is at a premium and it
(42:05):
just comes down to will, which is the way most
Game sevens go. It didn't with well, I guess in
a way it did with Warriors Kings, but something of
an outlier because the Kings just were not set up
to defend at nearly that level two years ago. If
it's more of a typical Game seven that's played in
the mud, I like the Rockets chances, especially at home
(42:27):
where they've been so good this year. And how fitting
would it be the two losses, the most painful ones
that we've experienced, and this era is Rockets fans obviously
twenty eighteen Game seven, and then the last playoff game
played inside Toyota Center twenty nineteen Game six, the elimination
losses to the Warriors. Both of those were in Houston.
(42:49):
How fitting would it be not only for this new
era version of the Rockets to get a series win
against the Warriors and move on, perhaps put the Steph
Curry generation out pasture, but for the Rockets to also
do all that with the clinching game in Houston. Not
just for the fans to celebrate, obviously that's part of it,
(43:10):
but just the symbolic nature of succeeding on the same court,
in the same building against a similar Warriors team in
a way that their predecessors, that James Harden generation couldn't.
It would only be fitting if the Rockets are able
to win this series at home. I think the Rockets
get it done. It'll be close. Won't shock me if
the Warriors win, and you shouldn't feel terrible if they do.
(43:34):
But I think the Rockets pulled us out in seven.
I think they have just enough defensively, and I like
their character, I like their fight, and I think they
ultimately find a way to get this done. And my
suspicion I mentioned my area of concern being the shooting
from Houston's guards. I think there's at least one coin
flip game in this series. And maybe it's Game seven,
maybe it's earlier, but I think there's at least one
(43:56):
coin flip game this series that Fred VanVleet wins. I
think the twenty two percent against the Warriors. I know
it's been a down year for Fred, but that's unsustainably poor.
He should be due for some good shooting against this team.
We know he gets it done in the clutch. He's
done it at times this season in some of Houston's
biggest wins. Actually, he's done it against the Warriors, specifically
(44:19):
in the past. Just look at twenty nineteen Game six,
the clinching game of the NBA Finals for the Raptors.
He succeeded against the Warriors, even on the road. He's
been there, done that. He wants the moment. I did
think after he rested some him down the stretch of
the regular season, he looked better. He had a couple
of games, certainly the win against the Thunder earlier this month,
(44:40):
but also the finale against the Nuggets where he hits
the threes. Seemed to be moving better. And now you
have more than a week off between the regular season
finale and when the playoffs start on Sunday. I think
Fred's going to be better. I think he's due. I
like his mental makeup, and I think in a series
it's going to be close. He's going to have at
least one game or he hits a dager three or
(45:01):
maybe even two of those in the last two or
three minutes. That swings at Houston's way. And for a
guy that we've criticized for a lot of this year,
he hasn't been as good in year two with the
Rockets as he was in year one. This is why
you get someone like Fred la Fleet. You trust him
to step up when it matters. You like his mental makeup,
you like his approach that should shine on this stage,
(45:23):
even if he's a little bit limited physically. Again, there's
things the Rockets can do a little bit in terms
of managing his minutes to perhaps mitigate the impact of
that a lot of it when it comes to the
final minutes of close playoff games, it's not about the
physical side of things. It's about the mental. Everybody's tired,
everybody's got nagging injuries, everybody's playing through something. It's about
(45:43):
who can rise above it and just go out there
and make a play. I trust Fred van Fleet. It
could even be a contract postseason for him, depending on
what the Rockets choose to do with his team option
this offseason. So he needs to show his value to
the Rockets and perhaps the league. I think he does
it this series. I think we get from of the
old Fred vin Fleet and he finds a way to
get the Rockets to the finish line. Rockets and seven.
(46:05):
That's my pick anyway. On that happy note, that's where
we'll wrap things for today's episode. That'll do it for us.
As far as pre series commentary. We'll be back during
the series, of course, with updates talking about how the
Rockets play, hopefully reacting to Rockets wins, but time will tell.
We'll be back probably between games one and game two,
if not, certainly between Game two and Game three later
in the week. Anyway, if you want more content before
(46:27):
our next podcast, the best place to hear from MOTS
is online, where you can follow me on Twitter, slash
x at, then Dubo's at Palo Alps, NBA, and the
show at the logger line. If you want to support
the show, you can go to the logger lines page,
hit up our link tree and that's got links to
our distribution partners like Apple, Google and Spotify. If you
be kind not to subscribe leaf Positive View at your
location of choice, we greatly appreciate that. Also on the
(46:50):
same link tree, there's links to friends, sponsor's partners to
the program, USA Today's Rockets, Word, Carbuck Brewing, Sports Talk
seven ninety. Hit up those links and you can enjoy
their content as well. All right, with those points, plee,
we will journ for today for Paolo. I'm Ben, thanks
it always for listening and please come back soon for
another new episode of the logry line, Go Rockets,
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