Interview: Houston Rockets TV Analyst Matt Bullard

Matt Bullard is a Color Analyst for all AT&T SportsNet broadcasts of Houston Rockets games. Previously he served as a substitute game analyst and pre and postgame analyst. So far during his broadcast career he has been nominated for two individual Lone Star Emmys (2010 and 2015) and was part of the broadcast team that won the Lone Star Emmy Award for Live Production in 2013.

A 11-year veteran of the NBA, Bullard spent four seasons as the Radio Color Analyst for home broadcasts of the WNBA’s Houston Comets; a role he started while still playing for the Rockets. He began his NBA career with the Rockets in 1990 and played nine seasons with the team including the 1993-94 NBA championship campaign. Aside from his play in Houston, his resume also includes the 1995-96 season with the Atlanta Hawks and time with the Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets in 2001-02 and 2002-03. He also played one year professionally in Greece for PAOK Thessaloniki. He finished his university basketball career at Iowa after transferring from Colorado following his sophomore season and played four summers for USA Basketball while in college winning two gold medals and two silver medals.

Bullard has been featured in weekly NBA segments on KPRC-TV Sports Sunday and on NBATV as well as on Houston’s SportsTalk 790. He was also a finalist on season three of the ESPN reality show Dream Job in 2005.

Ray LeBov recently interviewed Matt for the latest installment in Basketball Intelligence's Broadcaster series:

RAY: Let's begin with how you started playing basketball.

MATT:   Back in Iowa, my grandfather put a basketball hoop up in his basement when I was two years old, and I started shooting hoops down there. I just had kind of a natural rhythm for shooting. He  got me my first hoop and then he put a hoop up at my house. I grew up with a bunch of guys in West Des Moines who were all basketball fanatics. One of them was Chad Buchanan, who is now the general manager of the Indiana Pacers. Another guy was Mike Born who is a scout for the Pacers now.  Raptors' coach Nick Nurse was another guy who I played with. We were the same age. He was at a different high school but we played against each other and with each other on all-star teams. People around the NBA call us

the Iowa Mafia now. We just loved to play basketball when we were kids.

We got great instruction from our coaches,  Dick Fazio  was the youth coach that got us all started on the right path and none of us would be where we are at today without his foundation.  I grew up in Iowa, which is a very big basketball state, had a good high school coach, Jim O'Dea and went all the way to the state final game my junior year, when Mike Born was a senior teammate at Valley High School. We were undefeated until we lost in the state tournament final to Al Lorenzen who went on to be a big University of Iowa star. We had a  good foundation as youth players and that really set it all up for us to grow up and get in the NBA.

After high school, I went to the University of Colorado for my first two collegiate years.  I was a snow skier when I was growing up. My parents taught me how to snow ski when I was five years old, so I really love snow skiing.  I picked the University of Colorado out of high school so I could get closer to the mountains.  I was Big Eight Freshman of the Year at Colorado, and I started playing on some USA basketball programs in the summertime..  I ended up realizing that I could probably make some money playing basketball, so I stopped my snow skiing and transferred to the University of Iowa to finish up my college career playing for Dr. Tom Davis . Coach Davis had a lot of his players end up going to the NBA. We had Brad Lohaus, Kevin Gamble, BJ Armstrong, and Roy Marble.  A lot of guys had success jumping from the University of Iowa to the NBA.  When I transferred to the University of Iowa, it was really with an eye on making money playing basketball, and  it ended up working out fine after playing in the Big Eight and then the Big Ten, making it to the NBA.

RAY: After your college career, you went undrafted.  Why? MATT: I had a knee injury my junior year in college and I missed thirteen games. And I had a knee injury on my other knee my senior year, and I missed ten games. Because of those two injuries,a lot of teams needed to know that I was healthy so I went undrafted. I went to the pre-draft camp in Orlando and I won the three-point shooting contest and played really well there. After the draft,  the Rockets' Assistant General Manager Carroll Dawson  was trying to track me down to tell me that the Rockets wanted me to sign with them and come out and join their summer league team. But he did not have a number for me, and so he ended up just calling the operator in Iowa City and saying, "Hey, I am trying to reach Matt Bullard. Do you have any idea who he is or how to get a hold of him?" And the operator said, "Oh, yeah. I know the trainer of the University of Iowa really well. I will give you his number." So she gave him John Streif's number. John was trainer for the University of Iowa for years and years and years. John called me that night. Of course, I was bummed out that I was not drafted, and John called me and said, "Hey, the Houston Rockets are trying to get a hold of you." So I called Carroll Dawson right away and came out here to Houston, joined their summer league team, hada great summer, and ended up making the team as an undrafted rookie.

RAY: When you played in the summer league and did so well, did you figure out early on that you were likely to make the team, or was it touch and go?

MATT: The Rockets had seen me play in some USA basketball events, so they knew that I was good enough. They just needed to see that my knees were healthy.  I had a really good summer, I was back to a hundred percent. Both my knees had healed and I played really well. So when I went into the veterans camp, I had a guaranteed contract. They ended up cutting Mike Woodson, who was at the end of his career, and that was the spot that I took.  Mike went on to have a good coaching career in the NBA..The Rockets knew that I had potential. They realized that having a big who could shoot was going to be good to have around Hakeem Olajuwon. I give Rudy Tomjanovich credit for being the guy who started to use the stretch four to space the floor around Hakeem . We also had Robert Horry, who, seven championships later, showed that Rudy T. was right to use the big man on the floor to space the floor rather than to keep packing the paint.

RAY: Unlike today, when we see so many, back then there were not that many big men who were long-distance shooters like you were. How did you develop that skill?

MATT:  My last two years in college, when I had those knee injuries, I came back in the middle of the season.  I was not fully recovered but I could shoot. Back then, the college line was only nineteen feet nine inches, so I was taking a ton of threes in Dr. Tom's offense because I really could not move or do much else besides shoot. So I got started shooting  at the University of Iowa, and then when I came to the Rockets, they immediately started having me practice three-point shots from the NBA line, working to get that sort of range.
We were taking a league-leading 15 threes a game back in '94 when we won the championship,. Besides Horry and me,  we had other very good three-point shooters like Vernon Maxwell,Kenny Smith, and Mario Elie.  I remember Rudy would say, "Now guys, think about this. If you shoot thirty-three percent from a three-point line, that is the same as shooting fifty percent from two. So if you can shoot better than thirty-three percent from the three-point line, I want you to take threes."  My career percentage was around thirty-eight percent, so Rudy definitely encouraged me to shoot threes. Dr. Tom had encouraged me to shoot threes, but Rudy was really the first coach that I had that was fully on board with me shooting three-point shots. I remember my college coach at the University of Colorado would tell all of us, "Don't take those three-point shots, they are too far." And of course, now that you look back on that,  you go, "Man, how does the guy have a coaching job if he thinks a three-point shot is too far of a shot?"

RAY So your injuries played a part in developing the range that you had as a shooter. Do you think that had you not had those injuries, your game would have been significantly different?
MATT:  Yeah. I was a very good all-around player. I played on four USA basketball squads.  I tried out for the Olympics in '88, I have got a couple of gold medals, and a couple of silvers. The guys that I was playing with on those USA basketball teams were the best players in college at the time. I felt like I was one of the top ten college players at the time. But those knee injuries limited me to the extent that I could not be an all-around player, I could not put the ball on the floor, I did not have any explosiveness because of the knee injuries, and so I just had to rely on shooting.  Five knee surgeries later, at the end of my career in the late '90s, I was basically just a three-point specialist. All those knee surgeries had taken away all my athleticism.

RAY: Given the success that you had in that way, do you play a role with the Rockets in terms of player development and developing shooters ?

MATT:  No, I don't really have that role with the team. Throughout the years, I have set up three-point shooting contests with some of the current players just to do a little spot for TV:  the annual three-point shooting contest with Bull. We have gone against James Harden, and Chris Paul, Aaron Brooks, Shane Battier and some of the other guys. It is been fun to do those little three-point shooting contests throughout the years with all the current players because they look at me as the old guy who is a broadcaster. They don't see me as somebody who could still play. I remember, one year when I ended up beating James Harden, I went four for five, and  when I made my last shot to beat him, the look on his face is something I will never forget. He was looking at this old guy, thinking "Holy crap, I just got beat by an old guy who is on  TV. And I am James Harden." I will never forget the look on his face. It was such a quizzical look like, "How did that just happen?"

RAY: No one told him that the old guy just happened to be one of the greatest shooters in basketball history?

MATT: No. I don't think he knew that at that point. It is fun to be around the young guys but it is different. They no longer look at me as a player, I am an old guy who is on TV. But I don't really have a role as far as developing the current Rockets team. And of course, we have Calvin Murphy on our TV broadcast as well. Calvin Murphy is one of the all-time greatest shooters in the history of the game as well. And neither one of us really have any role in developing shooters.  I am putting out feelers right now about  becoming an NBA coach, to try to transition from being a broadcaster back into coaching, and use some of that knowledge that I have gained through my twenty-six years in the NBA including my specialty of being a shooter. I feel that I can really help some of these guys develop their three-point shot, really make their shot more concise, more precise, more consistent.That is the knowledge that I could really help some of the younger players with now that the three-point shot has  gotten to be such an important part of the game.

RAY: By the way, I grew up in Connecticut so I saw Calvin play in high school.

MATT He tells us stories. One of the great things about the Bubble games that we just did was our broadcast from the studio.. Calvin did the pre and post-game show and we were all in the same studio. So we would just listen to Calvin's stories. Every single night we heard  Calvin story after Calvin story after Calvin story. He told us about back in the day when he was a high school player in Connecticut and when he played at Niagara how much money he made doing baton-twirling halftime shows. Maybe you were the one who mentioned this to me, but I asked him about it. He said he was making so much money twirling that he actually had to take a pay cut to go to the NBA.

RAY The two best high school players I saw in Connecticut were Calvin and Super John Williamson.
MATT:  Man, they were both great players.

RAY: Yes they were. What was it like to play on that championship Rockets' team?
MATT  I started in '90 with the Rockets.  Don Chaney was our coach in my rookie year and he won Coach of the Year that year. I learned a lot from Don . He was a great coach who had a great playing career, but he was even a better person, one of the best people I have ever been around. Don still lives here in Houston and I still keep in touch with him. To have him as my first coach was very important.  Rudy Tomjanovich took over the next year.  The Clutch City era really started in '91, Rudy's first year. We had Kenny Smith,Vernon Maxwell, Sleepy Floyd, Otis Thorpe, and The Dream. Those first few years in the early '90s was when our team grew up together and became a solid team. We added Mario Elie,  Robert Horry and Sam Cassell. We were such a tight team because of the leadership that Rudy was giving us.

Rudy coached us like he was part of the team. He included us in all the discussions and all the decisions. He gave us all a voice in what was going on. Of course, he was making the final decisions and being the leader, but the way he included all of us in the process made us all a tight team. We were all very invested in the outcomes of what we were trying to do because we all felt like we were part of it. That is one of the great things about  Hall of Fame Coach Rudy Tomjanovich.. He was a players coach. He really did understand what we were going through and we felt like he was on our side at all times.  I point to the seven-game series in the second round in 1993 against the Seattle SuperSonics. The Sonics had  home-court advantage, so game seven was in Seattle. It was an overtime game, where they ended up beating us by two. We felt like we had a championship-caliber team that year, but the  SuperSonics were the team that we struggled with the most. That was George Karl's team. They had Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Detlef Schrempf and Nate McMillan. The way they defended us: with their rotations, they were the team that guarded us the best. We really couldn't get any advantages  against them because of their defensive scheme. And so, we really struggled to get by Seattle.

I can still feel that pain in my heart today from that loss in the second round in '93, When I think about it, it still hurts. I remember that flight back from Seattle after that loss was the quietest flight that I have ever been on. We were all hurting. And that whole summer, before the 93-94 season, that hurt in our heart really drove us. And coming back the following year, in November of '93, we ripped off fifteen straight wins. We lost to Atlanta on the second night of a back-to-back after tough travel to break that streak. But then we ended up ripping off seven more wins. We were twenty-two and one to start the championship season. It stemmed from the pain that we felt from losing to the Sonics. I talked to Rudy recently,  and we reminisced about that series and Rudy said, "You know what, Bull, I have learned that  nothing that you gain in life comes without pain. You have to have pain in order to gain things in life." That pain, losing to the Sonics, is what drove us to the championship the next year.

RAY: Was it an injury that caused you to leave the Rockets after the championship season?

MATT:  It was another knee surgery. I actually had knee surgery before the championship season. It was a major knee surgery and I really was not a hundred percent all year. I was doing my best but I really was not healthy. I did not have one of my better years because I was still not a hundred percent. I was making decent money in the championship year. I was expecting to get a raise the following year on the new contract, and the Rockets decided that, instead of giving me more money, they would try Pete Chilcutt in my role and pay him a minimum salary. So they went with Chilly Pete for the next couple of years and the Rockets won a second championship. But then the Rockets brought me back for five more years after two years with Pete Chilcutt. I just feel like I just fit better with the Rockets, but it was their decision to not bring me back after the championship.

I ended up going over and playing in Greece that year. Looking back on it, that was the best thing for my career. I was back to being a hundred percent healthy when I was playing in Greece. I was the best player on the team and was playing the whole game. I was doing everything. So I was able to knock a lot of rust off my game and get back to playing the way I knew I could play.

RAY: You had a couple of years with other teams and then went back to the Rockets for your final five years, right?

MATT:  Yeah, I played in Greece in '95, and then I played for Lenny Wilkens in Atlanta the next year. And that was the year that Lenny went past a thousand coaching wins. I  loved playing for him.  He was a great coach and a great guy and I learned a lot from him. We had a really good team. We had Mookie Blaylock Steve Smith, Craig Ehlo, Grant Long and Stacey Augmon. And I ended up making a couple of shots in the first round for the Hawks that helped put us into the second round against the Orlando Magic. I had a really good year there. I was healthy again and played well, and the Rockets brought me back after that year in Atlanta.

RAY: After you completed your playing career, what was your path to broadcasting?

MATT There were three eras in my career. The first four years of my career with the Rockets ended  with the championship in '94. I  was like a kid in a candy store. Like, "Oh my god, I can't believe I am in the NBA. This is the greatest thing ever. I love playing this game, making a lot of money. . Everybody in Houston knows who I am. It is really cool." And then, in the middle of my career, I got a little jaded where I was like, "Man, this is really getting to be a drag. I don't like being famous anymore. I don't like it when people recognize me. I am really tired of this." And then when I came back to the Rockets towards the end of my career, and I was starting to break down again, and having knee surgeries and whatnot, I got to the point where I realized, "Hey, you know what? This is not going to last forever. I really do like what I am doing here and I am going to try to savor it and enjoy it as much as I can."

So, as my career was winding down with the Rockets, I realized, "This is not going to last forever. I need to figure out something else to do after I am done playing." So I talked with Joel Blank, the Rockets director of broadcasting at the time and I said, "Hey, Joel is there anything I can do to get a little broadcasting experience while I am still playing, so that when I am done playing I could get a broadcasting job?" And that is when the Houston Comets started in the WNBA. So I started doing Houston Comets radio in the summertime. I was actually doing it for free just so I could get some experience. And, of course, the Houston Comets were four time WNBA champions, so I got to see some amazing WNBA basketball while I was gaining some broadcasting experience. I got to watch Hall of Famers like Cynthia Cooper, and Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson, and the coach Van Chancellor was quite the character, a great coach in his own right. Getting that broadcasting experience in the summers while I was still a player in the NBA during the regular season is what got me ready for when the Rockets broadcasting job opened up after I retired. I was ready to step in and take over. RAY: Were you the color commentator?
MATT I did color for the Comets on the radio. Color analyst on the radio is a little bit different than it is on TV. On the radio side, the play-by-play guy has  to tell everybody what is happening so there is far less time to talk when you are a color analyst on the radio. But it was a good place for me to start. I could make a few mistakes here and there and it was not critical. But the level of play that I was analyzing was top notch. There was some high-end basketball being played by those Hall of Famers with the Houston Comets.

RAY: What role did your participation in Dream Job play?

MATT: . After my playing career was over, I had two years where I was just basically retired. And the Dream Job was in that period of time. I got a call from somebody saying, "Hey, we are putting this Dream Job together. It is going to be a whole bunch of former NBA players vying for a job at ESPN." I said, "Well, that is exactly what I am looking for so sign me up." It was a live show. For me, it was the first time where the light goes on and I am looking at the camera and I am realizing that "Oh, man, this show is going to everywhere in America. There could be millions of people out there watching this." And it was the first time where I was like, "This is a totally different than being a basketball player, when you are looking at the camera, and you have to start talking." It was nerve-racking for sure.  I ended up not winning it, but that was the best thing for me. Dee Brown was the winner. He was the guy who got the job, working for ESPN. As soon as that Dream Job show ended, that is when the Rockets' color analyst job opened up, so I was able to just step right into the Rocket color analyst job  and go from there.

RAY: How has your experience as a player informed and affected the way that you broadcast?
MATT Everybody who is in the NBA has to have a basic foundation of basketball knowledge. Whether you are a player, a coach, a broadcaster, in the front office, whatever, you have to have the foundation of basketball knowledge. You have to know the game.  And if you are a player, then you have player skills, which are obviously very physical and athletic. If you are a coach, you have to have coaching skills, which is more of a managerial strategy, managing personalities, and players. So those are different skills obviously.

And then a broadcaster has even different skills than those other two jobs. The broadcasting skills are totally different than coaches or players. Everybody has to have the basic knowledge of the game, but the broadcasting skills are very difficult so most people don't understand how hard it is to do what we do on TV. Obviously, the more you do it the better you get at it, but I feel like I was kind of a natural with some of those skills. Back when I was in high school I took a lot of acting classes and I was in a lot of the school plays, and I was in a kind of a comedy troupe called the Baker's Dozen. We put on two shows a year.  We came up with all the skits, and we put it all together. They were very popular shows in high school, well-attended. The acting training that I got in high school  carried over to the broadcasting skills of being able to talk on TV and make it interesting and to be someone who, when on camera, people enjoyed listening to what I have had to say.  Those types of skills are totally different than the skills I had as a player. And I had to really work on it in order to get better at it.

RAY: You are always thoughtful and prepared, and you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the game. One of the things that I appreciate about your commentary is that it is always about the viewer,not about you. Those are some things that I admire in analysts. Unlike some of the analysts that we see, even on national broadcasts, you are always totally prepared. I am embarrassed for some of them who seem to think that they can get by on their name.  Their lack of preparation is painfully obvious. It is embarrassing to watch.
MATT: I agree.

RAY: It is remarkable: they apparently think that just showing up is enough.  Your preparation comes across as thorough and well done. How do you prepare for a game?
MATT:  I prepare as if I were coaching. I know what is going on with the Rockets because I am doing every single Rockets game. I know what the trends are, and I know what the players are going through. I know who is injured, and I know who is playing well, and all that. But for the teams that we play against, I prepare as if I was going to coach against them. I figure out what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, who on their team is playing well.

It is all digital now. Everything that I prepare with is all online now. The network that I work for pays for a stat package for me to get before every game. It is very in-depth. It is way more information than I would use on the broadcast, but I still wade through all that information so that I know what is going on with the other team as if I were going to be coaching against that team.   Information comes at me all day long on Twitter and elsewhere online. I read a lot. I filter through this information on a daily basis as it is coming to me. Advanced stats like offensive rating,  effective field goal percentage or player efficiency rating, a lot of that stuff that I have in my mind for the game is way over the average viewer's head.  I have to be conscious of not going too deep into the analytics and try to simplify it as much as possible for the standard viewer. The way I do that is that I also watch a lot of hockey games. I have the NHL Center Ice package. I watch many different hockey broadcasts. To me, Doc Emrick is the best play-by-play guy of any sport.. I listen to him all the time. He just retired and we are really going to miss him!  I listen to these hockey broadcasts as a casual hockey fan.  I transfer that to my broadcasts in the NBA.  I pretend that I am the casual fan out there watching this NBA broadcast and I do not want to be talking over my own head with stuff that is way too in-depth.
RAY: Not going over the heads of casual fans while at the same time not boring the more sophisticated part of the audience has to be challenging. What you do is appealing and understandable for viewers at various levels of understanding. . How difficult is it to articulate nuances in that way?

MATT: It is an interesting line to walk. The Rockets organization has been on the cutting edge of advanced analytics. Daryl Morey has been leading the charge of modernizing the NBA using advanced analytics. I have been lucky to be right there alongside, learning what he is implementing. I have had many conversations with the guys in the front office including Monte McNair who is now the Kings' General Manager. Monte and I would sit on the bus and talk about in-depth stuff all the time. I am lucky that I have been right next to these guys as they are figuring all these advanced analytics out. So, I have been able to be on the cutting edge as well.

I realize that there are a lot of very sophisticated Rockets fans that watch the games.  There are some really sharp fans on Rocket Twitter who know their stuff. They are looking at the same advanced analytics that I am looking at on nba.com, or on basketball reference, or wherever. While I am trying to do a show for an average NBA fan, I also know that there is a subset of fans out there that really do like to hear the advanced analytics, so I try to use it as much as I can to back up what I am saying, to back up my opinions with the stats that support what I am saying. For example, I might use effective field goal percentage to demonstrate that Eric Gordon is really hitting threes but he is still able to drive it in, and get to the rim. He shoots sixty-five percent at the rim, so his effective field goal percentage is high. I hit advanced fans with some of that stuff, but still try to explain it to the average fans so that they know what it is as well.

RAY: Your chemistry with Bill and Clyde is outstanding.  Did that take much time to develop?

MATT: No, it didn't . Bill Worrell has been doing the play-by-play for the Rockets since back when I was playing. Bill  travels on our team plane.  We played a bunch of golf together back when I was a player.  Bill and I have always been friends. When I got the job to sit next to him in the booth, it was very easy for us to become even closer. My wife actually calls Bill my road wife because Bill and I spend so much time on the road together. And our producer, Perry Furman, is part of our trio. We are fast friends and really enjoy each other's company. It is a lot easier when you are really good friends with the guys that you are working with.

And of course, Clyde and I were teammates in the late '90s with the Rockets. Clyde and I are also good friends. We have played a ton of golf together. That chemistry on the air did not take long for us to develop. It was already there before we all got on the air together. Now that we are all doing these shows, just as a group of friends out there talking, it is a lot of fun that we can do this 82 to 100 nights a year as friends.

RAY:  Is it that long-standing chemistry that has enabled you to avoid what people often criticize as a crowded three-person booth?

MATT: Yes We understand that the three-man booth in basketball is too crowded . The best way to do a basketball game is to have a play-by-play person and a color analyst. Basketball is too fast a game to have three guys analyzing it. So we do our best to try to make sure we take turns and give each other time to talk. The interesting thing about Bill Worrell is that for twenty of the years that  he did basketball play-by-play for the Rockets , he also did color for the Houston Astros. Bill is an incredible professional who can do both jobs. He understands that when he is in a three-man booth with me and Clyde, his job is not to dominate the talking. He understands that people want to hear from the Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler. They also want to hear what I have to say, so Bill is  the guy who should get the credit for us being able to pull off a three-man booth.. He knows what the roles are and facilitates that for us.

RAY: When I interviewed Bob Rathbun, he told me that having an understanding of what the opponents do in various circumstances enables him before the game to alert the production crew about what to anticipate so that they can set up the best camera angles, which helps the whole broadcast team to be ready. Do you do things like that with your team?

MATT For sure. The broadcast personnel that we have is like a team. In addition to the on-air team, we have a truck full of guys who have been with us for fifteen years. All of us are very tight. We are a well-oiled machine. The broadcasters can talk with the guys in the truck using the talk-back button, and so we are all synchronized in what we are doing. We all have our own roles. We are all very good at what we do in our own roles and all of it fits together like teamwork. We have dinner together, we ride the buses together, we are on the planes together, and we are always talking about things like "Okay, the next game we are playing the San Antonio Spurs, so here is what we are going to look for with them, here is what they always do, here is what they have been doing lately. LaMarcus Aldridge has really been playing well lately and LaMarcus Aldridge historically has destroyed the Rockets, especially in the playoffs when he was with Portland, and so we are going to try and focus on him." Since we have such high-level professionals in each one of those positions on the broadcast team, we are able to be prepared for the teams that we are playing. Also, if something happens in the middle of the game, we can switch gears and cover it very quickly.

I remember a game in Washington, DC, a few years back, when the roof started leaking. The  broadcast booth there is not on the floor anymore, we are up on concourse level. And all of a sudden, we had twenty or thirty minutes to fill while they were trying to figure out how they could stop the roof from leaking and dripping on the floor. So my producer gets to my ear and says "Bull, go down to the floor. We are going to have a microphone down there waiting on you and you are going to start interviewing guys." So I take off my headset, I run down the stairs. One of the audio guys gives me a microphone, I plug in. And then all of a sudden I am interviewing Kevin McHale, I am interviewing James Harden, I am interviewing Dwight Howard, I am interviewing all these guys trying to fill the time. None of us were expecting that to happen, but we are all professional enough to be able to switch gears quickly enough to make that an interesting segment for the viewers, so they would not just turn off the TV and go find something else to watch, that they would still be interested in what was going on.

RAY: Speaking of something unexpected happening, what was Bubble broadcasting like and what was it like with no fans?

MATT: Let's go back to March 10th, we were playing the Minnesota Timberwolves in Houston at the Toyota Center. Before the game, we had heard a rumor that the NBA was thinking about shutting down for the coronavirus.  The next night, I was watching Utah and OKC, and the game gets called off. I was already having a twenty-four-hour kind of heads up that this could happen. It was still shocking when the NBA shut down. So then we had four months of trying to figure out, well, if they are able to get these games back up and running, we're certainly not going to be able to be there in person, so how are we going to be able to cover the games?

We had already done a few broadcasts out of our studio in Houston when the team was playing pre-season games over in China in previous years. So we had already called games off monitors and we all felt like those pre-season games went pretty well. We were able to call the games off the monitor and nobody watching at home even knew that we were not there. We were confident that we are going to be able to pull it off, but it took a lot of technical setup behind the scenes to be able to do those Bubble games from remote locations. And the NBA obviously deserves credit for what they did, not only keeping the players safe and healthy, but also making the games work well on TV. I almost liked watching the Bubble games better than I like watching games in an actual arena with fans. It was more visually appealing. The camera angles were better. I loved that rail camera angle which made the viewers feel like they were sitting in the front row. And the angle from about ten rows up was my favorite angle. Unfortunately, it is an angle that you are not going to be able to have in an arena with fans. I felt like the Bubble games were more visually appealing than the way we have being doing games for years..

But doing them from a studio, off the monitor and not having control of the replays, is what was the hardest for me personally. My job as a color analyst obviously is to talk about the replays. In a normal situation, I can use the talk-back button to tell my producer, "Hey, let us replay that play." Or, if he is going to replay it, he is going to get my ear and tell me, "Hey, we're going to replay that Harden step-back-three," for example. So I know what the replay is before it actually comes on the air. But during the Bubble games, we did not have that communication. We did not know what the replays were going to be.  I kind of have a photographic memory. So once I saw the start of that replay, I knew exactly what play it was and I could talk about it. I believe that calling the game from the studio is probably how we are going to be doing road games from now on. I do not expect that we are going to have broadcasters traveling to road games anytime soon and maybe never again.

RAY: One thing that I liked, and I think it probably does not have much of a future too because it would take up some seats that are now sold at  premium prices, was the space and the extra distance between the sidelines and the endlines and the stands. To me, that made for a  better game.

They are not going to give up those seats because those are the most pricey seats in the house. But to me it was great how differently people played  by virtue of having that space.

MATT:  I agree. I like the players having more room to run off the court and not be in any danger of hurting themselves or the fans.

RAY:  There have been a lot of changes in the game during your years as a player and broadcaster. Which of them stand out to you the most?

MATT: The game has changed a lot, mostly for the better. Back when I was playing in the '90s, it was like a wrestling match. It was very physical. It was a big man's game. All the best players were centers. When Hakeem Olajuwon was playing against Patrick Ewing in the finals in '94, whichever team got to ninety points first would win. It was a very physical, wrestling-match type of game. It was low-scoring and it was all packed in around the rim. The game has evolved to more outside shooting.

The game has evolved into a more fast-paced game with more shooting and less physicality, giving the offense much more advantage. It is now a much higher-scoring game. It is a better product to watch. It is more fun. It is a more exciting game.  I wish is that I was born twenty-five years later. My game as a big man who can shoot would translate to today's game way better than it did back in the rough-and-tumble 1990s.

RAY: In the past, when a particular aspect of the game became too dominant, like the era that you were talking about, we have seen rule changes intended to push it in a different direction. Do you see that happening with the trend that you have just been talking about if it gets too extreme? MATT: I do. I think the offense has been given too much advantage now. You can't touch anybody anymore. Guys like James Harden drive in and create the contact themselves, and then the foul is on the defender. I think the NBA probably needs to pull the pendulum back a little bit, and alllow defenders a little bit more physicality.  I do not think you should be able to hand check, but I  do not feel like when an offensive player creates the contact, that it could be a foul on the defender. So I think, even though I love high-scoring basketball games, and the Rockets have been on the cutting edge of some of those really high-scoring games, there was one game this season where both teams scored over a hundred and fifty points, it was an amazing game to watch. But, I do think that the NBA probably needs to help the defenders a little bit more, maybe an armbar, or a forearm, or something like that, where the defense has a little bit better chance of slowing the offensive player down. I think the pendulum has swung a little bit too far.

RAY: We have started to see it swing back a little bit. There is some evidence of an attempt to regulate the way those offense-defense fouls are officiated, not very successfully yet but maybe we will see them get better at it in the next few years.

I would like to ask you to select Rockets' All-Star fives and opponents' All-Star fives from during your playing career and from during your broadcasting career.

MATT: I'll start with ones from my playing career with the Rockets in the '90s. The best five Rockets that I played with has to start with Hakeem Olajuwon , there is no question there. Other obvious choices are Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley who are both Hall-of-Famers, and among the top fifty players of all time as well. And then I would add in Vernon Maxwell as one of my favorite teammates. We loved having him on our team. We knew that everybody hated playing against him. You love having a teammate like that, who you know every single night is going to be a hundred percent with you, and is not going to back down, and is going to guard Michael Jordan as hard as he possibly can and make it as difficult for him as he possibly can.. I then would add Mario Elie. Mario is another one of those guys who is just one of the greatest dudes ever, and could really play and he brought it every single night.

During my playing career, of the top five guys that we had to play against, obviously, Michael Jordan would be number one. I would have to put Patrick Ewing on that list. The battles that he had with Hakeem Olajuwon in the post were epic. And then I am going to put Gary Payton on that list when he was with the Seattle SuperSonics. He was the guy who really made it difficult for us.. The glove was so dominant defensively. Kenny Smith and Sam Cassell really had to bring their best games to play against Gary Payton in the games against Sonics. I was teammates with Gary Payton on my USA team, so I know he is the same type of guy that Vernon Maxwell is. You love having them on your team but you hate playing against them.

I'm going to go with a guy that I had to guard.   Danny Manning was the first NBA player to play on three ACL reconstructions. If he had not have had those three ACL injuries, he would have been a top fifty player of all time. Unfortunately for him, his ability was cut short by those knee injuries. But he was the guy who always was difficult for me to guard and play against.

I will put Shaq on that list. When I was still playing, Kobe was a young player, so he was not all the way Kobe yet. And so I am going to put Shaq on there. Whatever team Shaq played against had to have a game plan to stop him just like other teams had game plan to stop Hakeem Olajuwon.

RAY:  How about all-star fives from during your broadcasting career?

MATT:: The five best Rockets in my broadcasting career would be Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady, James Harden, I am going to put Chris Paul on that list because Russell Westbrook has only played one year with the Rockets. Not only was Chris a great player, but he was also a great leader. The leadership that he has shown with the Players Association, all the work that he did to help make the Bubble go smoothly, his impact on the Players Association as far as getting former players health insurance is huge. I was able to tell Chris thank you for that. I know all of us former players really appreciate what he was able to do with the Players Association with that. And so Chris Paul is certainly on that list. And for the final guy I am going to say Luis Scola. Luis left his home country of Argentina when he was fifteen years old and went to Spain to become a professional basketball player. And when he came to the Rockets, he was already a true professional. He was one of the greatest people I have ever been around and is actually still playing. He is one of those guys who just love to play so much that he is going to play until he literally can't walk anymore. He was a guy who I had a lot of conversations with. We had sort of had a similar experience with playing European basketball. I did for one year, and he did it for several years, but we really connected and he is really one of the greatest guys that is on the planet to this day. And so I would put Luis as the fifth All-Star of the Rockets.

RAY: Now we need an all-opponent team from your broadcasting era.

Matt: I have to put Lebron on there. He is one of the all-time greatest players. You can't definitively come up with the Greatest of All Time because the eras are so different. The era that Lebron plays in is much different than the era that Michael Jordan played in. It is much different than the era that Magic and Kareem played in, and it is much different than the era that Wilt played in. I would say that anybody who has played in the NBA in any of the past eras if they were to grow up in today's society, with the advances and training and all that, they would still be NBA players if they were growing up today if they were NBA age. Anybody who has played in the NBA before would be an NBA player in today's era. I am confident of that. But the eras are so different, not only with the style of play but with the training methods and the shoes. Just think about Wilt Chamberlain playing in those old Chuck Taylor Converse shoes compared to what Lebron is playing in. Lebron's shoes are custom-made for him and are built exactly the way he wants them and are super light. So Lebron is definitely going to be on that list. Lebron is definitely the greatest player of this era..

Then Kobe, for sure. I was able to take a picture with Kobe when he played his final game in Toyota Center. I still have that picture on my phone and I look at it all the time. It is heartbreaking to know that he is no longer with us. But the body of work that he left will certainly stand the test of time and will last forever. And so Kobe is on that list as well.

I have to put Tim Duncan on that list. The Rockets and The Spurs have a long-time rivalry. It goes way, way back. It goes back to David Robinson, even before that with Sean Elliott and those guys. But Tim Duncan and what he did with the San Antonio Spurs always gave us a hard time. So Tim Duncan is on that list. The other two spots go to Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.

RAY:  Do you have some favorite memories of your time broadcasting Rockets' games?

MATT:  We really have a tight-knit broadcasting team. I enjoy are some of the inside jokes that we say on the air that make us laugh. The guys in the truck will laugh, and Bill and I will laugh  to ourselves but the viewer would have no idea that we just reeled off a really funny one. We enjoy doing that: maybe a word or a little phrase or something, a joke that we all think is funny and we try to sneak it into the broadcast somehow and amuse ourselves. Even though maybe the fan at home has no idea that we are doing that those are the types of things that we really enjoy doing.

RAY: The big news today is that Daryl Morey is stepping aside, and the Rockets have a coaching vacancy as well. What are your thoughts about what the implications might be for next season with a new coach, and with Rafael Stone in charge now.

MATT: Big changes for sure. A couple of years back, the Rockets changed ownership,when Tilman Fertitta bought the team. Tilman is a native Houstonian who had been a minority owner of the Rockets before. He is a huge Rockets fan who wants to bring the championship back to Houston. He had Daryl Morey and Mike D'Antoni, probably two of the best that you could put in those two positions, and had a really nice window to make a run at a championship with James Harden, and Chris Paul, and then they switched to Russell Westbrook to try to make that happen. Then they went to the small ball and tried to make that work, and all of it, of course, was undergirded by the advanced analytics that Daryl Morey  brought to the NBA.

Mike told me that when he was with the Phoenix Suns, he felt like the three-point shot was the shot that he needed to be working for. And of course, his offense with Steve Nash was off the charts back then, and Steve was back to back MVP playing for Mike. But Mike said he was not a hundred percent sure that what he was doing was right. He heard all the noise about, "You have got to post up. You guys are shooting too many threes, it is not going to work like that. You live by the three, you die by the three." And then when he came to Houston, thanks to Daryl he had all the numbers to back up what he was doing. The three-point shot is the second-best shot on the floor behind the lay-up or the dunk. And so Mike was able to go full blast, a hundred percent towards doing what he had always thought was right but now he had the numbers to back it up. Small ball did not work because they were not playing their best basketball when they got to the Bubble. The Rockets actually were playing their best basketball in February when both Russ and James were the first two teammates to each average thirty points and six assists in an entire month.  But when they got into the Bubble, they just could not put it together. Russ was not a hundred percent healthy, he was not right, and so it really flamed out.
Now drastic changes are on the horizon because Mike D'Antoni decided to not come back to the Rockets. Most coaches get fired. Mike is maybe the only coach that I have ever known who decided, "You know what, I am going to make the change myself." And he decided to pursue other options. And now, Daryl Morey follows him out the door. It is kind of surprising.  What are the Rockets going to do? Are they going to continue to try to play Moreyball or is Tilman Fertitta going to try to find some other NBA guys to change the formula again? That is something that we do not know.  Rafael Stone has been with the Rockets for years and he knows what Daryl has been doing. So it is possible that they might try to keep the same system based on the analytics. But, the Rockets have to find a new coach. Is the new coach going to be on board with the analytics as much as Mike D'Antoni was? I would say, probably not. I would say there is probably not a coach in the NBA who understands advanced analytics as well as Mike does.

The Rockets have James and Russ under contract for two more years, that is  their window together. It is possible that the Rockets could take a few steps backward after being right on the cusp, almost beating the Golden States a couple of different times.

RAY:  As you know better than anyone, the Rockets have had a very bad luck history of injury. You can go all the way back to Yao and TMac but in the playoffs recently with CP3, and then this year what happened has not gotten enough publicity, attention or analysis.  Westbrook had COVID-19 and then had a quad injury. It really showed in the bubble. He started shooting a lot more threes which isn't his game. During that regular season period that you were talking about, that is not what he was emphasizing. I think he was shooting only one-and-a-half threes per game during that period. But in addition, losing House who was playing fantastic ball hurt a lot. An impaired Russ plus no House made for a very different series. MATT:And let me add Eric Gordon. Eric was not right all season long. He had knee surgery. He looked a little bit more explosive in the Bubble but he still was not in his rhythm and he was not playing his best basketball. The Rockets did have a ton of bad luck this season. And the bad luck continued after the season ended with the coach walking away and now the general manager walking away. And so, really a lot  right now in Houston.