What will the Houston Rockets do without Kevin Durant?

What will the Houston Rockets do without Kevin Durant?

Got to get it in. Dust to Smith. Jabari for three and the win. He’s got it. We are here to fuel your rocks news. It’s Rockfield podcast. Of course, I’m your host Lashar Binkley. You can always find me on at Twitterxley Hoops. You can find all my written work over at Rockets on SI which part of Sports Illustrated Network. And of course, we are sponsored by the Believe Network. Definitely make sure you check out all the audio podcast over on the Believe website under Rocket Fuel podcast. And on today’s show, just want to give a quick breakdown, quick reaction to the news that just dropped probably like an hour ago. Um, Sham Shirania from ESPN reported that Kevin Durant will be missing the next two games due to personal reasons. Now, of course, I don’t speculate on what those reasons are because I don’t know for sure. And if I did, I don’t know if I necessarily would say anything because anytime somebody says personal reason has absolutely nothing to do with basketball. So, that’s not my place to say or speculate on why he’s missing those game. All you can do is just wish the best and hopefully everything’s okay with him and his family. Um, but when it come to the encore part of it, he is scheduled to miss uh tomorrow’s game against the Phoenix Suns and Wednesday game against the Golden State Warriors. And of course, the Rockets are coming off a loss this past uh Friday to the Denver Nuggets. A hard fought loss where they had their chances, just couldn’t pull it out in the end. Too many mistakes down the stretch. Denver just made more winning plays down the stretch and the Rockies fivegame win streak came to an end. They’re now sit at 10 and four on the season. And like I said, their next game is tomorrow at Phoenix. Um, I think another late game, another Prime game. So, it won’t be on Space City Network. Unfortunately, it won’t be on Prime. So, uh, that will be tomorrow’s game, but on today’s show, I just want to kind of give a quick reaction to it, and kind of say what I think may happen in the next two games, who may play, um, what areas that Rock Smash should be better in without Kevin Durant. I’d say they’re better without Cam Durant because they’re not better without him. But there are some areas where they can or probably will improve in the next couple of games now that they will have a different lineup on the court and we’ll have Kevin Durant for the first time the entire season. It’s actually kind of funny if you go all the way back. Um Jaylen Green had played the previous two and a half plus seasons straight. So this actually be the first game the Rocks would be playing without Jayla Green or Kevin Durant. Um if you look at it that way. But, um, like I said, I just kind of wanted to first, you know, start off with what lineup I think they’ll go with, at least to start the game. I definitely think, especially as well as Reed Shepard has played over the last several games, that he’ll probably move into the starting lineup. They’ll have a more traditional starting lineup with Reed and I’m in the back court. um probably have to think that um more than likely Joshua Kogi moves into play small forward and then you would have Jabar and Alper and Shangon and the only reason I say that because I know they started to double bury the last two games but Phoenix doesn’t really employ that type of starting lineup um with their um with their front court. So, I have to believe the Rocks will go with a more traditional um starting lineup in the next game with Reed Shepard probably coming into the starting lineup and then Josh Kobe moving back in and probably move Stephen Adams back to the bench. So, if I had to guess, I would say that’ll probably be the starting lineup um for the upcoming next game. But again, we won’t probably know for sure until shoot around if they have a shoot around tomorrow. Sometimes they don’t have shoots. Um at the very least, it’ll be pregame before we find out exactly what the starting lineup will be. Um, but if if I had my preference, I would probably say that’s the lineup I probably would go with. Um, you could have Reed at the point guard or a man at the point guard really doesn’t matter. It kind of interchangeable because at the end of the day, Apple or Shane Go is the one usually having the ball majority of the time anyway. So, it really doesn’t matter who’s playing point guard and who doesn’t. But, I would have to imagine they move Reed into that starting lineup because like I said, he helps spread the floor. He helps speed up the game. He helps he’s been one of the Rockies, if not the Rocky’s best shooters. He’s coming off a career-high 27 points last game against Denver. So, you factor all them things in, you have to imagine that, like I said, Reed will move into that starting lineup uh for tomorrow’s game and possibly even Wednesday game against Golden State because Kevin Durant will be out that game as well. Um, and then from there, you got to figure, okay, who’s going to be playing more minutes off the bench now than Kevin Durant because that Durant was playing 34 35 minutes a game. So, you have to make up for the minutes somewhere. And if I had to guess, I would probably say um Jan Tate is probably going to play some of the minutes. I know how some of y’all feel about Tate, but at the end of the day, he’s back. The Rockets do trust him out on the court. And he’s, you know, more of a small forward power forward type player. So, I have to imagine he’s going to take up some of the minutes. We’re probably going to see Jeff Green, who we haven’t really seen much at all besides garbage time this year. I actually think he’s going to give more time you actually part of the regular rotation the next couple of games. So after, you know, Aaron Holidayiday was already playing more minutes anyway because of the injury to Tari East. So he’s already going play another 20 plus minutes. So now you’re probably going to see more of Jeff Green uh moving into that rotation and also like I said J Shante. So, those are probably the two guys, if I had to guess, that’ll probably um gain the most minutes from Kevin Durant being out on the next couple of games. Um, another thing I kind of wanted to talk about was, yes, you’re going to miss Kevin Durant, you know, elite mid-range shooting. You’re going to miss the gravity that he draws on the defensive end where they’re having to constantly worry about what he’s going to do sometime double teaming him, which opens up the lanes for other guys. You’re going to miss all those things, but it is some areas that I think the Rockets will be a little bit better at than they have been this season with Kevin Durant in the lineup. And one of those areas is pace. The Rockets are the fourth slowest uh pace team in the NBA, which up to this point, they’re 10 and four. It’s worked for work for them pretty well, but they are one of the slower teams in the entire NBA. Um they’re they’re like I said, they’re ranked 27th in pace on the season. A lot that has to do with, you know, when you have a Kevin Durant on your team, you’re going to probably be a slower team. You’re not going to have as many fast breaks. You’re going to operate more in the mid-range. You’re not going to have many possession where you’re coming down and and you’re shooting within two or three seconds of the shot clock. That’s not just something most teams do, especially Kevin Durant at 37 years old. And that’s something that the Rockets have really slowed down their pace this year. um when Jaylen Green was here, that’s something they talked about a lot was increasing their pace. And then when you bring in one of the best mid-range shooters of all time, you’re naturally going to slow down your team. That’s exactly what the Rockets have done this season. Like I said, they ranked 27th and pace so far this season. And if you look at it even further, when you talk about average speed on the offensive end, the Rockets are dead last in offensive speed. And they’re actually dead last by a pretty good margin. Um if you look at the actual um numbers, they’re um like I said, they ranked last in overall average speed. They’re one of the slowest team also on the defensive end as well, which some of that has to do with them playing zone. They cover the less distance on defense. Again, it has to do with them playing zone. Um so I think more with a more traditional lineup, you won’t see that zone as much as well. Um because usually you only see it when they’re playing that jumbo lineup or a double big but now with Kevin Durant out if you go to more traditional lineup you’ll see the Rockets playing more manto man more switching and also you’ll see the Rockets actually pick up the pace as far as fast break points because right now the Rockets are like a middle of the road team when it comes to fast break points. So I think you put Reed Shepard into the starting lineup, you have Josh Ky in the starting lineup, you’re gonna see the Rockets push up that pace even more because anytime you in these last games where you see Reed Shepard, he is not hesitating. He gets up and down the court. He’s pulling up on fast breaks. He’s pulling up whether he has Albert going to Kevin Durant on one side. It doesn’t matter. He’s pulling up and he’s shooting a three-pointer with confidence, which means that they’re getting down the court in three or four or five seconds and they’re getting up a shot fairly quickly. So, I have to imagine that their pace is going to increase, their just overall speed is going to increase because now you’re putting in Reese Shepard, uh, who’s, you know, in his second season in for a 37 year old Kevin Durant because Reese Sheper kind of thrives on, uh, the higher faster pace. I actually think you’ll see a better Amed Thompson because a lot of times it seem like he’s been deferring to Alpar and deferring to Kevin Durant or more hesitant when he’s driving to the basket. Like I asked MA last game what was the difference between first half and second half and he said that our man started actually looking for a shot instead of going into the paint looking to pass. He was actually going in there and looking to shoot and not predetermining what he was doing. And I think now that you kind of sort of back to where he was last year even though Jaylen Green’s not here but it’s really going to be a man. It’s gonna be Alpie is gonna be kind of your two main guys along with you know with Refer and Jabari. But now Amed’s going to have even more opportunities and I think the the running at a faster pace is going to help them in these games. Now I think you’re going to see a much better Aman Thompson from the start of the game to the end of the game. Um so I think that’s one of the other things that’s going to really stand out in the next couple games. The Rockies just going to be a much faster team. They’re going to play at a much faster pace. And also I think they’re going to give them a lot more threes. Just kind of some of the things I mentioned reason why they’re going to give up give uh have a faster pace. I think they’re gonna get a lot more threes because like I said, when you have a Kevin Durant, you’re shooting a lot more mid-range shots. You’re going late into the shot clock. But now you put in Reed, you put in Josh, I think that they’re going to be playing exclusively through Alp Shangon. And they’re going to be having a lot more opportunities. And especially when you get up into the fast break a lot more often, you have a lot more opportunities to get three-pointers on the break. something that the Rockets really haven’t done a lot this season because right now the Rockets ranked uh dead last in three-pointer attempts per game. Um actually in three point uh uh actually yeah three-point attempts per game. Rockets are last in the NBA. Really efficient, don’t get me wrong. They’re one of the most efficient teams in the NBA. They lead the NBA in three-point percentage. Um, but as far as volume, they haven’t really been giving up a lot of three-point shots. But I think that changes in these next at least these next couple of games with the Rocks playing at a faster pace and having players on the court that that can actually get up and down the court a lot more than than the starters that they’ve had for majority of season because either been Kevin R’s been in every single lineup and then sometime they go with the jumbo line. So you’re going even slower when Stephen Adams is in there. Of course, even now it’s just, you know, been remarkable all season, but I mean, it is what it is when they’re in the lineup together. You’re going to have one of these slowest teams in the NBA. And now you go back to that more traditional lineup at least in the next couple games and you should see a much faster paced Rockets team. So, that’s one thing that can definitely, you know, stand out and help the Rockets. But overall, of course, losing to Kevin Durant for two games is, you know, definitely devastating. But I think the Rockets can at least um take some solace in that they may be playing a different type of game and that may at least help them in the short term because you can always in a short term make up for losing a superstar player. It’s really the long term when you really see the problems with not having a star player out on the court. So at least in a one or two game scenario, you can probably be okay. And then Fenix is playing good this year, you know, surprisingly good this year. Um so you know, but still they’re still not like a top team. They not the Denver Nuggets or Oklahoma City Thunder. So, it’s not beyond the possibilities that the Rockies can win this game. And Golden State has been a disappointment. They’ve been hovering around 500 all year, but it’s still Golden State. But at the same time, this is not the same Golden State team you even faced last season. So, the Rockets can still win these two games. They still have enough talent, but it’s going to come down to are they going to be able to play faster? they be able to get up more threes and are they going to be able to play a different type of defense to where they can still switch and still um be able to, you know, not have any um defensive mistakes like sort of like they did against Denver at the end of the game that cost him the game. So, we’ll kind of see how it plays out. At the end of the day, you hope everything’s all right with Kevin Durant and his family. That’s like the most important thing. But, we’ll see how it plays out on the court. Like I said, the Rockers will be on the road for the next two um against Golden State and Phoenix. Um as usual, always appreciate the support. Uh we are continuing to build the channel. We’re at 6,500 subscribers. We want to keep building it up and definitely hopefully get to 10,000 by the end of this season and as like said, I appreciate the support. Everybody’s already subscribed. If you’re new to the channel, welcome in. As you see, we kind of do a little bit of everything on this channel. So definitely uh make sure you subscribe to the channel. Make sure you hit that like button and let me know down in the comments what do you think the Rockets are going to be able to do the next two games. You think they can come away with two wins even without Kevin Durant? Let me know down in the comments and make sure you check out the next episode of Rock and Fuel Podcast.

BREAKING NEWS: Kevin Durant will miss the Houston Rockets next two games due to personal reasons. The Rockets will play a different style without Kevin Durant for the next two games.

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