Speaker 1: So twelve thirty one on Sports Shock seven ninety The
Matt Thomas Show with Ross. I'm here in New York City,
Ross back and Houston Rockets and Knicks. Tomorrow night. You
can catch the game right here on seven ninety beginning
at seven thirty. If you are watching on television, you
will see the game on channel thirteen ABC, where the
Man will be calling the game alongside Mike Breen will
be with us now a first time guest of the show,
and I mean absolute no brainer when ESPN decided to
make a change in their booth to have Tim Langler
as a number one game caller. Tim, It's Matt and Ross.
Thank you so much for coming on Legs. How are
you this morning? And thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm great. How are you guys doing. I'm doing
very well. Looking forward to tomorrow night Man Madison Square Gardens,
Saturday Night ABC Primetime Rockets next. Doesn't get much better
than that. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I want to say, first of all,
I'm so happy that ESPN made the decision. I thought
you and Scott on your on the Sports Center at
night really had a terrific chemistry. Take us through that
show because look, your parent network, it's so much, so
good at so many things, but some things people go, eh,
I can give it or take. But that diconomy of
the Sports Center with Van Beltpel yourself when you were
doing it was was kind of almost like musty television
after any big NBA sporting events.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know what, we really hit our
stride because Scott and I have known each other a
long time. We have a great friendship, so our chemistry
is pretty natural. And what we were able to kind
of provide was that that breakdown, that breakdown with touchscreen
telestrations trying to make people smarter what they just watched
became very very popular. A lot of people connected with
that because you know the game ends, you want to
find out And I think what I tried to do
every night and sitting there watching the games with Scott
and then knowing I'm going to go on the air,
was I was always trying to find you know, that nugget,
hidden nugget within the game that I knew was like
really important to why the outcome happened the way that
it did, and maybe people watching didn't know it was
that important. And that's what I was always trying to
look for. Scott was the perfect person to sort of
find that with because he loves basketball. He's he's an
incredible studio host. It has to cover all sports, but
that guy loves basketball, and so those segments I think
kind of brought that out. Two guys that love hoops,
that love talking about the game, and were able to
sit down and break it down afterwards and make you smarter.
Speaker 1: Tim, I love basketball. I'm the proud voice of the team.
You have been in the league as an analyst, as
a longtime NBA player yourself, and we were talking about
this very early in our show today. For as wonderful
as the sport is, and this is going to go
for Major League Baseball, go for the NFL, there are
so many extra things outside of the sport itself that
gets a lot of attention, primary on the social media streets.
And I mentioned this last night because I was in
Charlotte calling the Rockets Hornets game. When you get in
the arena and you watch Kevin Durant and you watch
Conkiniple and you watch Brandon Miller and any of the Rockets,
when you sit down and don't focus on labor or
resting or tanking, it's still a wonderful game. Do you
still find yourself having to battle the separation between the
ninety four feet and then stuff outside the business of
the NBA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, it's it's you know, those topics are always
coming up, so you're always you know, kind of forced
to address them, to talk about them, and and but
the bottom line is you're right and sitting courtside, you
still see it every night, Like when you're sitting there
calling a game, you can still see every night how
hard these guys are playing, how much to care. There
are other problems, like larger picture problems sometimes with maybe
the load management or player availability. You know, star players
being hurts a lot of injuries star players, and that
really dramatically affects our product because those are the guys
that you're dying to see. Those are the guys that
really kind of change the game, and when they're not there,
it is a different product. So and then the tanking, obviously,
he's been a lot of talk here recently about that.
Adam Stilber was trying to get control of that, figure
out new measures to control. So all that stuff is
always kind of going going around in the air and
in the surface and you're trying to kind of work
your way around it. But when you get to the
game and you're watching these guys play, and you're watching
the talent and the skill and how hard they play,
if you love basketball, that is a basketball fan's dream.
And I still think this time of year now after
the All Star break, when everybody is just sitting there
battling and trying to play as hard as they can
for seating, and you play in situations and you're trying
to make your mark, there's a sprint to the finish
when you come out of the break. This is when
the most intense basketball on the planet takes place. And
that's what the area we're about to enter into right now.
There is no better time for a basketball fans.
Speaker 1: Tim Langler from ESPN and ABC with us here on
The Matt Thomas Show with Ross, Rockets and Knicks tomorrow
night on ABC. I have the last ten years called
James Harden and I've called Chris Paul Russell Westbrook. I'm
just talking about the Houston players that I've had the
pleasure pleasure of calling. But there's something different legs about
Kevin Durant thirty seven years old plus last nine heats,
taking twenty shots, he's making thirteen of them. He's thirty
five points for them against the Hornets. He's carrying this
team offensively on his back. I know you're not supposed
to be amazed bout players, because hell, Lebron's been doing
it for twenty plus years. But tell me about in
your particular thoughts about watching Kevin Durant, even in just
the last five years.
Speaker 2: He's a machine. And look, and I was watching the
game against the Hornets, and I'm sitting there going during
his time in the league, right the number of years
he's been in the league, which is, you know, approaching
twenty years, there has been no more shot to me
that is more automatic as a result than Kevin Durant
going to his right hand for a pull up jump shot.
And you think how hard it is to be efficient
and you shoot a lot of contested jump shots, and
you're basically a perimeter based player, which he is. How
hard it is to be efficient and get up into
that fifty percent field goal range. The guy's done it
for at least thirteen consecutive years. I mean, you go
look at the best mid range jump shooters in the
history's league. You look at guys like Michael Jordan, you
look at guys at Kawhi Leonard, you know, their longest
streaks of their career are like five six years in
a row. Kevin Ntlin's thirteen years straight. And to be
doing it at his age and to be that automatic,
particularly going to his right hand pull up fifteen eighteen
feet with his length, the natural lean back, you know,
the perfect shooting mechanics. You still marvel at it. And
on those nights when he does it in the fourth quarter,
like he did against Charlotte last night, you're still just
you know, it's awesome to watch. You really are kind
of just watching this guy. You're going, this is one
of the all time great generational talents and he can
still do it at that level. And when he's able
to put together a strets like that in the fourth quarter,
there's nothing you can do defensively to be able to
stop that, because that shot is almost impossible to deter
because of the area of the floor in which you're
taking the shot. You know, you can't run out and
take it out of his hands. At the three point line.
He doesn't have to get all the way to the
rim twelve to eighteen feet, pull up one on one situation.
It's as automatic as it comes. And he did it
again last night. So you know, appreciate these guys, you know,
Steph Curry, Lebron James, Kevin Durant. You know these guys.
You don't know how much longer you're gonna get to
see him, But I think you need to just appreciate
what you're taking in every night because they're one off,
each of those guys in what they do and Kevin.
For Kevin Durant, that means contested mid range Jeff Shotts.
Very few guys, handful of guys in the history of
this league have done it as good as he does.
Speaker 3: Russell, do you here as well? Tim in Houston? And
on Kevin Durant, we love hearing him here in Houston.
I'm a long horn fan. I love Kevin Durant, But
I'm just curious your perspective because there are some reasons
to be a Kevin Durant detractor, because of the burner stuff,
joining already made Golden State team and now this even
more recent burner stuff. How do you weigh all of
that with somebody who is an all time great and
right now as we speak, chasing down Michael Jordan on
the all time scoring list.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think for me it's easy. I'm a
basketball and so some of the stuff that with the
burner accounts and some of the stuff you're going to
see on social media, I kind of stay away from that.
My job is to break down Kevin Duranta player. And look,
sometimes that does bleed over into locker room stuff or
leadership or decisions that guys make in their careers when
they change teams, like and it's obviously part of my job.
You're going to comment on that. But when it push
comes to shove, I'm sitting down and I'm about to
watch these guys play. I'm going to focus on what
this guy is as a player, and how unique he
is and how talented he is. And when it's all
said and done, you know, there will be a time
and place when all these things get put into perspective
where do they rank historically When you starting to put
together these lists top ten, top twenty players of all time,
all of this stuff will factor into it. But for me,
in the moment, I'm just trying to appreciate Kevin Duranta
player and all that stuff kind of keep keep to
the side. I'm looking at him and what he does
and the unique challenge that he represents for defenses.
Speaker 3: Continuing with Tim Legler here on a Sports Talk seven ninety,
I want to get your thoughts on him in Thompson,
especially first Team All Defense, great defender and a blur
in transition. But the thing that has been holding him
back has been his jump shot. And I'm just curious you,
as a great jump shooter, your perspective on how do
you find or get somebody to find their ceiling as
a jump shooter, especially young in their career, because it's
something we've said about Giannis and maybe Russell Westbrook and
other guys we can point to to say if their
jump shot would get there, and sometimes that just doesn't
come to pass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Look, one of the things that Aman
Thompson is going to be dealing with is the fact
that he's so successful in other areas of the game
and really still a very effective offensive player without having
to do that. Sometimes it requires guys being forced into
it because their weaknesses are exposed to such an extent
that now they're not even as effective offensively as they
need to be. To help their team win. It's not
really the case with him and watching it last night,
like he had situations where they clearly were determined not
to rotate to him when they were trying to run
extra traffic at Duran or Shengun, and they're saying they're
gonna live with am and Thompson catching the ball with
fifteen twenty feet of space at the three point line
and live with the results. And a couple of those
he shot missed, you know, they weren't particularly close. But
then there's other plays he catches it and regardless of
all the space, he still drives it down the gut,
and he's so athletic that he can come to a
jump stop in the paint, you know, hang in the
air longer than other guys, and still make a play
at the rim, or make a pass from that position
or put pressure on the defense. So he's still able
to be effective and put up actually pretty respectable stat
lines offensively. Even though that shot right now is a
win for the defense if he takes it, very few
guys have been able to pull that off normally. If
you're exposed to that extent, it becomes a real problem,
and it becomes a dilemma for the coach to keep
you on the floor. It's not the case with tom
and Thompson, because clearly you want his defense, but there's
a lot of great defenders in this league that he
couldn't shoot. Then eventually they're taking off the floor because
the weakness starts to overshadow what they are doing well offensively.
It's not really the case with Aman Thompson. He's still
able to walk that line as a playmaker and a
finisher around the rim and a rebounder and like the
push he has up the floor in transition, there's still
so many things he can do well offensively without that. Now,
if he ever figures that out and and you know,
he just gets confidence and he continues to work on,
you know, tightening up his mechanics and there's some things
mechanically that he can work on. If he gets to
that place, man, now you have an all league caliber player.
So we'll see. He's very very young. He's still having success,
which hasn't forced him into addressing this, probably to the
extent that he needs to. By all accounts, he's a grindary.
He's in the gym, he works. So if that's the case,
I think it will get there. And certainly he's already
shown great dramatic improvement from the foul line, like that's
really important for him. But now the three point shot
would be the next thing, and maybe over time next
couple of seasons you might see, you know, a pretty
dramatic improvement there as well.
Speaker 1: Lakes, we let you run. The West is a hot
mess like it was last year. We found out that
being the number two seed was not going to give
you a guaranteed success with that seven game series against
Golden State. It is a long winded question for you
or with the long answer, how do you size up
the West? What can the Rockets do? I know that
the Fred van Vliet injury has been talked about a lot.
The Steven Adams being out for the year has hurt
the rebounding. From a Houston perspective, what has to happen
for the Rockets to really go after the okay Cs
and the Denvers and maybe not even San Antonio for
supremacy in the West coming up in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, you know you mentioned those teams Okay Seed, Denver,
San Antonio. Houston's in the mix. You've always going to
have the Lakers sort of looming. You've got the Minnesota
Timberwolves hanging there as well, who've been the last two
conference finals. The West is loaded. It's a juggernaut full
of land mines. All of these teams have had different
stretches of the season where you start to look at
their vulnerability. Oahoma City has gone through that. They're twenty
four and one. You're thinking, oh, well, let's just play
in the parade route. They're going to win another championship.
Who's beating this team? And then all of a sudden,
San Antonio shows up eats to three times in ten days,
and now everybody in the league goes, they wait a second,
Maybe they can be had, Maybe there is a way
to get Okay, see, Denver's going through it right now.
I mean, but and I think for me, the common
theme with a lot of these teams is the lack
of continuity with their top ten rotation. And you look
at what Denver's dealt with even ok see, like how
many Knights I've locked okac this year and they're still
like really good defensively. And I look over and Alex Caruso,
Louke Dorton street clothes, He's like, wait a second, the
two of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA. They're
not playing tonight and they still held some team to
one hundred and two points. So but their death hasn't
really come to the surface because they're always missing people.
Denver is still going through it right now without Aaron Gordon,
Peyton Watson goes out. Just get Christian Brown back. You
know this is Caam Johnson, just goes back. So everybody
has dealt with this lack of continuity and as a result,
they're still shuffling the deck. To me, in the Western Conference,
I would still say, okay, See is the favorite. I
think San Antonio and Denver are probably toe to toe
as the next best challenger to Oka See, And then
I would put Houston just behind them because I need
to see a consistent stretch out of the Rockets where
they run off eight nine in a row, and they
are so consistent on both ends of the floor. And
when you have this great answer and Kevin Duran offensively
now that they didn't have a year ago, you take
them much more serious. But the inconsistency and some of
the stretches I've watched them play this year, you go Okay,
maybe they're not quite there yet, so I would still
say Oklahoma City is the Betty favorite. San Antonio Denver
would be on the next shelf, Houston's just behind them,
and now I think the Lakers in Minnesota probably hovering
as Welllke's.
Speaker 1: Great to visit with you. Thank you so much for
the time. You're good luck charm because I think you've
seen the Rockets once on Christmas Day and that was
a fun night in Los Angeles, so hopefully history repeats
itself with the local team. Thank you for the time,
safe travels to the city and we will visit with
you tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Thanks again for the time. We really appreciate it. Yeah,
my pleasure, looking forward tomorrow night. Take care, guys,