rockets clippers extra

What up folks so I went to the game tonight with StupidMoniker, tm1ym11 and his girl and since the Rockets won it was good fun.

everyone saw the game so no need to go into that the Rockets won i guess I'll share some of the stuff observed and saw pre/post game

Tmac was out there for warmups but he left the court as we were walking in so I didnt get to see him shoot around it looked like he had a good sweat going though.

I didnt watch too much of the warmups, the guys that were out there were Taylor, Chase, Chuck, AB, Luis, Landry and Cook. (Cook dunked on Coach Respert during warmups)

I spent most of the time talking to Jason Friedman about random stuff.


Bull was talking to tm1ym11 and StupidMoniker when I returned i told Bull he needs to teach Brian Cook how a big man should shoot 3s and he laughed and said yeah Brian is trying but keeps hitting rim and i was like rim? hes only hit the backboard this season! he laughed and had to get back to pre-game prep

One thing of note when I talk to two other Rockets staff members they both said that after the dallas blowout they had practice on thanksgiving

practice on thanksgiving! but coach was pissed at the blowout, pissed! both said that practice lasted till...2:30 AM!!! and then to come out and lose to the spurs one of them said yeah that was frustrating cuz all they worked on was drilled again into their heads.

When the players came out for the official pre-game warmups it was just usual messing around. Chuck Hayes got in the corner and started to shoot threes. He nailed two in a row and barely missed on the third. He fell to the floor in mock anguish. It was pretty funny to see.

Tracy come out during the starting lineups for the clippers it was pretty dark but I was right by the tunnel so I saw him come out. He did it on purpose not to attact attention to himself I would think but there were plenty of people who kept shouting out his name when he came out.


During the game the bench was well the bench...you can tell they are all a bunch of guys who really like each other and there was a lot of fun going on and cheering. When Ariza had that real nasty dunk the entire bench was going nuts and talking about it for at least another play or two. It was good to see.


During the game though Landry seems to really critical of himself. There were two plays in the game where he missed an easy shot and then didnt box out and he was getting on himself for not doing those things. (on the rebound the clippers ended up turning it over anyway but Landry was mad he didnt get the rebound in the first place)

As for not starting I am sure Landry would have wanted to but he didnt show any sort of disappointment and kept cheering on Scola whenever scola made a move or hit a shot.

Oh yeah in the second half Scola had a rebound where he kicked out his legs a la dennis rodman style and got it with one hand or something...it was a pretty demonstrative rebound but the bench loved it

rebounding in general was VERY poor for the rockets in the first half..partially cuz there was no defense to be played at all in the first quarter by the rockets, I believe at one point the rebounding battle was 17-6 but by the end of the game the Rockets won the battle on the glass.

What I think helped was moving Battier onto Davis in the second half who was just killing brooks in the first half. Battier did a good job on Davis and the clippers kept trying to force the ball into Butler and its much easier to double team in the post compared to out on the perimeter or on the drive.


There is this little kid who sat in front of us who always freakin asks all the players for stuff, shoes, shirts, jerseys whatever he can get. Frankly he annoys me cuz its a typical spoiled little LA kid. As the game was over in the 4th he kept asking Chuck for his warmup shirt or his jersey, Chuck said he would give him his sweaty towel..and the kid kept asking for the jersey and then Chuck said I'll give you my socks you want my socks?



now I guess for the one thing everyone keeps talking about...Tracy
I came away a bit impressed by Tmac in this game...considering last year I started a thread that everyone just kept ripping on at the lack of his enthusiasm for his teammates after the boston victory and most of the season this year he seemed sort of sulking on the bench, but throughout the entire game he was doing his best to "be one of the guys" he was usually the first guy up off the bench to welcome the guys back in the huddle, was talking to all the guys on the bench during the game, joked with them during timeouts....late in the 4th he was mocking Aaron brooks and the lack of biceps he has since aaron was flexing. he was really impressed by Brooks dunk and was hoping for that Battier dunk to come through as well. Its a bit much to think about right now I doubt just because he is acting chummy with players it means its a good sign, but it was something different from what I had seen from him in the past. He was never like that even in the game he has played out here in LA. I am not gonna to formulate any theories just saying what I saw people can make their own conclusions from that.


After the game we were fortunate enough to get some post game passes and hung around.

Les came over and I was able to shake his hand and his wife slapped my shoulder and loved my santa hat. I went over and talk to Daryl Morey afterwards we had some laughs and then we waited around for the players to come out

Now personally I found this to be really cool but after the game there were several really young kids there. I was wondering why there were sooo many but it turns out that Trevor Ariza brought them all to the game, they looked like to be kids from a local school all probably like 4-6 grade kids. He had these gift bags for them and took pictures with the kids and signed autographs for them



this was his behind his big group shot afterwards didnt think it was right to go try to talk to him when he was doing this for the kids (who were all really cute kids wanting their tickets signed) and then he left quietly.


All the other guys came out and Chuck came out and was talking to some old friends (chuck grew up in upland a suburb of LA..not too far from where i grew up) and his cousin



I had to show him HayesFan's website (chuckhayesfans.net) so after he was done talking to his friends I stopped by and asked him if he knew about the site and I showed him the site on my phone. He stopped and was scrolling through and was tripping over it. I mean it wasnt a 1 second thing he was looking at it for a while he said "i need to check this site out" I told him that my friend who made the site is his biggest fan and also went to UK and started to follow the Rockets just cause of him. He said "tell her thanks and I said whats up" so there is HayesFan's moment

I took a picture with Lowry he said to put the pic up on twitter so I did





and at the end of it all I figured why the heck not and make his day

Spoiler

*thanks to StupidMoniker for the last two pics from his camera