The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Ryan Hollins: “This Rockets Team Feels Special”

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Ryan Hollins Joins The Show Before Rockets Opener vs OKC

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 790. A man I miss, who you will be seeing a lot on Space City Home Network, but tonight's game is on NBC as a man who's comfortably resting in his Houston area home. Ryan Holland, you missed a great Habachi grill last night here in O'KC. There's no way you did.

I did Hibashi, but there's no way, Matt Thomas. There'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 10 of or 11 of them in your career as a player. Tell me what that's like for guys, even the salty veterans like yourself. It's always different. You know, first day of training camp, first day at 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 a game that counts. And you know, you get to see what your stars are made of. So the guys are going to 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 their 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 going to 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 is going to look. You know, with Fred in the lineup, you knew which you were going to get. You knew, you know, 15 pick and roll up top with Al B, some Durant ISO, some probably 135 action with Durant popping

and Shingoon rolling or on the weak side. But I think the big challenges tonight and EMA is going to have it. 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? Ryan, tonight we're going to see the jumbo lineup with all the bigs. If you're EMAIDOCA, when do you want to use that and when do you want to go with these

slightly small and maybe inserting show? Sheper in the starting line up and moving Adams out. When should Rocket fans see that and not see it, do you think? Well, the goal of the preet held for opposing teams. And the one thing that you know is Oklahoma City goes essentially, we'll call Chet Hongren a guard. They'll go five out when Hardinstein's 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 EMA is saying is go small, we're going to press you, and we're going to press you to stay big. And I'll be honest, I don't think that's Oklahoma City's best offense because Hardinstein's great down low, but you put them in situations where you get the ball out of Shea's hands and you got Hartnstein shooting floaters, which he's really good at, but it's pick your poison.

And now their spacing goes away a little bit. And if they're going to throw Caruso at the five, something they were great at, you know, when he played against Yolkich and pressured him and did a lot of those things, you know, you've got to punish him inside. So I'm pretty sure that's the message is going to be saying. home and the pressure gets put on the opposing team, Matt, to answer your question of, do we match up big with them?

Do we go small? And I've been in another side. You get extremely uncomfortable. I remember playing a 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 EMA does.

And I think he's going to mix in back and forth. Shoot the last preseason game. I thought Reed Shepard looked the best with a five-out offense and all smalls on the floor. He was excellent. So you're getting a sample size of what our guys can look. like and I think it differs from game to game. 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 all talked about before Fred's injury, right, about Reed Shepard's increased role. Now, obviously Fred is done for the year. How much did Reed's life change when he found out that the ACL was going to cost Fred the season? 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 he's going to get his number tall because of it. And I think the best thing that we saw in that last preseason game,

preseason game, we can argue to have been the most impactful of the season is because Regis got confidence. The guy knows how to play, Matt. When we've talked, none of us, Ross, you too, none of us have questioned if he can play. But it's more a question of, hey, him being confident, him taking those shots, him defending. ending. 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 outplayed him. Granted, it's preseason, but he brought it to the table. So hopefully that confidence can shine through. And he's going to be thrown in the fire, man. He's going to be tested. That's what he came to the NBA for. All right. 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 52-win team of year ago. In your mind, what has gone right? And I'm going to say if things

haven't gone right for the rockets, my guess is larger because of the, of more of the injury bug than anything else, correct? I think what's going right is the opportunity to step in and 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 or an opposing team in a mismatches uncomfortable. There's 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 that's 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, just putting it together. But I do think that this is a group that this looks special. Matt, you know, when you see special teams, we saw that 95 Rockets team, like they look special. They have weapons.

You go like, this group has enough. And you know as a player, when you got enough and when you don't, and this group has it. A couple more minutes here with Ryan Hollins, the Space City Home Network. I have been asked who is the, not necessarily, silly 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? Come on, Maddie, stop 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 idol,

and Durant and say, I want to do everything you do, you know, and Durant is going to be able to speak a confidence into Jabari 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 warmups and workouts mirror each other and work out. So I think I'm ecstatic 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 someone to show it. Kevin Garnett did it for me so I can speak to that firsthand and even more exciting for what Jabari is going to be able to learn.

And clearly he was, I mean, he was heading shoulders the best rocket in the preseason for whatever that means. I think it meant a lot. All right, I'll 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 might be a threat of the Rockets. Who would you go with the one or two teams that would be in the way of a potential West championship? I think Denver got a perfect fit in Cam Johnson. That's crazy because he moves off the basketball.

He's healthy. That's a role that in a spacer and cutter off the ball that's made perfect for him. And he can defend it. He brings a lot of size to the table. I think that's a huge fit. I'll be honest, man. I'm intrigued with Wimby. 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 with 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 Phopps. 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 heart. eye on and I can't wait to see Wimby with his hot size go against the biggest team in basketball in the Houston Rockets. So that's something I got my eye on. Ryan, thank you for the time as always, my friend. We'll see you Friday. I hope you're chipper in a good mood because hopefully we're going to be celebrating a one-and-o start for this season.