Speaker 1: Em it's Matt Ross, thanks for spending some time with us.
Do you just flush the game film out? You get
rid of the statuet as fast as possible? Up looking
at that game against Denver a couple of nights ago,
how do you how do you take take away from
that contest against the Nuggets?
Speaker 2: No, you look at the third quarter and see what
happened for us to go down by that large of
a deficit after you know, fifty three to forty seven
first half where we missed a lot of wide open shots,
made some mistakes and turnovers, and you know, still hold
them to fifty three and would be within striking range
obviously with the Lake three by Brown to put them up,
to put them up six. What happened in the third quarter,
And that's what we really focused on today, is it?
Speaker 1: And it's tough because you run through superstars every time
you played. You say, all right, we held in the
jokich Is sixteen points. We should be in a much
more competitive situation. Does the aggravation come in to say, well,
if a team's got two stars, you got to do
the best you can to stop I mean, you were
able to stop Jokic. Murray unfortunately had a big game offensively.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean that's the tandem that you always
have to worry about with them. But you know, he
got a lot late as well, and the game was
kind of out of hand. So we did a decent
job overall. But you can't let you know, Cameron Johnson
have seventeen and Brown have nineteen and Hardaway fourteen off
the bench, as well as Valentinas with twelve. So just
too much scoring overall. You got to kind of pick
your poison how you're going to go after Yo Kitschers,
Just to go after him and let him facilitate for
everybody else, or you know, guarding one on one and
he'll be more of a scoring mentality, and so too
much of both. He scored and got a triple double,
but other guys scored at a too higher rate.
Speaker 1: For sure, any logical thinking basketball fan knows the stats
from the three point range were a one off free throws,
especially the three point numbers. What do you take it
as a coach to go, well, it's hard to make
only four thirty three? Was there? Hesitation? Was there just
trying to get get shots up just because the deficit
was starting to grow in the second half a little bit.
Speaker 2: No, I mean the first half we didn't make it
that many either, So it wasn't like we started launching
because of the deficit. You know, they went seventeen for
thirty two. We go four for thirty four. They go
sixteen for twenty two. From the rethrow line, we go
five for fourteen. And so unless you're perfect on defense,
those numbers are gonna be hard to overcome. But it
was the you know, carbon copy of what they did,
which is go after Kevin uh, you know guard, I'll
be one on one with Jokic, go after him with
other guys, and and if we watched the pregame film,
what we showed was getting rid of the ball, taking
care of it and getting wide open shots.
Speaker 3: And that's the last game where we had the blood
at their place.
Speaker 2: We made those same exact looks, and so sometimes it's
as simple as making them, But there are other things
you can control. Obviously, the turnovers are too high, then
getting out in transition, and then you know, defending personnel
and losing some of the shooters.
Speaker 4: One of the things we often talk about is talking
heads in the media, is morale, body language, that type
of stuff. How much does that matter? Is that something
we make too much of it and just about trying
to keep the guy's spirits up with I mean the
good win of course against the Raptors, but the bad
losses in San Antonio and Denver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean our group, you know, we could see
that the frustration creep in. I think we all have
a higher expectation and the way we're playing right now,
we're still everything's still in front of us and we
kind of control our own destiny as far as how
we want to finish the season and the standings and
all those things. But definitely frustration in those games, specifically,
especially when you you know, have a close game where
you don't play that well honestly, and then we kind
of lose lose hold of the rope in.
Speaker 3: The second half.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, we're always disappointed when we play, whether
it's a bad quarter or a bad half, and you know,
to get our heads down only down five or seven,
you know, in the third quarter.
Speaker 3: Is not a great sign.
Speaker 2: But what our group does a good job of doing
is bouncing back. And the night after San Antonio, obviously
we played a good Toronto team that plays physical with energy,
and our energy was totally different and so.
Speaker 3: Same thing as the start of the Denver game.
Speaker 2: You know, we were we had the right intentions, didn't
make the shots, but I think we were very competitive there.
So we can't put games behind us pretty quickly and
bounce back to the next And we're going to do
the same thing tonight.
Speaker 4: Rockets head coach Emai A Dooka with us here on
a Sports Talk seven ninety a bit of a swoon
shooting the three four reed Shepherd.
Speaker 1: Have you been happy with his looks?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's gonna you know, you're not always
gonna make shots, but the quality of the look is
the thing that counts. And we know he's gonna knock
down a high percentage when he gets those looks.
Speaker 3: And so that was that. You know, A Tari's had
a little tough shooting stretch. Jabari had one early in
the season.
Speaker 2: Out he's gone through his things and so making shots
is an art for sure. And then the more consistent
you could be, the better will be. But guys are
gonna have as many slumps here and there, and you
got to impact the game other ways. You know, still
play defense, still move the ball and do the things
to get yourself going, which is you know, in the
case of some of our bigger wings, crash the glass,
get on transition, turn defense to offense, and you see a.
Speaker 3: Guy like Jabari bounce back. Because of those things, you
have two players.
Speaker 1: Reid's playing the most minutes in his life, probably in
this one season. Tari has not been in a long
stretch of being able to count on for him. In
matter of fact, he's played fifteen straight games. What is
the advice to each one of those two guys individually
the rest of the way, knowing that, hey, we need you,
our depth is not as good as it is. You
got to come through for us here. I know you're
going through a lot of minutes, most you've played in
a while, but man, every single night it feels like
there's a flip in the standings car depending on one
individual matchup.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first thing is everybody's going through that at
this time of season. It goes quickly after all Star
breaks and right before all Star breaks. You know, the
dog days of the season you have to push through.
And so for young guys, you know Read not playing
a lot of minutes last year, it's this first time
for him. But you know, be aggressive, be confident, but
also pay attention to detail and all the little things
that you can do to impact the game. And so
with Tari, you know, his health is much better. He's
playing in the back to backs, like you said, and
although you're having your ups and down shooting, you know,
Tari isn't relying on that only to.
Speaker 3: Affect the game.
Speaker 2: And so for them, it's just continue to take advantage
of your matchups. Like I always say, I'm in out
for and Kevin are gonna draw the main defenders per night,
and we want the other guys to dominate the matchups.
Speaker 3: And for the most part, they do.
Speaker 1: That all right, New Orleans in the night. That twenty
five point loss still kind of unsettling the way they
got to us New Orleans earlier this year. Does that
is that that game was so long ago?
Speaker 3: Does that?
Speaker 1: Is that thought about much? Or do you go, you
know what, we have so many games coming up and
so many games have just played that we don't think
about a game a random game earlier in the season.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, it's a very different team now what
they're doing and who they're playing.
Speaker 3: But you know, we look back on a lot of
those games.
Speaker 2: Has missed opportunities for us obviously, be having that big
lead and losing overtime against them, and so for us,
it's it's continued to play the right way heading down
the stretch, regardless of the opponent. And they're playing really
good basketball right now. They're seven and three in their
last ten. They got Fears and Queen coming off the
bench now, so they're playing more veteran lineups out there
with Dejontay Murray coming back and Williamson, outside of missing
one game, has played you know, the most games in
a row of his career, and so he's playing at
high level at the five now, and so still a challenge.
Speaker 3: Still talented guys out there, and we have to come
ready to play. Thank you for the visit.
Speaker 1: We'll see you later tonight.
Speaker 3: We appreciate it. Thank you,