The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Ryan Hollins: Rockets Guard Jalen Green Has Taken A Leap Forward Defensively

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Ryan Hollins, former NBA center and Space City Home Network commentator, joins "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" to discuss the defensive growth of Houston Rockets guard Jalen Green following a 133-113 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday night.

Ryan Hollins from our friends at Space City and the Rockets TV network with us here on the program. And we've got a phone call wants to talk about little rockets. If you want to get in anything, and Ryan's well-versed in just about every sport because he is a sports fan through it through. And, of course, you hear him on the weekends here on Fox Sports Radio during the off-season. 7-1-3-2-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. Jack, thanks for waiting. Good morning.

You're on 790. Good morning, guys. I was just giving you a quick call to really find out it seems like Jalen Green has been way more engaged in the defensive end of the court as of lately. I know he had all the points last night, but I just want to hear from Ryan on maybe why that is. Mayor, you're spot on. Jalen wants to win. You know, he's kind of shown that he can score 40 points in the NBA. You know, he can play with the league's best, but this is a group that hadn't won.

And for Jalen, he's trying to find his way. And I think the most important thing to me that I've seen from him mentality-wise is not just that he's trying hard and his best defensively and he's being much more physical than we've seen him be in the past. But when somebody else is rolling or somebody's having a good game, go watch Jalen Green, man. He's celebrating his guys. He's cheering. I feel like he's truly giving himself to this team. and the team's going to need his scoring. But yes, defensively, he's saying, man, I don't want to be that guy that doesn't fit in.

And for a while, you know, you'd see like a guy like Jason Tate, Matt, and correct me if I'm wrong. Jay Chantate would be diving on the floor, hustling, doing all these things. And it's like, well, J. Sean is just playing super hard. He's the only guy out there doing that. And now you've got a whole group of rockets that are playing hard. So if you're that odd man out, you don't want to be that. So Jalen, I want to see Tari Easton and the men and Dillon and all these guys with Fred working hard defensively. and then him not doing the same.

So that's why you're, you know, a large part of reason, and he may do do, obviously, while you're seeing Jaylon Green work his tail off defensively now, man, the effort has really been there. So heads off to you for applauding that and seeing those efforts. Yeah, no, when he was in the game against, I think it was Golden State, and it was Chari and Amin and Jabari and Dillan, and they left Jalen in the game.

and the rockets went on a little bit of a run. Like, everyone was seeing it. So it was just interesting to see that EMA has given him a little bit of leeway on the defensive side. Well, here's the thing is EMA can forgive a miss shot. He can forgive maybe even a turnover. He ain't going to forgive is defensive assignment miss. You know, and that's why you have to appreciate.

appreciate EMA and you know these guys are you know like welcoming the call so hats off to EMA but it that is that is a large part of the rocket success and right now does this team need to score more yeah yeah we're no one is going to deny that but defensively those are the things that are changing Houston right now let me ask you yeah let me ask you this because I you know I've been calling NBA games it'll be my this is my ninth year and forgetting about Houston coaches just coaches in general it's a players league Ryan and you were a part of that players league

when a player checked out on a coach the coach was looking for work somewhere else and EMA is in his only his third year as an NBA coach he's not that far removed from being a player second year in Houston I have never seen a coach and I shouldn't say never

very few coaches can call out a player and that player go you know what you're right my bad how is EMA allowed not allowed but how does EMA effectively get away with being very hard on players. When a lot of coaches are on the league, if they were to do that, the players would check out. Well, for one, you hit it.

Beyond Rafael, Tillman and family have putting their stamp on EMA and said, he's our guy. We trust in you. You have a full piece of whatever you need to do to get this done. And hey, man, he's had the green light to bench. Al P. We'll speak on it. To bench Jalen. Okay. And when you do that, of course, the agent's probably frustrated. And I'm not

speaking from any personal experience. I'm speaking from my experiences. Agents probably frustrated. Players frustrated because you're kind of fighting against, man. I've been able to kind of do my thing. This has been a different style of playing. I'm speaking from my experience. Not from anything I know in the locker room, anything I'm throwing out. But now when you go

and then you kind of bind and he's saying, well, man, if I don't play defense, I'm not going to play. If I don't do this, I'm not going to play. If I don't rebound, I'm not going to play. You're going to see guys buy in and they have. So Matt, you're hitting it right on the head, but there's that, you know, that we've seen it, Matt, there's that ugly baby stage with the patches in the hair and the blitzes all over and the big teeth. You know what I'm saying? You go, oh, that's an ugly baby. And you see, oh, man, that's a beautiful baby. Look at that. And we're getting out of that ugly

baby stage. We'll all do respect. Don't take my words out of context. But that's, that's really what we're seeing. All right. Well, that seems fair. But again, there are timeouts that he'll call that he will run to the middle of the court and make sure he finds the, identifies whether it's a man, whether it's Alpi, whether it's jail. I mean, nobody is, can avoid the stairdown of EMA Adoka after a defensive lapse. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. And here's the thing about EMA, too, and things are rolling right. Like, if we've seen our guys get into scuffles, get into it, Like, E-Mate's right in the middle of it. Like, we've seen Dillon gets a deck.

He may get a tech right behind him. Like, you know, and even, too, this is the thing you may not like it, but you got to respect it. Watch E-mate, man. All probably six, eight, two, trying to whatever of them. When one of our guys comes to the sideline or something happens, he puts his, watch him, put his arm around those guys. And as a player, you got to respect that. When you make a mistake, you do something, well, he's telling you, like, you didn't work on defense. or like, hey, you're not making a shot.

Like, he's, I need you to do X, Y, and Z. He's telling you those things, so you have to respect what he's saying, and then you're not in the dark. You don't got to hear from the front office or from your agent. Media. Yeah. Oh, he's not playing because it is. No, you ain't playing because you ain't doing this, this, and this.

And you're hearing it straight from email because so many times I'm not going to call out any coaches. Coaches say, you got to find out somewhere else, why you're not playing, or what's going on or, you know, oh, you know, there's just no, I'll just say like there's no funny business, Matt. And that's why Houston's having the success that they're having. Yeah, I'm such respect for the way he runs his basketball team. It's refreshing.

And the results are, you know, winning 67% of the game so far. It's been spectacular.