Ben DuBose

to lift you to where you can be more than the sum of the parts.

Like, you don't have that individual transcendent guy to just lift you in big spots and steal wins.

If the Rockets are going to win a championship in this era, it's going to have to be on fit, on chemistry.

Things are going to have to be in alignment.

And with Ime Udoka, we know he's a defensive-oriented coach.

Well, it's difficult to play Shingun and Reed Shepard together.

Tari Eason's defense, as you mentioned, has slipped this season.

And I think a lot of it, he just doesn't look healthy to me, Paolo.

Like, I think, you know, when he tried to ramp back up from the oblique in December, he had the issue with the lower left leg.

If you watch him on the bench during games, he's still icing it all the time.

I think the ankle sprain he suffered to the other leg, it's the lower left leg that he's had issues with the last two years, and then he sprained the ankle on his right leg that he's had on-again, off-again issues with for the last couple of months.

Now that he doesn't have a good leg to stand on,

We didn't necessarily notice it at first because he was making an absurd amount of threes.

Well, now that the inevitable regression to the mean has hit, then the defensive lapses stand out a lot more.

And considering it's a multi-year injury, at least with the lower left leg, you do have to wonder what it means long term.

Because just by the eye test, he doesn't look as athletic or springy as he did a couple of years ago.

Certainly not as a rookie before he had any of these issues.

So if you want to maximize your parts with Emei Udoka, you need to give him the pieces to be a very good defensive team.

Like we heard his postgame comments after that Spurs game talking about needing to find an identity, needing to find...

that dog.