Ben DuBose

Because that's typically manageable.

And I do think, like, there's some little things the Rockets can do, like between the loss to the Warriors and then the comeback win they had over the Blazers.

I love the increased role of Amin Thompson on Friday night.

I think a lot of what's gone wrong for the Rockets this year, they've been way too dependent on KD and Shingoon.

in high leverage spots to where the other young guys are hesitant.

They aren't as aggressive.

If they have a mismatch, they're not seeking it out.

They are too differential.

I would love to see Imei empower those young guys, most notably Amin Thompson and Reed Shepard.

It's not so much just Reed's start, how many minutes does he play, it's how does he play in those minutes.

And I do think there's a window where late in close games in the fourth quarter, your young guards in Reed Shepard and Amin Thompson can do more than they've done over the first quarter.

63 games the first three quarters of the season i guess this is our three-quarter review pod as the season winds down but my point is that you know i feel like denver's close enough to where we can have those conversations and at least there's a path we can have fun and talk about hey like if he made a joke that makes this change um maybe things are completely different

It doesn't feel to me like the San Antonio matchup is that close.

Like I saw some people saying, you know, were the Rockets holding back some things for the playoffs against the Spurs?

Maybe, but you can just easily argue that the Spurs were holding things back for a playoff matchup against the Rockets.

It just looks to me like those two teams are in different weight classes, primarily because of Wemby.

Jokic is the best player in the world, but I don't know that he's necessarily the same mismatch for the Rockets that Wemby is.

And so because of that, I don't know.

Maybe it changes with Aaron Gordon, but my impression is that the Rockets... Maybe there's some back-to-back factors that make this one especially tricky, but...

Just on paper, I think the Nuggets are a little bit firmly over matchup.