The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Ime Udoka Joins the Show Ahead of Trail Blazers Matchup

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Ime Udoka Joins the Show Ahead of Trail Blazers Matchup

It is 12-1 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross off this week. M.T. with you here until 2 p.m. We're going to spend 10 minutes right now with the head coach of your Houston Rockets, who picked up his 100th career victory as the head coach of the Houston Rockets. E. May Adoka with us here on the show. Coach, thanks with time.

Congratulations. A pretty fast run to 100, my friend. It's got a lot more to go, unfortunately, for us. Yeah, it's a nice little milestone to hit. You know, with the team we have and our expectations, I think that was kind of a foregone conclusion, but we're looking for bigger things anyway. You ran some youth teams when you were still playing the NBA, correct? I mean, so this coaching bug was part of your assistant for a long time, right? Yeah, I sponsored an AAU team out of Portland, Oregon, or some of our guys on staff, Mike Moser, Garrett Jackson, were part of the team.

So I started way back then, did some coaching clinics at the National Basketball Players Association, three, four summers in a row, and got the it's early. Who was the coach, EMA, that was the guy that said, all right, I'm going to follow this guy's path. I want to be a head coach ultimately at the highest level. Who told me that? Who was your biggest influence? I'm curious. Obviously, Pop. You know, Pop offered me my first job, you know, when I was still finishing my career and kind of expedited.

the process. I wanted to play a few more years, and he gave me a great opportunity. So spent seven years coaching with him before I went to Philly, Brooklyn, and Boston, and played two and a half years from him. So the longest playing career with him, playing team I played with, and then coaching, obviously. So he's been the biggest influence on me by far. You made a doker with us here on 790. Coach last night, Washington, we knew defensively just not very good, giving up the most points in the league. Eighty-one you'll take all the time. It doesn't happen a lot, but a combination of, you took advantage of some their deficiencies on the defensive side with some hot shooting. How did you see how the first

24 minutes in particular went for you against the Wizards? It was good. Obviously, you got off to a great start. A 40 point first quarter is always nice. And then 41 in the second. So we were consistent there. But, you know, we didn't just want to get in the shootout go up and down. We wanted to defend at a high level as well. And so to hold them to 54 in the first half was great as well. I think a lot of times when you play an inferior opponent, a lot of times you relax and just getting to that up and down open gym style game, but we wanted to maintain our discipline on the defensive end. Obviously share the ball and only three turnovers in the first half, 20 assists in the first half, all those are great numbers. The turnover number has been something that you've talked about on a semi-regular basis, and sometimes they're influential in games, i.e. in San Antonio and maybe against Oklahoma City.

Do you feel like things are getting a little bit better that we're going back to the more of the norm because especially that first half is you're not only scoring all those points but you guys took tremendous care of the basketball. Yeah, it's been an emphasis since day one. I think when you look at the Oklahoma City game, you know, giving up 28 points on 25 turnovers

and a double overtime loss that really stands out. And then to your point, 33 points in San Antonio giving up off our turnover. So we know what we can look at when we lose certain games, specific things, and taking care of the ball. is one of our main points of emphasis. You know, you're scoring 81 points

and us being the best offensive rebounding team in the league. We're almost like just get shots up and we'll have a good chance to get it back if we miss, but let's not turn it over and feel the team's in transition. Eme, this has been, I don't know if it's a four or five game stretch now for Reed. He's come off the bench for you and has really provided

some nice offense. He's also very active in terms of stealing the basketball. Turnovers have been okay. Did the light bulb just turn on, or is this the midges making the most of his opportunity you've been given to him, especially now that Fred's gone for the season? Well, it's going to be a little bit of both. You know, he gained some experience last year, but getting this opportunity to play now is always going to help a young player

and just being aggressive and confident. Those things are going to show up in the stat sheet. Offensively, we want him to take those shots, make the right plays, and, you know, be a backup point guard and play some off ball off of Alpi and KD, but also defensively take on the challenges and he's done that. You know, we stick to the assignment to the game, plan and he's just a really a really good spark plug for us every team has that and we want him to be that for us then the offense in this league just in your game last night the league in general

we are seeing some incredible performances and you know i've talked about this at least once before about usually sometimes the offense is ahead of the defense but it feels like i mean we're talking about most teams have played at least 10 11 12 games these offensive production numbers are incredible Are we going to see this for a full 82, or do you think it's going to regress a little bit at some point? We would think it would come down, and teams would be a little more stingy on defense eventually, but, you know, teams play towards their strengths. And a lot of times, you know, a lot of those teams are really gifted offensively, try to get in those shootouts. And like I said, our team, like I said, quite often, we can do it on both sides. And so we're scoring at a great pace, but we still want to not to get our identity and what gave us success the last two years.

So improved defensively, continue to cut off. communicate in our zone specifically and start to hold teams down to those lower numbers and when we're scoring 110 120 we should win easily if you and i were talking during the preseason and i said through the first 10 games of the season the rockets would be the number one team in three point percentage would you have said oh that's nice a pleasant surprise or would you have said to be more we better be no it is a great surprise it's not not unexpected that teams are going to guard alper and kevin the way that they do and that's going to lead to some wide open shots And so credit to our guys for putting in the work in the offseason.

Obviously, our numbers weren't where we wanted them to be last year. But when you're getting these wide open looks, the percentage is going to go up, confidence is going to go up, and you continue to work off of Kevin and Alperin. With those double teams, guys are going to be a recipient to those open shots. It even feels like to me, EMA, please tell me if I'm wrong, a lot of teams, guys will use a slide step to get a little bit of a better angle. It feels like to me this year it's a lot of catch and shoot from your guys,

that the guys are positioning themselves well, that once the ball reaches their hands, they're letting it fly pretty quickly. Yeah, our spacing has gotten much better. Anytime we have success, it's been a large part due to that, and when we haven't, guys have kind of been out of their spots,

but we're really encouraging guys to be aggressive, not pass up any shots, and like I said, we're such a great offensive rebounding team that we know teams are going to double. They're going to be in scramble mode, and it's going to lead to some mismatches on the glass as well. And so get the shot up,

not pass-up shots. So guys are kind of learning on the fly as far as that. You've got some guys early in the season pass up some shots and you don't always get a better look. And so we're encouraging them to be aggressive and then hammering the glass like always with Stephen Alpe and Clint. A couple more minutes here with IMA Adoka. You know, I don't remember much about Stephen Adams early in his career,

but I've obviously watched intently the last four or five years and last couple here in Houston. Is he playing the best in terms of just not only getting his fair share of offensive rebates? the putbacks, the pick and rolls, and then he's able to now hit some free throws. Is he even exceeding what you thought he could bring to this team when you first originally brought him here? No, I wouldn't say I'm surprised at all. If you've coached against him or played against him, you know what he's all about. You know, he does a lot of the things that don't always show up on the stat sheet.

But one of the best screen setters in the league, defensively, really smart, has a high IQ, and then offensive rebounds is one of the things he's been great at throughout his career. And more of the same guys that played against them or played with him, no. He attracts all the attention on the boards and frees it up for other guys. But he's going to get his five, six a game himself, it feels like. And those are obviously boosting our numbers. But I think more than anything to put back to some of the things you mentioned is due to health and rhythm, getting back after being out for almost two years.

And you can kind of see his legs. And him in training camp, he was just a different player than the start of last year. You have a huge sports performance department that monitors just about everything on what these guys do in terms of eating and resting and working on and playing and how they do during the game. The Rockets have kind of caught a break. We've played some of the least number of games so far this year. It's going to eventually catch up. So how do you kind of manage that knowing that we're going to be in a spot here not before long

where there are some back-to-backs and there's going to be some three games in four-night situations? Yeah, we'll discuss that and take a look at, you know, scheduling and then who we need to play, who we need to rest based on that schedule and matchups and things of that nature. For now, we haven't had any early. I think it's helping us out and getting guys' legs and rhythm and conditioning under them. But that's where our depth comes into play. You know, you brought Clinton here for a reason, and Josh and Doreen, they'll be back eventually. And so when guys do have the rest, some guys coming off injuries or surgeries, we have capable bodies, as you've seen in the past.

I feel like we have a three-deep roster at every position that can come in and contribute. Last question for EMA, the loss of San Antonio stung because that was a game he felt like you could have won. It was also an in-season tournament game. You got one of those coming up tomorrow night. Now we've done this a few years, are you sensing any extra juice in the guys and maybe even more of a importance on tomorrow night's game?

Because obviously you guys enjoyed being in that tournament last year and having to go to play in Vegas for the chance to win it all. Yeah, it's something we don't really talk about, but guys know it's there. And obviously, to lose that game to San Antonio. Being at the first one, I think, was something that we want to get back on the right step.

regardless. It's a Western Conference opponent and trying to maintain a certain standard regardless of what the implication is. But everybody knows about the end-season tournament. We got there last year and we want to take another step this year by winning it. Well, I'm all for that. Thank you for the time, as always. We'll see you tomorrow night against the Portland Trilbe. I appreciate the visit as always. Thank you guys.