Deuce is loose in the ATL - "Behind The Rockets Bench" - Rockets/Hawks

Ok all, Below is my report from my trip to see the Rockets/Hawks game last Saturday. Sorry it is a bit late, it took some time to write and process the photos etc.

WARNING: The article below is EXTREMELY lenghthy and was written for my family (some who know little about the NBA). The article is not just about the "specifics of game" but the overall game/weekend experience. Anyway, I hope you enjoy at least some of what I have written.

Photos are next!

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Chris & Beth White's "Behind The Bench" Game Experience
Houston Rockets at Atlanta Hawks Game, February 7, 2004


The Rockets beat the Hawks 86-77 by staging a thrilling 4th quarter comeback in a game, and experience, that I won't soon forget!

For Christmas my lovely wife surprised me with 2 tickets to see the Rockets play the Atlanta Hawks. I was very excited at the prospect of seeing the Rockets play live, as it has been close to 6 years since I last saw them live at a game. Not only did Beth get me 2 tickets, but she got me BEHIND THE ROCKETS BENCH TICKETS! Hot damn!

So, over the weekend Beth and I attended the game and had an absolute blast! On Saturday (7th) we drove the 4+ hours from our home to Atlanta to see the game. We booked a room at the Omni Hotel, which was VERY convienent to Philips Arena, where the Hawks play. The buildings are attached, with CNN Center in between the two in a "concourse" type set up, which made access a breeze! We got to the hotel around 3, checked in and then took it easy in our hotel room. The stocked mini-fridge was very tempting. ;-) Around 4 we left the room to go down to the concourse area and check out all the resturants. There was a plethora of fast food restaurants, as well as a few sit down joints. We decided on Jocks & Jills Sports Bar. We both had a damn fine cheese burger there and a few beers. As we were leaving we noticed the line of people waiting to be seated in the restaurant had gotten really long so we knew we made the right call by getting there early. We passed one guy waiting in line that said "Houston huh?", noticing the Houston Rockets team logo T-shirts we both were wearing. "I'm from Houston", said the guy. We asked him if he was going to the game, but he hadn't even realized the Rockets were in town! Wonder if he ended up going to the game?

After dinner we went to Philips Arena and waited until the doors opend at 5:30 (game time was set for 7). We got in and went right to our seats. On our way to our seats we passed by a guy that noticed our Rockets T-shirts. He said 'hey' and then pointed out the sweat band he had on his arm which had the #12 on it. Of course it was Moochie Norris' arm band (Moochie had been traded to the NY Knicks earlier in the year). He seemed pleased to see other Rockets fans and said we were all there "representing" tonight. Clearly a huge Rockets fan. ;-)

After we passed by him (he was on the row behind us) we made our way down to our seats. HOLY ****! These seats were amazing! I knew that we had seats behind the bench, but until you are RIGHT THERE you really don't know how close these seats are! To illustrate, there was the bench where the players sit, then behind the bench was a row of seats where the trainers sit (and Colin Pine, Yao's translater) and then there was us! We were no more than 4 feet from the players!

As we sat down in our seats we noticed Eric Piatkowski and Scott Padgett were already shooting at the time. We figured perhaps some more players might come out to shoot, so Beth wandered down to see if she could get an autograph or two before the game. Beth went over to near the entrance way from the floor (as far as she could go up to the restraining wall) back into the locker room. Bostjan Nachbar came out soon and was heading toward the court when Beth called out "Boki" (Nachbar's nickname). He turned around, seeming kinda surprised/amused that someone in Atlanta knew his nickname, and Beth asked him if he wouldn't mind signing our Rockets Media Guide (something Beth got me for Christmas). He was very nice and signed it, then started his shooting practice.

Nachbar and Padgett were mostly taking 3pt shots from the wings and the top of the circle, and Piatkowski was taking shots all over the place. He was doing some drills where he would fake setting a pick and then roll out for a 3 point shot from the baseline. After a while Eric took a break and sat on the bench, right in front of us. Beth called his name and he turned around. Beth asked him if he would sign our Rockets Media Guide and he smiled and said sure. Very cool of him. He seemed really down to earth!

Shortly thereafter Yao Ming came out to shoot. WOW! I know he is big, but until you see this 7'6" 310lb guy in person you don't really know how big, BIG really is! Immediately a decent size group of Asians, who hadn't been there up until this point, came down to around the bottom of the main bowl of the arena (not quite on the floor where we were, but right behind us) and started taking photos of Yao. They were having a good time, calling out to him and holding up signs in Chinese, taking photos of him, and I am sure marveling at his size, as quite frankly we were too! =)

Yao took a number of jumpers from both sides of the court to warm up and then started on his post moves. He did a number of post ups and look ins for turn away jumpers. He did post ups with hook shots with both hands and he practiced a few post ups with up and unders. For many of his post up exercises Patrick Ewing was out there throwing Yao the entry passes. Yao was really working. One thing I noticed and found really interesting was that since Patrick Ewing was wearing workout shorts while he was doing drills with Yao, you could really compare the size of Ewing's and Yao's legs. Now most people think of Ewing as a big man, and compared to most he certainly is, but Yao's legs are enormous comared to Ewings. They really do look like tree trunks! VERY powerful, muscular legs! In fact, Yao was "thicker" looking in person than he appears on TV. The only thing that makes Yao really look at all "thin" is the fact he has a thin/narrow shoulder width for someone his height. Other than that the boy is solid as a rock! And his arms are really showing some definition. He has definitely been in the weight room over the last year on a Rockets training program, no doubt!

Adrian Griffin and Clearence Weatherspoon also came out to shoot some jumpers. Griffin mostly did some sprinting back and forth on the court as he just came back from a knee injury and clearly wanted to make sure he was warmed up enough to play. Before long all of the players left the court.

During the time when the players were off the court we saw some other interesting people including Bill Worrell and Calvin Murphy, the Rockets TV broadcasters. We were able to get NBA Hall of Famer and former Rocket Calvin Murphy, looking snazy as usual, to sign our Media guide. Other people we saw were Rockets Radio Announcer Gene Peterson and Rockets Houston Chronicle newspaper beat writer Jonathan Feigen.

Some time passed and then the PA announcer mentioned the the Rockets were coming onto the court and the whole team came on the court to do their lay up drills. Seeing the whole team decked out in Rockets red that close was unreal! Before long the player introductions took place. I have to say seeing Yao being introduced and him high fiving people and then doing a leaping "chest bump" at the end with Nachbar was hysterical. Clearly he has been shown the ways of Western Basketball Civilization. I don't think he was doing "chest bumps" with his boys back in China. ;-)

Another funny thing to see was after the Hawks were introducted and before the teams took the floor all of the Rockets took turns giving each other odd hand shakes and gestures. Sort of like after a game when people come down the line and shake everyone's hand, each Rocket gave a hug or a hand shake of some sort to each player (I guess like you see in baseball dugouts a lot too). And it seemed like each player had their own "secret" handshake or bump. Seeing Piatkowski, Nachbar and Padgett do these things was really funny, and even Jim Jackson stared laughing when he exchanged the "secret" shake with Nachbar. They were all having fun though. After that, the game was ready to begin.

Before the tip off I saw Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy's "scratch board" showing a play that was diagramed, I guess for the first play of the game. It was kind of tough to make out exactly what was supposed to happen, but I did notice the places on the court where the players would be playing for that particular play. After the tip off, which the Rockets won, they came down the floor and got into their set. Beth told me she heard Steve Francis yell, "sizzle, sizzle" as he brought the ball up the floor. It ended up being a back door play where Kelvin Cato got a pass near the baseline for a slam dunk! The play worked like a charm, just like the diagram! Sizzle indeed!

The Rockets played pretty well the first quarter. They were very aggressive. On defense Yao was tested immediately by the Hawks. On the first few possessions the Hawks center, Theo Ratliff, really took it at Yao. He lowered his shoulder and really tried to bull over Yao. He did it twice and Yao barely even backed down and Theo ended up missing both shots. The third time he did it Yao took a charge and that was the last time Theo tried to take it at Yao. ;-) Once the Hawks knew they couldn't bully Yao they pretty much stayed away from him.

Offensively for Yao was another story. Yao had a number of VERY good looks at the basket in the first quarter, and first half, and yet he could not put the ball through the hoop. It seemed like he hit everything but the bottom of the basket! Too many times he would make a nice move, a nice shot, or would even make a nice power move with a nice bump and yet he couldn't make the shot. Very frustrating! After a while those missed shots started to get costly. Yao soon took a breather and the Rockets 6th man, Maurice Taylor, came in to try to fill the void. Right away Mo was money. He hit a number of strong post jump hooks and helped us build a nice lead early. Playing Mo one-on-one really hurt the Hawks and it wasn't until the Hawks started some double teams and going to a zone defense did they start to neutralize Mo's post play.

The Rockets in general in the first half were very sporadic on offense. Once the Hawks went to the zone defense the Rockets had problems with getting anything in the post and at the same time they couldn't hit enough outside shots to make the Hawks pay for playing a zone defense. Additionally, the Rockets defense in the second quarter stated to lapse a bit and the players' rotations seemed much slower, allowing the Hawks to get open shots. The Rockets just were not closing out on the shooters well enough. The Rockets ended up only scoring 12 points the entire quarter and then were down 41-38 at halftime. Seeing this got me a bit worried as lately the Rockets have not done a good job of coming back from adversity.

Half time was interesting. It included an asian unicyclist that rode around on this 7 foot high unicycle and performed a routine for which she is apparently in the Guiness World Records book. She balanced a bowl on her head, then would put bowls on her foot (thus left balancing the unicycle with only one foot on the pedals) and flip them up to the bowl on top of her head. She did this a number of times, sometimes with 3 or 4 bowls on her foot at the same time. She got every single one of those suckers flipped on top of her head without a miss. And never took the ones she had already caught off, so at the end she had like 15 bowls on her head. Pretty amazing! If only the Rockets could have that kind of percission at times. ;-)

Back to the game. If the second quarter was bad, the third quarter was even worse! Everthying that went bad in the second quarter was amplified in the third to the tune of the Hawks outscoring the Rockets 21-13! At one point the Hawks had a 14 point lead and ended the quarter with an 11 point lead. At this point I feared the game was pretty much over as this season the Rockets had not shown enough fortitude to overcome adversity such as this. They just had not been able to come together as a team to fight for a win when their backs were against the wall.

One thing I certainly did not expect, is what I ended up seeing in the 4th quarter. All of a sudden the Rockets started to play some suffocating, and I mean SUFFOCATING, defense! It seemed every time down the court the Hawks got called for a 24 second shot clock violation. They could't get ANY shots off. The Rockets perimeter defense was rock solid. Cuttino Mobley, Steve Francis, Jim Jackson all had their men covered. The Rockets had rarely used backup Clearence Weatherspoon in the game for Yao Ming, and he did well defensively rebounding the ball and showing good lateral quickness defensively. He was able to match-up up with Hawks low post ace, Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Rahim had caused the Rockets problems with his quickness and even Yao had problems guarding him so Jeff Van Gundy made a good coaching decision and brough in 'Spoon who was able to body up on Rahim and at the same time match him in quickness. He did not shut him down per se, but bothered him enough to be a factor.

With the defense playing a huge part in stopping the Hawks scoring it was now incumbant on the Rockets offense to start to pick it up. It did just that with Cuttino Mobley hitting a couple of 3 pointers as well as Jim Jackson doing the same. Add in some free throws and some transition buckets and all of a sudden the Rockets had a 24-4 run! Holy Smokes! From the 6 minute mark on in the 4th quarter to the end of the game the entire Rockets bench and coaching staff was up off their seats cheering on this incredible Rockets come back! The Rockets finished off their great run with a sweet double cross over dribble move by Steve Francis, that had the sold out Philips Arena ohhing and awwing, that resulted in a 20 foot jumper from the top of the circle.

The Hawks called time out and Francis pulled his jersey to one side exposing his chest, which he thumped as he yelled in the air. The bench was excited, as were the other Rockets fans around us. You could smell victory in the air, something that was far from present earlier in the half! In fact, the Rockets crew was feeling so upbeat that they apparently wanted to share the feeling with everyone around them. Mike Wells, Rockets video coordinator, was siiting right in front of us and he turned around with a big grin on his face and said, "Nice looking shirts you guys got on!" (remember, we were both wearing red Rockets logo shirts). Yao's translator Colin Pine, who was sitting next to Wells, also turned around at that point and said, "Yeah, those are some good looking shirts!" It was really cool to feel "included" in the bench celebration!

All that was left in the game at this point with the Rockets in command was the Rockets hitting some free throws to seal off the victory. And then finally, to cap off the game, the Hawks were on offense trying to hit some 3 pointers to get the score closer. The Hawks' Dan Dickau was on the baseline closest to where we were seated and was behind the 3pt line. He took a pass and then went up for a shot and out of nowhere the Rockets' Cuttino Mobley flew in and just SWATTED the ball right into the crowd! The ball went right over my head! I thought for a second I was going to be able to catch it but it was a MONSTER swat! The noise the ball made when it got swatted was awesome. The crowd in our entire area was buzzing and the Rockets bench was yucking it up for sure! What a great way to finish off the game, a win that was built upon monster, suffocating defense and the final play being a monster defensive blocked shot!

When the final buzzer sounded the Rockets had outscored the Hawks 35-15 in the fourth quarter. Keep in mind the Rockets comined to score 30 points total in the 2nd and 3rd quarters! I later found out this was the 4th largest come back in Rocketrs history and the largest comback this season. WOW, they saved this gem of a game for me eh? Yeah, I'll take it! I'll say I was quite satisfied! =)

While "team defense" was obviously the key of the night there were some great individual efforts as well. Steve Francis had 24 points on 6-12 shooting (2-2 3ptrs) and was 10-12 on the free throw line. Cuttino Mobley had 15 points with 13 of those points in the 4th quarter and a couple of big 3 pointers. Jim Jackson as usual was rock solid with 18 points on 5-8 shooting and 6-6 on the free throw line. Yao ended up having a VERY tough game going 2-11 with 7 points and 9 rebounds. It just wasn't his night. He had a number of very easy shots that normally would have gone in, not going in. Luckily the Rockets were able to overcome Yao's poor shooting night to get the victory. That's what good defense will do for you.

The game was over and the players left the court. I was damn satisfied with how the night went and MANY times thanked my lovely wife for getting us these tickets and for making this night happen! We were thinking about trying to stay a bit after the game to see if we could possibly get any more autographs if the players come back out, but we also noticed that arena security was starting to herd people out of the arena.

Beth went over to talk to the guy with the Moochie Norris #12 arm band that we had met earlier (and whose Rockets thunderstix we had babysat for him at one point so they wouldn't get taken by a Hawks fan while he was away from his seat). He seemed "in the know", so she asked if he knew whether the guys would be coming back out to sign and if so, how long it usually took. He said they would come back out in 10-15 minutes, then told her "I don't do this for everyone but, here ya go" and gave Beth two passes. They were special passes (he called them "Family & Friends" passes) that allowed us to stay in the arena to meet the players after the game! She asked him if he was affiliated with the team or knew someone on the team and it turns out he was a friend of Steve Francis. WOW, what luck that was! I think there were only about 30 people left that had these passes after security had herded everyone else out of all the sections around the Rockets' locker room entrance (and security went through our section and collected the special passes from each person as proof they had a right to still be there). By us having these passes we were able to stay and get a shot at perhaps getting some more player autographes, whereas if we didn't have them we would have had to leave. Kudos to Beth for being resourceful in getting those passes!

After a short wait a few players started to come back out of the locker room dressed in comfortable, traveling clothes (we learned they were going to fly back to Houston that night). Armed with 2 Rockets Media Guides, one from this season and one from last season, and 2 Sharpie Pens, Beth and I were looking to see if we could get a few more autographs.

Eric Piatkowski was the first one out, but as we had gotten his autograph earlier we just hung back in our seats to see who else came out. Again, Eric seemed really down to earth, signed tons of autographs and even took pictures with some kids. We also noticed Mike Wilks, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, a few rows up in the seats talking with some people he obviously knew. Nachbar and Mobley came out next. Interestingly, not many people seemed to recognize Nachbar because we didn't see too many people trying to get his attention/autograph. Mobley on the other hand was getting plenty of shouts for autographs. He politely begged off at first, going to talk with a couple of people he appeared to know who were waiting down on the court. However, he sat down right in front of us, where we couldn't help but notice the AMAZING watch he was wearing (BLING! BLING!). In fact, as you would expect from the recent ESPN article that featured him, Mobley was looking quite stylish in general. When Mobley did get up again and started to leave Beth called out, "Great game Cat!" and he turned around, smiled and said "Thanks", and signed both our media guides! =)

Kelvin Cato, Jim Jackson, and Weatherspoon wandered out next. Cato didn't stop for any autographs, but went directly up into the stands to the people he knew. In fact, he seemed to gather them up with him and must have headed out through the arena concourse because he never came back down to the court when everyone else left via that route. Weatherspoon stopped to sign for people, as did Jim Jackson. Beth decided to go over for Jackson's autograph, but before I could head over to Weatherspoon for his, Steve Francis came out. Knowing that their time "mingling" was probably short, I decided to try and get Steve's autograph first and try for Weatherspoon if time allowed.

Steve signed a few quick autographs (I hadn't gotten over to him yet), then headed into the seats to meet the people waiting for him. I decided to hang back a few rows and wait to catch him when he left. I noticed during this time that not only did Beth get over and get Jim Jackson's autograph (she said he was very, very nice), but when the pen someone else tried to have him sign something with "died" she lent J.J. her Sharpie and he signed 3 or 4 things for other people with it. Meanwhile, I was still waiting for Francis.

At this point Rockets team security guy Butch Grant (I'm pretty sure that's who it was), started herding up the players, calling out to them it was time to leave because the bus was waiting and they had to go to get to the airport on time. Francis, who had made it about 10 rows up into the arena talking to people, was holding up the show. I'm sure he was just trying to make sure he met all of his family/friends that had come to see him, but Grant was getting more and more impatient with Francis, trying to get him to get going. I wanted to get his autograph before he left, but at the same time didn't want to be rude sticking my pen and media guide in his face when he was trying to spend at least a little time with the people that he knew were there to see him.

Finally Francis finished meeting the last few people, giving them hugs and handshakes, and this kid and I were waiting with our materials out for signing as he turned to leave. The kid got his signed first (I was polite!), and while he was signing for the kid I made eye contact with Francis, who nodded "yes", so I reached my pen and media guide out to be signed (literally OVER the kid, who was star struck and hadn't moved even though Francis had given him back his signed photo). Just then Butch Grant appeared next to Francis and announced in the direction of a few others who had started over for autographs "Ok, no more autographs, we HAVE to go catch a plane." But I got my autograph,the LAST ONE Francis gave that night! Good timing on my part! ;-)

And with that, the night was complete. The arena was pretty much empty, and we knew that we had experienced an incredible night, something we won't soon forget!




RANDOM OBSERVATIONS - Being that close to the action here are some of the random observations that we noticed

• The players are REALLY tall, even the "short ones". ;-)

• The passing is soo much quicker! In fact, I shudder to think what would happen if a player didn't handle a pass properly, might break a finger! These passes were laser sharp. And they HAVE to be! Many times the defensive players would be so close to the pass (closer than it looks on TV) that if the pass was not thrown at a high velocity it would be intercepted. Many of the Rockets players (especially Jim Jackson) showed very good passing skills on the perimeter.

• You REALLY get a feel for the physicality of the play, much more so than compared to what you see on TV. Guys are always bumping and running into each other, and you could hear "groans and grunts" from the players in the paint as they would try to break through screens or body up for rebounds.

• Patrick Ewing was obsessed with the towel girl drying the players' sweat off the seats after timeout huddles before he would sit down (none of the other coaches seemed to care).

• Yao definitely knows some English curse words... he let out one or two during the game when fighting through screens!

• The trainers have a HUGE tupperware container filled with nothing but gum: bazooka, Quench sports gum, Extra sugerless... you name it, they had it, and in every flavor. Both the players and coaches would periodically beckon for the "gum tub" throughout the game. On top of the container written in Sharpie was: "Basketball players, coaches and trainers only!!!" The "only" was underlined... twice. =)

• It appears each player has their own personal "Gaterade" squirt bottle as players only drank out of the bottles that had their "number" on it. Apparently trainers also must wear the hat of "bartender" at times.

• On the sideline Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy is pretty quiet. You don't see him get visably "upset" that much. If anything, when he gets upset it is a "slow burn." But one time during the game there was a Hawks player that came barreling down the lane and must have knocked over 3 Rockets and 2 Hawks players. It looked like bowling pins being knocked over! Inexplicably there was no offensive foul called and immediately Van Gundy ran down to the base line jumping up and down asking for the offensive foul call. It was pretty funny.

• In addition to the obvious, we noticed another thing the assistant coaches are good for during a game. On one possession, while Steve was brining the ball up court following a Hawks score Van Gundy turned around (back to Steve) to get a drink of his beverage (Diet Coke) and the Hawks pressured Steve into a turnover. Jeff, not having seen what happened, just knowing that all the players were suddenly running back in the other direction, frantically started asking his assistants, "What happened?! Did you see what happened?!" Always nice to have more than one pair of eyes on the game. =)

 

Here is a small sample of the photos we took at the Rockets/Hawks game.
You can view the entire list of photos (as well as the 'larger images') along with the above game recap here:
http://www.kulick.net/rockets/

Enjoy!



Yao taking jumpers with Ewing at the shootaround.


Yao getting ready for a pass, working on his post moves at warmups.


Yao at warmups shooting baseline jumpers


Center for the Houston Rockets.....or Houston Texans!?


During player introductions. Yao and Francis look like they are trying to figure out what is in that Gatorade bottle!


Rockets first quarter action.

 

Hands up on defense! JVG yelling out instructions to Yao.


Quite the contrast, Yao and Dan Dickau.


Players getting ready for an inbound pass


Yao cheering his teammates on in the 4th quarter rally!


Rockets bench standing up during the final 4th quarter push.


Mobley's Bling Bling. Nice watch!

 

That was the one disappointment....even though I was actually pretty close, I could not hear JVG in the huddle. During time-outs the arena played loud music which made it hard to really hear what he was saying. Additionally during time-outs Mike Wells and Colin Pine (who were sitting in front of me) would stand up behind the bench. So them being "in the way" made it hard to hear.

I could not hear what JVG was saying, but I could see what he was doing at times when Pine and Wells would not stand right in the way. JVG would basically just write plays on his " scratch play board". He would write a play, pull off the scratch paper and then do another play and then another. He would go through 5 or 6 scenarios on his scratch board talking to the players. He was like a machine! LOL.

I even picked up one of the scratch papers with a play on it after the game. There were like a ton of them under the bench seats. ;-)