Skip & Shannon react to OKC forcing GM 7 against Rockets, Westbrook's ugly return | NBA | UNDISPUTED

Russell Westbrook hasn't been himself since

return

ing to the Rockets. He was able to score 17 last night in Game 6 after just seven in his Game 5

return

, but this time it was in a losing effort, just two with less than 10 seconds left. Westbrook led made a bad pass that went out of bounds and led to okc ball winning by four and

forcing

a game seven. Shannon Did Russell Westbrook lose the game for the Rockets? I think we have to give credit to Chris Paul for wanting his team to win.

skip

ping the fourth quarter was magnificent and we would give a lot of guys credit for a midrange game, but chris paul gets to that elbow, you're in trouble, uh, he did a number against Covington, he had a three in coverage. the jump back to the fourth, yeah, it was a good try, although brother got the skill of James Harden.

I think the thing is for Chris Paul, we get it, we know what he does, you know, he jumps when it comes to him, he's president of the NBA Players Association, but I think he brings that same mentality to his team, yeah , and jump, they don't have first of all, I'm trying, I'm still watching them play, I think: how the hell are you all in the playoffs when you really look at them like a man

skip

they have nothing to do there are no playoffs they are no better they're no better than uh portland portland should have a better record when you look at dame cj you look at whiteside you look at mello there's no way that has to be chris paul he's not playing wait wait a minute gallinari schroeder ruined gil just alexander damn stop play there's some talent man stop playing not so hey steven adams is a pretty believable big man there's no one you're up against on that team for cj and ma'am, well you could argue with chris paul, but chris paul for cj, no damn did you hear chris paul talk about schroeder after the game he has that dog i want to go to war with him yeah i said schroeder is a sixth man he just lights you up. plays so hard it's electric, but Chris Paul, what he was able to do in the fourth quarter with those 15 important points, he was perfect from the three-point line when his teammates were struggling, he found a way to get the ball in his the hands get into place they put the ball in the bucket, let's look russ is trying to come back he's trying to come back to conditioning and he turned the ball over now he played better from an offensive standpoint than he did in the game before his The first game when he had three or 13 years old he didn't play particularly well yesterday, those turnovers really hurt, especially the last one probably doomed him in the ball game, well probably yes, but I still mean you have to catch him now that he's trying to recover, remember.

How Trez looked in his early games, he didn't look like the treasures that Russ had left, he doesn't look like the guy he was before he got injured, so you have to keep that in mind, people think that, oh, if you get hurt, it's great. he'll just come back and pick up where he left off, that's not how he works in professional sports, so I want to give credit to Chris Paul instead of just blaming Russ. Russ didn't play well, but in the fourth quarter he played Chris Paul. Galinari, amazing, made some big shots down the stretch, but I think the biggest thing they missed is they kept James Harden off the foul line and we said, well, James Hardy still shot eight, he normally shoots 18.

And I think that's the key. For the Rockets, they are going to make some shots, but you can't get discouraged. Covington hits some big threes. James Harden is at the bell. He jumps a step back almost out of bounds. discouraged and when the

rockets

had the ball up at six with like three minutes left, I thought, man, this is over and the next day you know they failed and here comes Chris Paul dancing, he's dancing and they win the ball game, but instead. to blame russ i think we should highlight chris paul i have tried my whole career to love russell

westbrook

because he plays so hard on every play sometimes too much you can argue last night too much trying to do too much trying to take over the game when i have a running mate which is pretty good.

This guy became an afterthought last night. I'm going to give a lot of credit to Chris Paul because you're right, he wanted his team to get this win, but the door was left open again. and over and over again by russell west brick, who i have called before and he will turn into

westbrook

when you least expect it and at least need him and he turns into that hell on wheels whirling dervish, i'm good. Get out of my way, I'm going to do it all and it's hard to win basketball games against a good team, well-coached teams, play as hard as you do, it's hard to win as a soloist and he only knows how to act solo. in a good way for the most part he plays ego manic basketball and as you know it's a team game and when you're only 6'3 it's hard for you to be just a solo act and in the end I still wonder , I wonder every night I see him, if he will play for him or for them, if he will play to win it or, ultimately, it is about this that for three consecutive years in Oklahoma City as a soloist he averaged a triple double. yes, that's absurd, they're impos, we thought it was impossible, yes, we thought the big goal was no, no way, no way, and he did it three years in a row because he played much harder than everyone else, chasing 50 50 rebounds off loose balls, yes, and he did it. his head, oh, if I get to the cup and at the last second I give it to Stephen Adams, I get an assist and they start piling up and I can average 10 assists and I can lead the league in scoring and assists, but last night it turned towards russell east west north and south creek because he's going in every direction at once at a thousand miles an hour his body seems to be completely out of control it seemed like he was out of control out of control without any plan and obviously if you leave your feet in the basketball with the ball in your hands and you don't have a plan bad things are going to happen because if your feet come back down you travel and at the last second you say I should do what I don't know what to do so I'll just throw it out of bounds, what basically happened on the last play, so before we get to the last play I'm going to say this because this is what I slept on and what this game left me with.

I've been rooting for these guys all year because incredibly Russ and James love each other so much because they're both Southern California kids from the Los Angeles area right where we're sitting right now that for once they respected each other so much that they would differ, they would take turns , um, they would happily take turns, where they seem carefree, maybe behind the scenes they are doing it, I don't know, but they seem to have done it pretty well. and they still got 44 and 28, which tied with guess who was the thunder and I didn't see the thunder coming I thought they were building I thought they were exactly they had a stockpile of draft options and I felt like Houston finally came up on cp3 because he's always hurt, he always does something at the worst time, big time, we're up three to one on Golden State in the 2018 conference finals and he hurts his hamstring in games six and seven and you're out.

Then it felt like Daryl Moore in Houston the general manager finally said I can't take this anymore. I can't trust your health. I'm going to go with Westbrook because he and James are close and obviously grew up together in Oklahoma City and neither. just right and I'll send you to that last outpost, it's my hometown, Oklahoma City, so I can say that, but it felt like they sent you to NBA Siberia, you're there with the thunder and there's nothing left. in the closet up there all the stars are going because remember they traded Paul George, they did that too, so they had Durant and Harden and they had Russ and Paul Georgia.

Now it looked like CB3 or bust, right? more and he's been on a mission all year to prove them wrong and he led this league in what's called decisive points which is just impossible he's only like six feet tall yeah and he did it he's the To the best of my ability, I can argue from start to finish that it was the best year of his career and last night you can argue that it was the best playoff game of his career because as far as you say, he just took charge, he did it, but I still say The door was left open and my biggest point about the Rockets right now is that I think they would have been better in this series if he hadn't come back now, if they win this series and make it to your team, you need stars against stars.

You need star power, you need James and Russ against Lebron and I'm just not saying I'd pick them to win, but you need magnitude, you need two guys that aren't afraid of the other two because it's a star power game. in the end, but this is a coach's game, this is a defensive fight, this is whose will will prevail and in this game, do you realize what happened without Russell Westbrook? Do you realize that in the first three games they had them dead? It should have been three to zero, not three to zero, you could argue when they went back to the overtime game, right, okay, okay, remember they basically beat them in the first two games, right, that's not rusty at all, right, just james, me, james and the

rockets

are the rockets because they play tough defense, they will play in a small zone, but they will play tough man to man and they will steal the ball and they will interrupt you and they will get up at you and they will chase you the way we .

We're going to talk about the Miami Heat in a minute, but they play like the Heat, they play defense, but in the end they won the third game. Daniel House goes to the free throw line and if he makes the second free throw, I think. They're going to win and he missed it so the game was tied and then Chris Paul did a little bit of reverse up and down and left it a little short when the buzzer sounded and it went to overtime and Oklahoma City beat him in overtime , OK? What happens if Daniel House makes the second free throw and it's three to nothing?

Yeah, well, I think the Rockets are going to be fine. So the fourth game was pretty close, but they led the Rockets by 108 107 with 141 remaining and lost that game. stretches well, here Russ comes back for game five and six and nothing good is happening because let's see last night you said you thought it was over for a second, yeah, okay, 419 left in this game, that's a six point lead and rockets have the ball, can you carry that house? you have james and russ, right, two stars, right to one star on the other side, good team on the other side, right, but you have two to one, can the two mesh together? figure out how to bring this one home, well James goes down and misses a fairly contested three and then Russ recovers the next possession and misses a layup, okay so CP3 to his credit, first he steals the ball from James, that's in 2 33, then Eric Gordon. he misses a three and then cp3 comes back and steals it from Russ so he has two huge steals and in the meantime you know what's going on he hits the two dancing threes that you talked about and now we're at it let's look at this real quick , this is the final stretch, so russell westbrook does something good on the last 419, he takes it home with the right handed power layup and then he stops, yeah, 109. and he stops to beat his chest about it and Tell me, look at me, I did it, and he benched it and he's not quick to defend and Schroeder isn't quite ready and Schroeder just walks past him and shoots a basket because he's so focused on me.

I did it well. It's not enough and the game suddenly tied again and then he goes down on the next possession and goes up and shoots but he missed by two feet, yeah he wouldn't close it's a west brick that's terrible it takes the heart out to your team. And he left them with a short clock and James has a contested three on the clock and he misses it a lot and now that brings us to the last possession, so Chris makes his two free throws give him more power because he can do that well, OK? help me on this last possession please you have James Harden who may be by all accounts as unstoppable an offensive threat as we have ever seen perhaps in the history of the game is there a better one on one player than James Harden now?

No, I don't think so, you can argue sometime on the perimeter, right, Jordan was better, Kobe is better all over the court, but I'm talking about as a perimeter player, he can, it's just, it's hard to deal with him because he can do two things, he can step back and he can pass and shoot with either hand, yeah, and he has a great slide in the rain to the lane to, slowly, follow me going to the free throw line, you're going to make them because it's a 90 free throw shooter, so what were they doing? Russ takes the ball down the court and James goes and tries to choose well, but it's a disaster, it's like a traffic jam of bodies in the middle of the court. and russ realizes that chris paul has completely moved away from pj tucker, who goes completely to the other corner, just takes him to the right, so you could have had that opportunity all day, you have three open to win.

I'm thinking, I'm looking. this play plays out if you look and i'm thinking they're going to pick chris paul and then he's going to meet russ in the hoop. He immediately goes to covington because he knows that's what russ wants to do and russ throws him first,I thought he had interrupted Russ, yes, but I mean, Chris did that, he did it all, he kind of protected the whole play, if you look at him, he immediately takes his lid off, he didn't hesitate, I understood. during that whole play from the beginning because remember it was originally on PJ Tucker who comes to the near corner on the right and just camped there and says you're not passing the pajamas well I guess he just said no I'm going to do that yeah because they're Russell Westbrook and James Harden and one of those two guys is going to shoot, so you start the play and you have Shea Gil, only Alexander is with Russ coming up the court and then there's a guy. of a weak pick by James Harden, who is not exactly a pick artist, right, is that what he does no and they said after the game, that's the d'antoni said that's what they wanted to do, what is it?

Russ, are they going to switch men because Dort was originally on James Right, who is pretty strong and solid as a rookie out of Arizona? Well, I'm looking at him to play Covington, I had him since I was three, yeah, so I think Covington was going to take that last shot now I don't know if I want to go to jail what's the plan because why did Harden choose Russ why not? he did it he didn't even drop the voucher if russ if or hardened picks he drops the heart ball okay but he doesn't even look at Harden he says pick him he's already decided he's throwing this ball back to Covington well It seemed like he realized that Chris Paul is in my way and I have nowhere to go, plus it's traffic. jam of bodies in the lane, yeah, there was no lane for him to get the right shape and again, Russell only has six threes, so he can't go up to the rim and just own the rim, I think in a situation like That one, I want to jump.

James Harden will have the ball in his hand from the last position and he will have to do it with that little time he has left on the right. He will have to dribble the ball. I will do that. I won't do it. I want James Harden to have the ball in his possession. and that's not a knock on russ because russ is also a former mvp, but in a situation like that i want james harden to have the ball and i need james to make a more concerted effort to get the ball in one of those final three possessions so he doesn't have the ball in his hands and I'm not just talking about skipping that save you mentioned, he shot a late shot clock, you know, try it, I know I need him to have the ball with some time in his hand.

I'm going to trust him, he'll make the right play or he'll get fouled. I need James Harden to do that. Um Russ last night and sometimes Russ realizes that he's out of control. He jumps, he tries to do too much. He is a great player. but sometimes you can do too much, we didn't need it in that situation, jump up to be Hercules, let someone else help you, lift something and I thought in that situation he got caught in the middle, he came out of the selection and he said he was okay, let me give it back to Covington and Covington said okay, but I'll give it to Chris Paul.

Well, he didn't even kick the pact that he kicked, he kicked him out because he didn't have a plan. Me, Chris Paul. He finished that play from the jump because skip, run like you said, uh, pj tucker is going to camp in the left corner, yeah, and he says, man, they're not going to pass you this ball, don't let me go just in case. try to get there I'm going to interrupt him but I'm going to go yeah this is awesome jump he leaves immediately he goes to covington he knows what's going on so clearly they've run this play before and cp3 diagnosed it and he immediately goes to covington and gets the turnover He's obviously been playing, so he knows that yes, his mentality on these plays is exactly two tones correct, but I look at the score and once again the Rockets made 15 threes to only 12 for Oklahoma.

City and usually when that happens you're fine, you're right in the thick of it and they did it. They had a chance to win, but it's hard to beat seven Russell Westbrook turnovers. Bye Harden, they had 22. But here's the thing. This is what can't happen if you are a team with a lot of rotation, they can't hit you against the glass and since they are so small, they are the tallest guys, probably Covington in which six seven six eight, yes, they are going to lose the battle of rebounding, what if you weren't terrible? They lost, but jump if you lose that and you turn the ball over 20 times, yeah, because what you're doing is allowing the team, first of all, you're allowing them to do it.

You got a second chance, uh, chances and you're giving up easy, you're giving up free possessions because you're not even getting the shot at the rim, yeah, so now you're twice as much, you're doing twice as much damage to yourself, But I'm still taking the rockets in game seven, okay? You want a piece of the rockets, that's what you want, oh, there you go, well, you skip it, I'll do it, whoever I say, the rockets get you They would give a test much harder than thunder, thunder. It's going to be exposed like Portland was exposed where they're playing over their heads and Chris Paul, who maxed out last night.

I don't know if you can play a better fourth quarter in attack and defense than the one he played. Give him credit. Jump, remember. game, which five lost by 43 and somehow regrouped that team, yeah, and at the end of the game they found a way to come back and win that's chris paul, that's not the coach, that's chris paul, that's the coach on the court, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, so what's your wait, you're trying to say, oh yeah, so what you're saying, the rock is going to beat the Lakers, I just think it would be interesting, interesting, yeah , because they play much better defense than the one you have given. they give them credit all year long now they are credible on defense and i never thought i would say that about a coach d'antoni team because it is really coach and tony there is no d in tony they don't do it so what are they going to do with what?

Are they going to do with AD? what are you going to do? what they do. Let him defeat himself. Oh, you really let him beat himself as the white side of the nurse's deal. You know what Covington will have problems with. He would give her trouble. Alright? If you put kim in covington, who is going to do anything? He is a totally defensive player, you understand, right? He is not totally defensive to play in six, ten and a half, yes, and the other thing they do, They will switch to the zone and Te will play a lot in the zone, he will be all over the place, it will be a crazy fight and you can't find anyone and Lebron will get to the middle and throw it and Javel McGill will have like 12 dunks.

Okay, who's going to stop James? Who's going to stop Russ from getting to the basket? Okay, so it sounds to me like you're trying to propose a bet to me. All he needs is for them to have four hot three-point shooting games, that's all. I need and that's it, so what do we have four hot shooting games? Well, you're going to need them, no, oh, we're going to need them, we need four sets of hot shooting, uh, I think the rockets could take you at least seven. games and the other team will finish quickly maybe five maybe Oklahoma City can win a game maybe okay we'll see what happens tomorrow night and then maybe we can make a little bet okay game seven is a big one legacy for Russell Westbrook after last night's disaster and if you look back at his playoff run, he needs to rise and shine in game seven.

Well, he hasn't been very good in elimination games. He didn't thank you for seeing you. You can subscribe here to get the latest from the show and be sure to see more of

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