Speaker 1: Is The Matt Thomas Show with Ross NBA Basketball. The
Rockets make their debut with Kevin Durant this evening here
in Oklahoma City. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross continues
here on seven ninety A man I miss who you
will be seeing a lot on Space City Home Network,
but tonight's game as an NBC is a man who's
company resting in his Houston area home, Ryan Holland, you
missed a great Habachi grill last night here.
Speaker 2: In no case, there's no way you did Habashi in
there's the way, Matt Thomas.
Speaker 1: Here's no way. You're right. I was just teasing you. Hey,
you are missed up here. The energy of an opening night.
You have been through ten of eleven of them in
your career as a player. Tell me what that's like
for guys, even the salty veterans like yourself.
Speaker 2: It's always different, you know, first day of training of camp,
first aid, a preseason, but the first regular season game
is always special. You got the energy in the building,
You're excited to be playing against somebody in the game
that counts, and you know you get to see what
your stars are made up. So the guys are gonna
leave it out there on the floor. And here's the
thing that's scary about playing Oklahoma City and the teams
that I've been on that have made late runs and
they're a championship, they're the champions, is you still have
a little bit of those juices left over. So Oklahoma
City is going to be a fine run machine tonight,
and it's gonna be a great test for Houston to
go out and see what our group is made up,
see what the big lineup looks like, see defensively how
you go at it. And Matt, I think the biggest
question tonight is how the rotation's gonna look. You know,
with Fred and the lineup, you knew what you were
gonna get. You knew, you know, fifteen pick and roll
up top with Alp, some Durant ISOs, some probably one
thirty five action with Durant popping and Shing Goon rolling
or on the weak side. But I think the big
challenge is tonight and Ema is going to have and
there's going to be broke through the season, is you
know who rolls out there, who plays well together? And
how do you get efficient offensively because it may come
down to execution and It's a real question of who
do you go through down the stretch. Clearly Kevin Durant,
But how do you think make things easy for him
and play off him and get the most out of
what our group brings to the table.
Speaker 1: Ryan, Tonight, we're going to see the jumbo lineup with
all the bigs. If you're emy Atdoka, when do you
want to use that? And when do you want to
go with the slightly small one that maybe inserting Shepherd
in the starting lineup and moving Adams out. When should
Rocket fans see that and not see it?
Speaker 2: Do you think well to go to the create health
for opposing teams? And the one thing that you know
is Oklahoma City goes essentially it will call chet Hongren
a guard. They'll go five out when hard and signs
off the floor, play dribble, drive offense, and they really
swarm you. They truly swarm you defensively, which is hard,
and you can do that when you're young. So I
think what May's saying is go small, We're gonna press you,
and we're gonna press you to stay big. And I'll
be honest, I don't think that's Oklahoma City's best offense.
Because Hartenstein's great down low, but you put in them
in situations where you get the ball out of shaves
hands and you got Hertenstein shooting floaters, which he's really
good at. But it's picked your poison. And now their
spacing goes away a little bit. And if they're gonna
throw Caruso at the five something they were great at. Uh.
You know when he played against Yo, Kitchen pressured him
and did a lot of those things. You know, you
got to punish him inside. So I'm pretty sure that's
the message is going to be sent home and the
pressure gets put on the opposing team, Matt to answer
your question of do we match up big with him?
Do we go small? And I've been on another side,
you get extremely uncomfortable. I remember playing the Golden State Warriors.
They roll up the small lineup, and all of a
sudden we'd be playing lineups that we've never played the
entire season, didn't know how to work with. So I
love what i May does and I think he's gonna
mix in back and forth shoot the last three season game,
I thought Reed Shepherd looked the best with the five
out offense and all smalls on the floor. He was excellent.
So you're getting to sample size of what our guys
can look like. And I think it differs from game
to game.
Speaker 1: Visiting with our friend Ryan Hollins of Space City Home Network,
and you will be catching him Friday when the Rockets
take on the Pistons inside Tota Center. So we we
all talked about before Fred's injury, right about Reed Shepherd's
increased role. Now, obviously Fred has done for the year.
How much did Reed's life change when he found out
that the ACL was gonna cost Fred the season?
Speaker 2: I think for Reed obviously a lot more pressure. We're
not going to hide it. And there's a reason he
was drafted third and I think you're gonna he's gonna
get his number Paul because of it. And I think
the best thing that we saw in that last preason game,
preseason game he could argue to have been the most
impactful of the season, is because Red just got confidence.
A guy knows how to play Matt. When we've talked,
none of us are off you two. None of us
have questioned if if he can play. But it's more
a question of Hey, him being confident, him taking those shots,
him defending, and and and Honestly, man, he brought a
lot of toughness to the table in that Atlanta game.
You know, Trey Young is not mentioning that's one of
the best guards we have to offer in the league,
and he out played him. Granted it's preseason, but he
brought it to the table. So hopefully that confidence can
shine through and he's gonna be thrown in the fire man,
He's gonna be tested. That's that's what he came to
the NBA for, all right.
Speaker 1: So a couple of things. Big picture, it feels like
the national folks have obviously dropped the Rockets down a
few slots because of Fred's injury. If everything goes right
this year, and let's say the Rockets are even better
than their fifty two win team of a year ago,
in your mind, what has gone right? And I'm gonna say,
if things haven't gone right for the Rockets, my guess
is larger because of the more than of the injury
bug than anything else. Correct.
Speaker 2: I think that's going right is the opportunity to step
in and play big like I've never seen anything like it, Matt.
The size and the depth that Houston has, the way
they can beat you in different waves. It's truly intimidating,
and you're going to have a player opposing team in
a mismatcher, uncomfortable with mismatches all across the floor. I
think everything goes right. We'd be saying championship like Kevin
Durant's too great, too late in his career and too
good to say that he'd be on a group this
talented that wouldn't have an opportunity. So everything clicks. That's
where you go. And I think the challenge now more
so than it was, and we just talked about it,
is just putting it together. But I do think that
this is a group that just looks special. Matt. You
know when you see special teams. We saw that ninety
five Rockets team, Like they look special, they have weapons.
You're going like this, this group has enough. And you
know as a player, when you got enough and when
you don't, and this group has it.
Speaker 1: Got more minutes here with Ryan Hollins a Space City
Home Network. I have been asked who's the not necessarily breakout,
but maybe most improved. I'm going with Jabari Smith on
that particular category. Is that a good selection or is
there somebody else that you think could even make even
bigger strides from year to year.
Speaker 2: Come on, Matt, he stopped playing with me. That's unanimous.
He's just as tall as I am, if not taller,
which is freakish. He's put on at least five pounds
of muscle, five to ten pounds of muscle. Matt that
we can see and forget all of that like his confidence,
and he's in the most ideal situation you could be in.
You know, he can look over at his childhood idle
Kevin Durant and say, I want to do everything you do,
you know, And Durant is going to be able to
speak a confidence into Jabbari that nobody else can. And
you've seen it already. He knows the shots he's supposed
to take. He's holding himself to a different bar and standard,
and he can watch KD and say, Okay, this is
what it should look like. You know, you're watching those
guys in pregame warm ups and workouts, mirror each other
and work out. So I think I'm astatic for Jabari.
We've seen it already. I think there's even more to
come because he's already a confident guy. He already believes.
But it's different when you have some in the show.
It Kevin Garnett did it for me, so I can
speak to that firsthand. Uh. And and even more exciting
for what Jabbari is gonna be able to learn. And
and clearly he was, I mean he was heading shoulders
the best rocket in the preseason. But whatever that means,
I think it meant a lot.
Speaker 1: All right, let me let you go on this. Give
me one or two teams. The West is so ridiculously loaded.
Who are you going to pay attention to more than
anybody else this year? If I said, hey, keep your
eyes on teams that may be a threat of the Rockets,
who would you go with? Are the one or two
teams that would be in the way of a potential
West championship.
Speaker 2: I think Denver got a perfect hitting Cam Johnson that
that's that's crazy because he moves off to basketball. Uh,
he's healthy. Uh, that's a role that in a spacer
and cutter off the ball that's made perfect for him,
and he can defend, and he brings a lot of
size to the to the table. Uh. I think that's
a huge fit.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, man, I'm intriguing with Winby. He's kind
of doing some things where you know, you like to
rule out San Antonio. But we've seen this with Oklahoma City,
We've seen this in Cleveland. When those young players get
good out of nowhere, when they have one of those
mega summers and they get better, your force has an
organization to make a move to put pieces around them.
They got Darren Bopps. We'll see how that plays out
when he's fully healthy. But Wimby's doing some things that
you know, I think we all have to keep our
eye on. And you know, I can't wait to see
Wimby with his hot size well against the biggest team
in basketball in the Houston Rockets. So that's something I
got my eye on.
Speaker 1: Ryan. Thank you for the time. It's always my friend.
We'll see you Friday. Hope you're Chipper in a good
moved because hopefully we're gonna be celebrating a one to
h start for this season.