[5-19-2015] Daryl Morey on the Doug Gottlieb Show

redhotrox · May 19, 2015

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DG: Daryl, thanks so much for taking time. Before you joined us I read the Adrian Wojnarowski story, which he said Pat Beverley has given up hope of playing in this series. Can you confirm that?

DM: Yeah I mean, I don’t know if hope’s the right word, but we did not think he was going to play the whole playoffs from the get-go. That’s what the doctors told us, so. He’s such a warrior, he was trying, but that’s not going to work.

DG: Do you think there’s any hope that he can play if you guys are fortunate enough to make it to the Finals?

DM: Not according to what we know. I mean, he does call himself Wolverine, so he may have healing powers I don’t know about, but unfortunately we’re not planning on him being back.

DG: I’m watching game one of the second round and the Clippers don’t have Chris Paul and they kind of ran you out of your own building. What was so off about the team? What went so wrong early on? Especially game one in the series.

DM: That was very disappointing. I think it was something we rallied around later, it’s just how unprepared our guys came out. I can’t explain it. Sometimes you have up and down performances, it was very disappointing to have it in the playoffs. But I think it was a way the coaches could rally the guys and say hey let’s not let that happen again.

DG: So what happened, down 3-1 did you call a meeting? Did anyone, did Kevin call a meeting? Like what changed when you guys were down 3-1 and it looked so bleak?

DM: Kevin’s not a big ‘call a meeting’ guy. He’s big on, ‘if you’re going to win this thing you got to be a professional.’ All our guys our expected to be professionals and we assumed that’s the case. And sometimes it doesn’t go that way with every team, but most of the time that’s true and he said, “Look, this is your team, this is your legacy.” Teams have come back from 3-1, Coach McHale has come back from 3-1, he talked about how he had done it and you know our guys rallied around it.

DG: If I were to tell you, though, that you’d back from 19 down with 2:30 to go in the third quarter on the road in game 6, down 12 in the fourth quarter mostly without James Harden, without Donatas Motiejunas, without Patrick Beverley and you’re going to do this on the road against the Clippers at relatively full strength. Again, Harden not playing, what would you have said?

DM: Yeah, no, I would not have expected that. But I’ve been up 17 with six minutes to go in Chicago in a key game and lost, so it goes the other way too sometimes. Our guys got in a rhythm, they fought all year. We had two very bad losses toward the end of the year to the Spurs that knocked us out of the two seed and we knew going into our final three or four games we had to win them all to get the two seed and our guys rallied around that. And this series here coming up, nobody gives us a shot, everyone’s picking Golden State in three games, so I think once again our guys are rallying around the, you know, they like the pressure, they like being backed into a corner a little bit.

DG: Okay, so people are picking Golden State in three games? Like, eliminate the fourth win?

DM: That was an attempt at humor, Doug.

DG: Okay, I got it, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t something that you announced. Like hey, if it’s 3-0, we’re just not even going to come out and play the fourth game.

DM: My humor’s very British…

DG: No, no, it is dry, I sensed a little Ricky Gervais to you, I really, really did. So, Mark Cuban tweeted, I don’t know if you saw it, I know you’re active on Twitter, “Congrats to the Rockets, gotta admit I was wrong. A lot of guys stepped up. Congrats @dmorey.” You guys have famously gone back and forth, does this validate everything you’ve done, or do you have to win this series to validate what you’ve done in Houston?

DM: Well, I’m always waiting for Mark to validate what we’ve done, so that’s been big. No, you know all our goals are internal. We wanted home court in the West, we wanted to defend – last year we learned our lesson and didn’t advance out of the first round. We wanted to advance deep in the playoffs and once you’re in that final four group it’s just like the NCAA, you’ve got a shot. The true title contenders are really the final four that are standing in the middle of May and that’s where we’re at. Mark and I are friends. He and I have to fight over free agents and sometimes we get in a back and forth but other than that he does a great job.

DG: Vegas has you at 10.5 point dogs tonight. 10.5 point dogs, that is a class Rodney Dangerfield “No respect.” You should wear like a red tie and like not all the way up to the neck, take off the top button, and like a gray suit like Rodney Dangerfield and see if anybody gets it.

DM: (laughs) No one will anymore. I’m too old now, nobody will know his old stand-up routines unfortunately. I remember them!

DG: Dwight Howard, it feels like he’s America’s punching bag, like game four, he got thrown out of game four. Barkley likes to have fun at his expense. Of course we know Shaq likes to have fun, especially at his expense. Fans in LA, when you pick sides between Kobe or Dwight everybody picks Team Kobe. As somebody who’s been with him through this kind of journey, what’s he been like through this whole thing?

DM: He’s been fantastic. I find in my career all these guys with sort of maybe some reputations coming in that people are trying to put on them that aren’t good, we had Ron Artest here in Houston and he was fabulous with us, Dwight Howard’s been unbelievable. Josh Smith is another good example. I credit Coach McHale big time in a lot of these in that he really tries to get the most out of his players. He knows the team is really a bunch of players, he doesn’t try to make himself the story and I think that always hurts him in COY and things like that. Because he’s not doing anything fancy out there. What he’s doing is saying hey I’m going to get these guys in a position to succeed, and make them believe in themselves, and make them believe in owning the team, and leading it from the player perspective like he had when he was a player. It really resonates with guys like Josh Smith and Dwight Howard and everyone we have.

DG: When Josh Smith shoots a three, what are you thinking?

DM: Hey, if he’s stepping into that and there’s nobody around him, that’s a good shot.

DG: Okay, because there are times, like, the Clippers were daring him to shoot. The two big three’s he hit in game six they were daring him to shoot. Early in game seven they were daring him to shoot. He took some early in the series and missed them and you could hear those Atlanta-like groans from the crowd, so you as general manager, you –

DM: I actually think half of his issues shooting, because he can shoot the ball, is people didn’t believe in him. I mean he was at open war with a lot of coaches over his life. And I’m going all the way back to when he was younger that did not want him to shoot that shot. And I think it was because they saw how talented he was at everything else. And it was almost like he wanted to shoot it more because no one believed in him. And here it’s part of our offense, part of our system. It keys opening up the lane, it keys everything and I think part of the reason he’s shooting it well here is because we believe in him and he knows when it’s a good shot in our offense and he takes it and makes it.

DG: You guys like to play up and down. That seems to play into the hands of Golden State. In terms of styles and matchups do you guys have a favorable matchup to which you feel like you could legitimately win this series?

DM: Yeah, I mean I think Dwight Howard’s the best big in the series for sure. Obviously more debatable but I think James Harden’s the best perimeter guy in the series. So I think we got two strengths there. Obviously they’ve got an extremely deep, extremely tough team, but we think we’re deep as well. I agree with you on style. Our styles are similar. They were definitely better than us in the regular season. And that’s why they play the games in the playoffs. We feel like we can match up with them. Our team has not really played theirs. More than half our minutes are coming from different guys than when we played them in the regular season, so it’s going to be a fun series. It’s going to be a different ball game we think.

DG: If you were in charge, after watching two teams that could hack-a-Jordan, hack-a-Howard, or hack-a-Josh Smith, what side do you favor in terms of keeping the rule as is, changing it to having to have the ball in your hands, where are you in the hack-a-whomever discussion?

DM: Well, I think it’s pretty simple. I think it’s bad for the game. Obviously the game’s about the fans. No one wants to see that. When Naismith was originally conceiving basketball, he did not have free throws as part of it, he had to add free throws because it was a penalty to get you to stop hitting the other guy while he was shooting. You know, so it’s a penalty. If the penalty’s not working, if it’s more advantageous to engage the penalty you put in the rules then you need to change the penalty, so I’m strongly for changing the rule.

DG: Alright well listen, best of luck in your three game series against the Golden State Warriors. Good luck against Golden State and thanks for always joining us and being a good sport.

DM: Thanks for having me on Doug, appreciate it.
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redhotrox · May 19, 2015

Posted a Morey interview yesterday that also got crickets. Guess I'll stop bothering with these if nobody GAF. :grin:

Disciple of RP · May 19, 2015

Nah, thanks man. Read the whole thing. Repped

napalm06 · May 19, 2015

I read it. It was interesting, but all expected.

I like that Morey is anti hack rule. It's bad for the game, and a "purist" argument can't be made for it.

professorjay · May 19, 2015

I appreciate it, thanks!

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[5-19-2015] Daryl Morey on the Doug Gottlieb Show

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