Amen Thompson SAVES Rockets Vs Heat, Kevin Durant Makes HISTORY & Reed Sheppard CAREER Night

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Amen Thompson saves the rockets with the game winning tip-in against the heat.

Kevin Durant passes Michael Jordan for fifth on the NBA's all-time scoring list and

re-cheppered with the best game of his career.

It's all coming up right here at Lockdown Rockets.

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Mission 6.5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

What's up and welcome to another edition of Lockdown Rockets, your daily podcast home

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We're going to be talking about the roller coaster of a game between the rockets and heat

final score, 123, 123, two rockets escaping with the win.

Thanks to Amin Thompson's heroics on the final possession of the game, the game winning

tip-in.

We'll talk about the sequence leading up to that.

The final moments of this game, the clutch buckets all around.

We'll also talk about Kevin Durant passing Michael Jordan for fifth on the NBA's all-time

scoring list.

Amin Thompson and Reed Shepard's synergy on the floor, Reed Shepard with the best game

of his career, 14 assists, zero turnovers to go along with his 23 points.

So much to get to from this game.

We got to start at the end of this one.

This game was a roller coaster of emotions to put it lightly at the end of things.

My goodness, and I'll say I was there as a fan experience in this game.

And so I got to actually experience all my emotions and it was, it was almost so tragic

at the end of this game.

Rockets were leading in this one with like 90 seconds left to play, less than 90 seconds

left to play.

They had a two possession lead.

They were up six.

And it's not a super comfortable lead, but it's a comfortable enough lead that you're

feeling pretty confident about how things are looking.

The vibes are great.

Kevin Durant just passed MJ on the score ticker, right?

Everybody's freaking out about that in the stadium.

And then Simone Fontecchio hits a three and cuts it to a three point game, right?

With a little over a minute to play.

Then Pell Larson gets a layup with just under about 45 seconds left to play.

That's now a one possession game.

One possession game, Rockets drop a play, come out and through some scattered defense,

some broken rotations, Reed Shepherd winds up getting a very, very clutch floater for

his 22nd and 23rd points of the evening.

Time out Miami.

They have 13 seconds to make something happen.

And this is where things start to derail a little bit and this is going to be, this

is where it kind of a polarizing debate because the NBA as of late has transitioned towards

when you're up three final possession of the game, foul up three.

And generally that has been a pretty sound strategy, all admit I personally hate it.

I hate the fouling up three strategy.

That's probably the old head in me talking, but I despise it.

I would much rather see a team just de up and worst case scenario team hits a really tough

contested three and then either sends it to OT or you have a few seconds left to then

make your own shot on the other end, but not under the pressure of like playing from

behind.

So Rockets intentionally foul to send BAM out of the free throw line.

He ISIS both free throws and you're all right, fine.

Now this is the part where it gets, this is the part where you got to deliver, right?

If you're going to foul up three, you got to be able to inbound the ball successfully

and you got to be able to knock down two free throws.

That's the whole, if you cannot do that confidently and effectively, you shouldn't be

fouling up three.

And for a Houston Rockets team that throughout the entire Emu Doka era has struggled to inbound

the basketball, why on God's green earth would they make this play call?

Why not just de up and I just de up for 14 seconds, force the heat into a really tough shot.

Very eastern with the most agree and they actually got a reset on it because that at first

like right, Jabari was going to take the ball out and then they swapped and then like

Tari was upset at Jabari so late and then like Tari winds up being the one to take the

ball out.

And Rockets run whatever it is that they run trying to inbound the basketball couldn't

get it in and Tari with a pretty awful pass turns it over, which leads to a front as

Simone Fantecchio lay up for the Miami Heat to take the lead with six, five seconds left.

Like I the high that I was feeling from like, oh, this is going to be a great win and like

KD's milestone and history in the making and and read Shepard's amazing game and I meant

Thompson's amazing game.

All of that came crashing down in those few seconds.

I was literally sat in my seat in Toyota center with my head in my hands like because

I thought it was over that there was no chance.

Rockets come back down the other end, they were on their set, Cavendor and waste no time,

tries to get a shot and look, I'll be honest, it was a terrible shot at him from KD.

I don't know, I don't know what he was thinking trying to pull that maybe in the back of his

mind, he was thinking, I want the game winning shot on the night that I pass MJ on the scoring

list possibly, but it was a really ill-advised.

I mean, he basically had a double clutch mid air.

He put the shot up with one arm after the defender went sailing past him like two bodies,

two sets of outstretched arms, like just not a good look, right?

But he gets it off iron, it's not a terribly egregious miss and he misses it just perfectly

enough that a men Thompson, like a homing missile is just locked on to the basketball.

No pun intended.

And he finds the tip in right splices through the defense gets up there elevates above

everybody else and just with the the softest touch ever gets it off the glass and gets the

tip in.

And everybody immediately loses their minds, Jabari and Shingu and going grab him immediately,

everybody's freaking out, the rest have to review it, but the stadium is in pandemonium.

It was such a roller coaster emotions to end of this game.

And plenty of mistakes, plenty of things that should and need to be cleaned up at the

end for them to have given up what was a somewhat comfortable lead there in the in the closing

moments, but an absolutely sensational play from a men Thompson to be able to win this game

for the Rockets on a night where he was unbelievable.

And we'll talk about his game a little bit more in detail in just a moment.

And not to mention also like Reed Shepard's clutch buske clutch basket to to put them comfortably

ahead up three right after it was cut down to a one point game.

Reed Shepard to have the clutch gene of himself right to be able to put up that floater, knock

it down and give the Rockets that little bit of a buffer that they needed to at least

give them the opportunity to foul up three and force Miami into that really tough, you

know, set of circumstances, right?

And it's just the Rockets just want to play it so poorly.

So this is a win that you give a lot of credit to that big three specifically right Kevin

Durant, a men Thompson and Reed Shepard who all played out of their minds in this game.

And Tari Eason and Eme Odoca did their damn just to try and give this game away at the

very end.

I will say that that's my thing is I refuse to believe that this rocket team that has

struggled so much to inbound the basketball and key situations, latent games that has

struggled with five second calls throughout it.

I mean, they've had a but they've had some this season they had some last season like

it has been a weakness of this teams, right?

It's kind of the another branch off that turnover tree.

Unfortunately, why have Tari of all the people to inbound the basketball like I love Tari,

but that's not the right guy to have inbound in the basketball.

You need like either put Alperin Shingoon there to inbound the basketball, right?

Put one of your veterans that hell, put Jeff Green, hell, have Fred Van Fleet get out

of his street clothes and put him in for one singular possession where he doesn't actually

have to move his feet and have him inbound the basketball would probably be a better option

than having Tari inbound the basketball.

Just like that's not the move, right?

You have so many good passers on this team guys who do like that is one of their key roles

on the floor.

You want one of your best passers to make that call on the sideline or at least at the

very at at at a minimum a veteran like a DFS, right?

DFS has shown to be really smart in some of those situations.

If he doesn't like the look, he'll call a timeout, right?

The Rockets had timeouts to burn and they didn't.

Instead, they went for a terrible pass that almost cost them the game, but didn't thanks

to Amin Thompson and his high flying heroics on the other end, saving what would have

been a really painful game winning shot miss from Kevin Durant on the night that he passed

MJ on the scoring list.

Oh, man.

So that was a insane ending to what felt like a kind of insane game with some really stellar

performances on both sides.

We're going to unpack and talk about what we saw from the Rockets big three in this game.

Kevin Durant, Amin Thompson, Reed Shepard career nights all around for all three of those

guys, what they struggled with on the other end from the Miami Heat.

Some key minutes from Aaron holiday as well that we'll discuss.

We're going to get to all of that here in just one moment.

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Go check it out link in the episode description plus with a good win like this.

You know what time it is really.

And we're going to release a double release the house because my goodness.

What a way to close out this game.

Go talk smack in the locked on heat YouTube comments section.

Go find their recap episode for this game.

And look, there's a lot that I want to talk about some of the fantastic individual performances

in this one.

We're going to talk about Kevin Durant pass and MJ.

We're going to talk about a men Thompson's role in this game.

Some of the other strong performances shingoon had a solid night.

Jabari had a good game just really solid performances all around, but my goodness.

It's so much of this and I'm going to feel like a broken record saying this and there's

a little bit of indication when I do say it, but so much of this is happening because

of read shepherd finally being given the chance to showcase his talents in the starting

lineup, right?

You see what he put up in this game and it's it's amazing how everything else just falls

perfectly into place where guys look so much more comfortable.

Guys are back playing their specific roles on this team with read shepherd now manning

the point guard position.

He finished with 23 points on eight of 12 shooting, five of eight from downtown, a perfect

two of two at the free throw line had 14 assists, 14 times, not a single turnover.

He also had two rebounds and four steals to go along with that.

He was a game best, well, I guess Simone Fontecchio tied him with a plus 17, my bad.

He was a rocket's best plus 17 in his minutes.

The rockets were a plus 17 points better with read shepherd on the floor in this game

in a game that they won by one point.

That's absurd to think about that read shepherd's impact has reached these kind of levels.

And rockets are now, what are they, where they improve to now ten and ten and two.

It's either ten and two or eleven and two with read shepherd as the starter now should

have written it down on my notes before I hit the record button.

That's on me.

But basically like the proof is in the pudding things just work better with read shepherd

out there and you saw it throughout this game and especially in the second half as you

know, the rockets struggled a bit and they there was a point where Eric Spolster was running

like that.

I mean, he was using it all throughout the game, but there was a point, there were points

where the Miami Heat Zone was really bothering the rockets and you could tell that not having

read out there is when it was at its absolute worst, right?

When read wasn't out there, the rockets were really struggling to find the soft spots

in the Miami Heat Zone.

And then when read was out there, it was really easy for him to find those little openings

right where you're tilting the defense just enough because of the threat of reads gravity

to shoot the basketball as well as just his court vision and fine and seeing, okay, if

I'm pushing the basketball towards the right side of the floor, like how are these defenders

going to pick me up?

And he had so many simple, easy reads to corner shooters hell, the three pointer from Kevin

Durant that wound up his final bucket of the game, the one that wound up having him

pass MJ on the all time scoring list was just a simple corner bounce pass from Reed Shepard

as the Miami Heat Zone was tilted towards one side and read just had the recognition and

the the quickness to get the past to Katie in the corner and Katie just elevated and knocked

it down, right?

He had, I think a couple of those to Katie, he had a couple to Jabari's, Virginia, just

some really solid, basic level kind of point guard play, you know, on display in this

game, but that goes to show you just how desperately the rockets have missed that level of like

shot creation ability, just the ability to read a simple zone defense and get the ball

where it needs to be or even possessions where he gets the ball in the middle of the floor

to Alport and Shingoon or a Min Thompson, what have you and just completely racked up the

assists in this game?

It career high and assists for Reed Shepard, 14 and again, to do it all with zero turnovers

is the beautiful part, right?

He took incredible care of the basketball and in fact, actually this stat line specifically

23 points, 14 assists and four steals without a single turnover dating back to 1983, 84.

It's only the 11th time that a player has reached at least 20 points, 14 assists and

four steals without committing a single turnover.

Only been done 11 times in a little over 30 some, wait, no, that's way more than 30 years.

What is that?

20, 30, 40 something years, 42 some odd years has only been done 11 times and the only

active player to have done it twice is Tyree's Halliburne.

It's a pretty good company to be a part of if you're Reed Shepard.

And the fact that rocket stands have been banging this drum all season long to only get

it with 12 games left.

I swear to God, this rocket team could be at least like five wins better than they are

right now.

If the rockets had embraced Reed Shepard much earlier on this season instead of what is

happening right now, right?

But I'm, look, I'm not going to complain too much about it.

I'm happy that they finally did it because my goodness does it look awesome, like Reed

looks like the truth.

And conversely, a mint Thompson looks so much better playing off of Reed, like that, that

duo, they really do, they mesh so incredibly well together.

And it allows a mint Thompson to go back to doing all the things that he is so effective

at.

It allows him to go back to that Swiss Army knife roll, right?

Where he can do a little bit of everything on the floor and doesn't have like all this

pressure of initiating the offense as well as being the elite focal point of the defense

and an elite rebounder and the hustle guy and the guy who's attacking the offensive glass

and the guy like all this other stuff, right?

It allows them in to take a little bit more of a backseat offensively, but still be this

like wrecking ball of just do whatever needs to be done on the floor.

A minute had some really solid possessions of like secondary creation throughout this game.

And overall, I mean, his statline 24 points, 10 of 17 shooting knocked down a three pointer.

Uh, three of three at the free throw on had 18 rebounds.

A men was a monster on the glass in this game and they needed that because Bam at a

bio was also a beast on the glass on this one.

So they needed those rebounds from a mint Thompson to have that like rebounding edge.

They only barely beat the heat on the glass, 44 to 41.

And so they needed every single one of those monster 18 rebounds from men Thompson, a career

high and rebounds for a men Thompson.

So another career night coming out of this game, uh, he had his four assists, had a block

mixed in there.

Did have a few turnovers, but it was amazing to see just the ways in which a men Thompson

was able to again, playing, playing on the baseline, playing around the rim, seven of

his 18 rebounds were on the offensive glass, right?

So this allows having read in the starting lineup now allows men Thompson to refocus his

energies and the rocket still want to have a little bit of that possession, maxing identity,

right?

The identity that they had when they had a healthy Fred Bimbley and a healthy Stephen Adams.

And you know what's one really easy way to at least get back to some of that identity?

Read Shepherd not turning the basketball over in a men Thompson getting seven offensive

rebounds in a given game.

Like that's one way to certainly tip the scales back in your favor as far as possession

maxing is concerned.

And seeing those two guys like their chemistry, their ability to play off of one another,

their recognition of one another on the floor.

Like I kind of love that it feels like a men when he is handling the rock in transition

or if he's like got the ball, you know, got the ball in the half court set, whatever.

He's like very acutely aware and looking for read.

It feels like and the inverse of that is very much true as well with read shepherd surveying

and looking for a men Thompson when he's cutting and playing around the rim.

Their ability, their two man game playing off of one another is going to be really important

for this team for years to come.

There was one play.

Oh man, the play to just before half time where I think it was Katie sent Rita past.

It was like a little, it was a little like over the top and so read had to like, you

know, really like try to like catch it.

And then read like caught the ball mid air and then flung it to a men Thompson was cutting

towards the basket.

And a men catches the pass like an Ella and just lays it up at the rim, couldn't quite

turn it into an alley.

It was too aggressive of pass.

But like that little bang bang connection, having guys that can read the floor, having

guys that are dynamic out there guys like a men read shingoon, Kevin is an incredibly

dynamic player, right?

Having these guys that can do more than just like their specific role in the floor certainly

helps in those moments because you're seeing like those bang bang decisions being made

you're seeing them react accordingly to different defensive coverages and it's not nearly

as one dimensional as it can be at times when you're running, you know, Jabari, Tari,

DFS, Akogi, like all these guys, because those those guys are good at what they do.

And I'm not trying to take anything away from any one of those four guys that is named,

but those guys are role players for a reason, right?

Those guys aren't nearly as dynamic as some of the other guys that I named off previously.

And it's important to have the right mix of those guys on the floor at the right times.

And it felt like it's felt like these past couple games with the hawks and now with the

heat that email has done a much better job with his lineups and putting the right pieces

out there for the rockets to have the right amount of like dynamic ability on the floor

to make decisions to make passes to break down the defense, the right offensive firepower

also complemented by the right amount of defensive intensity with your three with your

like three-in-the-roll player guys. So give email a little bit of credit for that.

And I also need to give email a lot of credit for his usage of Aaron Holiday in this game.

Aaron Holiday had some very key moments.

Also got to talk about the contributions from the rockets front line of Alpore in Chingoon

and Jabari Smith Jr. We're going to get there in just one moment.

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And final segment here at Lockdown Rockets

or Daily Podcast.

Home for everything Houston Rockets basket ball.

And look, I want to give a lot of credit to the group of guys that was in the game

to start the fourth quarter.

And this was the the non Kevin Durant minutes.

It was Reed Shepherd, Alper and Shingoon,

Amin Thompson, Josh Akogi and Jabari Smith Jr.

out there at the top of the fourth quarter.

So effectively, it was the starters minus Katie ad Josh Akogi.

And we know that Josh Akogi's been really good for this team

at stretches throughout this season.

So that lineup swung the game back into striking distance.

Right after a rough kind of close to the third quarter

that allowed the Miami Heat to reel off.

I mean, it was it was basically a three point game.

It was actually was tied up 85 all.

And the Rockets only managed to get two points on the board

over the final like four minutes and some change.

Only one but only one basket scored over that final stretch.

It was a Kevin Durant turnaround fade away.

And outside of that, I mean, the Miami Heat basically went on an 11 to two run

to close out that third quarter.

So the Rockets started the fourth quarter

at a nine point deficit.

And almost immediately Bam out of bio gets two free throws.

So it's like really an 11 point deficit to start the quarter.

And that lineup kept the Rockets in the game.

Not only did they keep them in the game, right?

It's not even just like, oh, well, they kept it like,

you know, kind of close eight points to points.

They had some momentum.

They made some serious plays.

And it was really it was the back to back set of threes

from Jabari Smith, Jr.

that led to the Rockets being down just four.

And actually, and I do apologize.

It was I got I got my line up a little bit mixed up here.

It was Aaron Holiday was out there.

Not read Shepard.

Or sorry, Aaron Holiday was out there.

Not Josh Akogi.

And then Josh Akogi came into the game for read Shepard.

So am I right about that?

No, no, I'm getting whatever.

Whatever lineup was out there at the top of the fourth.

My goodness, I'm getting my lineup's all twisted up.

Point being is that that group at the top of the fourth quarter

hunkered down and did the damage where they needed to.

And they were able to rally.

And it was those back to back threes from Jabari Smith, Jr.

that gave the Rockets a ton of momentum.

And then read Shepard followed that up with one of his own three pointers

to make it just a one possession game 102 to 101.

And then a mint Thompson capped it all off with a dunk

that put the Rockets ahead by one.

Rockets take a time out.

They come back and they keep they keep pouring it on.

And this is where the Aaron Holiday minutes helped out a ton.

Aaron Holiday had a stretch where he went on a personal little,

I guess it wasn't an 80 run, but he went on a personal 80 run of his own

where he scored eight straight points for the Rockets back to back three pointers

which put them up.

First it was 106 102 then it was 109 105.

And then a couple possessions later as the heat were closing in once again.

It was it was 109 107 off of a bam out of bio dunk.

And then Aaron Holiday hits a driving layup.

It's like the seas just parted and Aaron Holiday got all the way to the rim with

you know very little resistance.

And those very quick eight points from Aaron Holiday,

eight points in this in less than two minutes of game time.

I think it was the Rockets needed every single every little bit of those points.

And so Aaron Holiday deserves a major shout out for his contributions there in the fourth quarter.

And I love that EMA has gone back to playing Aaron Holiday just some spot minutes.

Here or there it's it's great.

It's a great way to tie things together because the Rockets so desperately

need that outside shooting to be able to compete against some of these other really good

defenses and really good teams.

And that's one way that you can deal with a team that's throwing these zone looks at you

and trying to bog down your offense and force you to beat them from the perimeter.

Well, all right, you're going to you're going to try and force us to beat you from the perimeter.

Let me let me plug in one of my better perimeter shooters and give myself some options on the perimeter,

right? Because there were there were various points through this game where like the Rockets

had some success against the heat zone defense when they were just like trying to like

bully ball their way into the paint, you know, a couple drives from a men Thompson that didn't

look super pretty or Alpwrench and Goon going one on one and you know getting to the getting to

the rim before the defender was able to come over and effectively double team or before that

second defender in the zone showed up. So some moments like that throughout the game.

But those aren't like trying to just like ham fist your way through his own defense is not the

like accurate like the right strategy for beating his own right. You want to beat the zone with

ball movement, right? You want to swing the ball around the perimeter, get it to an open shooter

and you want to have some zone busters that can open up the zone that way or you get the ball

in the middle of the floor and collapse the zone like that. And so there were stretches of the game

like a little bit of a mixed bag, right? Rockets looked, you know, like they struggled at times

against the zone. Then there were times where they did a good job swinging on the perimeter to

open shooters and knocking down those shots, which of which they shot 16 of 35 from downtown 46%.

So this three point shooting. I don't want to say doesn't feel sustainable because we saw the

Rockets do it for almost a quarter of the season to start the year where they were shooting the

lights out of the basketball, but it was just it was about the personnel and it was about the

style in which they were playing and it feels like they're getting back to more of that style a

little bit where they're really sharing the basketball, they're distributing the ball well,

33 assists on 45 made shots. Again, 14 of those coming from Reed Shepherd. That's really

solid. They had more assists than Miami Heat did. Like and the heat moved the basketball a ton

as a team. So I credit to the Rockets for sharing the basketball being on selfish,

finding the ways to beat that Miami zone defense. And again, even though the Jabari didn't have a

stellar game by his usual standards, he was 0-6 going, I believe. I think he was go of six going

into those final two threes. He might have attempted one more after that. So it might have been 0-5.

But either way, those two threes that Jabari hit in the fourth quarter to pull the Rockets closer

after they were down 11 at the top of the fourth. Those were his only two threes of the game,

right? They couldn't have come at a better time in this one as the Rockets were kind of like

clawing their way back into it after that kind of like disappointing into the third quarter.

Alper and Shingoon solid enough night, 19 points, 12 rebounds, three assists, did have three

turnovers, but nine of 13 shooting, really efficient evening for Alper and Shingoon. Didn't do as much

of the facilitating damage in this game because Reed Shepard was the one picking apart that zone

defense from the perimeter, but he did what he needed to do. He capitalized on the buckets that he

was able to get when he was able to play some of that that one on one defense. And I don't know,

I just I outside of outside of Emeodoka's decision to have Tari be the inbounder or I guess to

not call a timeout, just like the the Helter Skelter kind of play at the end of this game.

Overall, I've enjoyed how he's diversified some of these lineups, how he's using the depth

that he does have available. And hopefully this is the thing that we don't see suddenly change up

now that the team isn't playing, you know, on front end or back end of a back to back. There's no

reason why the Rockets shouldn't really use like nine guys in the rotation nightly. And really,

they could expand it to a 10th guy, right? Like they could have in this one, Jason Tate got six minutes,

Joshua Kogi got three minutes. Tari was the big, you know, the big minutes guy off the bench with

20, you got DFS with 14 and Aaron Holiday with 13. No Clint Capella at all at any point in this

game. I guess, you know, Emeid just didn't feel like he needed the size out there. And generally,

right, the heat played a lot smaller throughout this game. So there wasn't really, I guess, a reason

to have Clint Capella out there. Although, you know, that maybe show some growth from Emeid, right?

Because now it used to be Eme's MO that he just wanted to be bigger and stronger and

crushed teams with the glass. And instead, he played small as well throughout this game. He had

the Aaron Holiday minutes that paid major dividends. And so I think Emeid might be

growing and learning a little bit. I'm going to, I'm not going to hold my breath on it. But

I think there have been some really encouraging signs here. These past couple games with what Emeid's

doing with some of these lineups and some of his decision making throughout these games. And again,

it was a, a big rally in the fourth quarter at the top of the fourth to get back and control of

this game. And then kind of losing control, you know, almost right at the finish line. And then

being saved by a men Thompson, just a ridiculous overall game. I want your reactions to this one.

I want your reactions to the career nights from a men Thompson and Reed Shepherd, a men's game

winning tip in shot, Kevin Durant passing MJ on the all time scoring list, all of it. Let me know

your thoughts in the YouTube comments. But as always, thank you so much for watching. Thank you

so much for listening. And we look forward to having you back right here at Lockdown Rockets,

your daily podcast home for everything. Houston Rockets basketball.

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