The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Ime Udoka: Tari Eason Is A 'Game-Time Decision' For Rockets At Pelicans

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka joins "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" to preview Thursday's matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans and provides an update on forward Tari Eason, who has missed three straight games due to a left leg injury. 

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. 1231 on Sports Talk 790. It is a Matt Thomas show with Ross. We'll spend 10 quality minutes right now with the head basketball coach of your Houston Rockets. Tonight, New Orleans take on to the Pelicans. It is Eme Adoka here on 790. Coach, good afternoon. It was nice seeing Tari.

Ysen practicing over at the arena. How's he feeling right now? He's feeling better, obviously. We'll see. you know, game time decision, how he feels after this workout and test it out before the game and go from there. You mentioned us a few days ago about maybe the number of days off in between the tournaments in Vegas and the extra long time off in between games may have hurt him a little bit.

Is this being back in a more of a normal routine helping him right now? Yeah, I think so, but I mean, honestly, you know, if it flares up and, you know, who knows what the cause of that is. like I said, being stagnant a little bit or off the schedule may have added to the stiffness, but, you know, benefited other guys with the rest and all that. And so for us, we just have to test through it. And hopefully, you know, he doesn't feel any more pain and it settles down and we can get him back to a normal routine. But, yeah, so it's a weird thing where, you know, different injuries affect people different ways.

And for him, hopefully it's just back to normal routine, treatment, you know, playing his regular minutes. And it calms down, settles down. he's good to go the rest of the way. So how'd you spend yesterday? I know obviously he had some family and friends around. There were five different NBA games going on. Did you peek in on all of them, watch them religiously? What is it like for a coach on a non-Christmas?

Because you played before on Christmas, I'm assuming, or at least coached on one. So what's it like just kind of being a just a relaxing in front of the TV kind of guy? Yeah, I played in one myself and coached in several. And so obviously a different experience experience you want to get to as a coach. and we'd love our team to get on that stage eventually. But for me, it was, you know, open presence with my son. And then I went to the Ravens-Texans game. So I did a little bit of both, but caught a piece of every game in between.

Oh, it's your fault then for what the Texans did yesterday. All right, I see where the blame can go. I think it was Lamar Jackson's fault, probably more. Are you a Beyonce guy? Yes or no? Not really any more than any other partners, I guess, but I only wanted to see her. I was part of the reason we went, but I'm interested in the game until half time. It was not looking great.

Yeah, it didn't turn out very well at all. Hey, a thought or two about the road trip so far, and we went home for a couple days, but the Toronto game was emotional for, I think, Fred had actually played in his first time, and then you had the bounce back with him the next game against New Orleans. By the way, 62 to 31 half-time leads are never going to get old, are they? I think you're talking about the Charlotte game after. Oh, Charlotte, that's what I meant, yeah. Yeah, it was obviously, you know, to go back to a place you once to have me trips

and, you know, I had started up at undrafted and the boyfriend there. It was obviously a little bit emotional. But other guys have never really stepped up, and, you know, you made a shot late, but other guys stepped up and took care of business. Yeah, I'm going to get back against Charlotte as well, but, yeah, looking for, you know,

the carryover we had from our last war of this game and, you know, did well, you know, less than a week ago, and those will be talking to get back at it, but, you know, we like the consistency we've been showing for the most part. Great start at times, but also figuring out how we're going to try to tight games. We're going to try to call email back just a second.

We've got a little bit of a phone connection issue. We're going to get him in just a couple of seconds here, so we're going to put him on a hold. and try to call him back to the limit to finish the conversation again. Rockets tonight against New Orleans Pelicans. It'll be the launch pad at 6 o'clock. We'll have a pregame network joint at 6.30, and then at 7 o'clock, we'll have the tip here from New Orleans.

Rockets, by the way, with a semi-difficult back-to-back tomorrow night. They'll be home for the Minnesota Timberwolves. So tonight it's New Orleans. Tomorrow it's Minnesota. And we'll have both games right here on Sports Talk 790. And then on Sunday, the Miami he'll be in town. So even though the Rockets have had a pretty nice stretch. of some off time in between these games.

It's going to be three days and four nights, and EMA is back with us here. I was just telling the audience, coach, after having some little bit of time off to relax and kind of rejuvenate three games in four days and some good competition coming up, especially when you have with Minnesota the way they beat Dallas last night. Yeah, I think we had the odd scheduling for the most part, you know, around the end-season tournament and some days off. But now we'll get the, you know, games every other day. And the level of competition, we'll kick in.

But what I do like is that we have taken care of business against some of the lesser teams, and that's a sign of a good team. It's not having any flip-ups. I obviously need to continue that with New Orleans tonight. And then I've got some really good thing coming in and starting with Minnesota on the back-to-back tomorrow. Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston. So it's a really good schedule for us to measure ourselves and try to go in the right direction. I know Dillon is out for tonight as well.

Where are we on how he's feeling these days? It's literally day to day. You know, he needs a little bit of time in the scheduling. You've had the two days off in between, but you've had back-to-backs with Toronto and Charlotte. Obviously, he played great back home in Toronto. And then tonight and Minnesota doesn't give you a lot of time to rest in between. But literally day-to-day, he's got some shots up today,

has some soreness there. But I'll think that calms down as well, and he's back on the court in no time. You know, it feels like to me, that we've had a lot of back-to-backs this year as compared to maybe the last. last couple of years. I know the NBA, it's, look, just trying to schedule these things is tough. How much input does you as a coach, do the coaches association have about the number of back-to-back?

Because I know you're trying to squeeze in a bunch of time, but you want to give some guys some time off during the All-Star break. You want to give some time off during the in-season tournament. Does it feel like to you that maybe they've gone back to more of these three-game and four-night deals? And that could they be ultimately detrimental to some teams that are trying to fight through some injuries? Yeah, I felt like we got it pretty hard. Yeah, I think it always kind of balances out and people have a tough stretch throughout the season, but I think we may have on the high end of the back-to-backs,

and I think they give a little more leeway to some of the top-level teams, and so we have to work ourselves up to that level to not have as many back-to-backs, but it's just part of the season. Everybody wants to go through it, and what we've done so far this year, due to, you know, guys being in shape. Our health is a little bit of luck. obviously it's going to be pretty much injury-free.

That's a little things here and there, but compared to the rest of the year, I think we're going to do as far as that. And so we like that part about us. We like our depth that we can play several different guys and those back-to-backs made that affect us the same amount. So everybody has to go through them. The more you get us out and accomplish.

If we're nice back-to-backs, have good records in those instances, let me go through all forward. All right, last question for a let you run. We were having dinner last night with a family and my father-in-law who's always been a rocket fan, but it's been tougher to watch the team the last handful of years and obviously things have gotten a lot better. He's like,

he was telling me, he says, man, I love him in Thompson and what he does in terms of playing different positions. He's very tenacious defensively. He's a good ball handler. His shooting has gotten a lot better. Is he, I mean, among many things that you're very boastful about and

prideful about, his development, even from just last year, I feel like has been significantly improved. Tell me about what he's done in terms of becoming a guy that you've been able to rely on for more for shooting beyond the other things he already did before, he's all of a sudden become a much better scorer for you. Yeah, I think really the main thing with him was he got hampered by the health early in the year with the ankles that hurt in Summer League and then hurt the first 20-plus games of the seasons.

When he came back, you saw a rapid increase in his confidence, his game overall, and how he impacts the game for us and the versatility. And so now being healthy this season so far, he's had good carryover from last year, kind of hit the ground running as far as what he did toward the end of the season when he was starting a bunch when Alperin went out. And so it's good to see him take that second year jump. He's a meticulous worker on this specifically with his jump shot, tireless worker in general. And so it's a luxury for sure to have a guy like that that you can play every position offensively and defensively. And if somebody happens to be out, Dylan right now, you just plug him in and he can fill that hole. And so for us, his growth has been great.

One of our favorite players on the team, just the way he goes about his business every night. And the versatility brings to our team. So definitely an invaluable guy that's worked extremely hard, and he's reaping those rewards right now. And maybe you don't want to do this, but I think people as sports fans like to make comparisons to players. If you look ahead in his career, three, four, five years down the road, what do you think he could ultimately be? Is there a comp right now in the NBA that makes sense for who he is or what he can be? It's a hard one, honestly, because he's so unique in what he does.

There's not a lot of people that can play one through five and guard one through five and play both sides of the ball at every position. So, you know, has a point guard mentality and pushes the pace of one-man fast break, but also can guard threes, fours, fives, and everything in between. And so it's a tough one. And we love the uniqueness about him and what he brings to table. And so hard to say, honestly. I coach Ben Simmons in Philadelphia when he was rolling an all-NBA defensive player.

And he has a lot of those traits as far as being able to guard every position, push the pace, a one-man fast break in those things. But it's even tougher because Ben was a bigger guy and couldn't guard as well with the ones and twos as much. and obviously I'm in this locked down as far as that. Coach, thank you for the visit, as always. Happy holidays to you and your family. Congratulations on the Great Start. I like being in the number two spot in the Western Convincial Convinals.

Keep it that way, and good luck tonight against the Pelicans, and we'll see you at the arena later this evening. Gotcha. I appreciate it. All right, buddy. That's E. Medea Doca, joining us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.