Paulo Alves

I think it might be disproportionately good for the Rockets compared to other teams, but it shouldn't be a defining thing on our season.

If you stuck it out till the end, tweet at me how many steals will Reed Shepard have if he played a game against CJ Stroud.

Welcome to the Rockets LaunchPod, as always presented by Clutch Fans and with support from Sports Talk 790, the official flagship radio station of your Houston Rockets.

As always, we are your host.

I'm Ben DuBose.

He's Paolo Alves.

You can follow me on social media at Ben DuBose and Paolo at PaoloAlvesNBA.

And you can also read my work at USA Today's RocketsWire and over on the Clutch Fans blog.

So today is Friday, the 9th of January.

Happy New Year to everyone listening.

This is our first full show since the calendar flipped to 2026.

So I think we're allowed to say that, at least I hope we are.

Unfortunately, it has not been a great start to the new year for the Rockets.

Though they've been a moderate to heavy favorite in each of the four games they played, we had mentioned in the previous pod that this is a very favorable part of the schedule, but the Rockets are just 2-2 in the four games they played to date, and they're also going to be without star big man Alperin Shugun for at least a few more days because he sprained his right ankle.

This week, the Rockets have had two games go right down to the wire.

In one case, they had the basketball gods smiling upon them.

In the second case, they did not.

Monday against the Suns, Kevin Durant hit the dagger three with a second left.

But then Wednesday in Portland, what would have been a game-winning tip shot by Tari Eason was determined on replay review to have been a split second after the buzzer.

So the Rockets took a one-point loss.