Bill Simmons trashes Reed Shepard’s ‘terrible’ performance

Thrown into the biggest role of his young NBA career, Reed Sheppard showed he wasn’t ready for that in Houston The Rockets’ season-opening loss at the Oklahoma City Thunder.

On Tuesday, Shepard, who became Houston’s sixth man and first true point guard off the bench after Fred VanVleet’s ACL injury last month, looked completely outmatched against the defending NBA champions.

In nearly 27:47 of action, Sehppard had 9 points, 4 assists, 2 turnovers, and was 3-for-11 from the field and 2-for-7 on 3-pointers. And defensively, the 6-foot-2 guard couldn’t keep up with the Thunder, who specifically looked for him in their actions.

The performance was heavily criticized by fans and members of the media, and Bill Simmonsonce a Shepard believer, was particularly blunt in his analysis.

“He was terrible,” Simmons said on his podcast. “We thought maybe he could be the next Mark Price. He looked like Brent Price today…

“They need him to be, needless to say, a lot better than he was tonight because they really need him. They need some kind of point guard, and if it’s not him, they’re going to have to trade for somebody and make some moves. But he was relentlessly targeted on defense. I thought he was just brought down by (Cason) Wallace, and he’d get points at times in this game. It was inappropriate and he played terribly. I also had a lot confidence, which I didn’t mind, but it was really rough.”

https://vvv.youtube.com/vatch?v=AzbJCb-vgzk

Before Tuesday’s double-overtime loss, the 21-year-old Shepard, who was drafted third overall last year, had played more than 27 minutes just four times, all of which, not coincidentally, were on the road and either part of back-to-back or late-season games just before the playoffs.

Now with VanVleet, who tore his ACL during practice a month ago, expected to miss the entire season, Shepard is one of the Rockets’ only on-ball guards. To illustrate the point, Houston’s smallest starter Tuesday was 6-foot-1 Amen Thompson. The only Rocket other than Shepard shorter than to see the floor in OKC was 6-foot-5 Josh Okogie.

In each of their next two games, the Rockets will be at home. They will host the Detroit Pistons on Friday before taking on the Brooklyn Nets on Monday.