Good Ft.Worth Star Telegram article on the Rockets

The best praise is always from the opposition. I really enjoyed this article. Hope you do too.

http://www.star-telegram.com/287/story/1009913.html

Happily, Rockets won't be in town every night

By: Gil LeBreton


DALLAS — The night was ripe for celebration.

The NBA commissioner was in town. The 2010 All-Star Game, it was festively announced, is coming to Arlington. And even Jerry Jones, the man who’s made the Cowboys what they are, was in the house.

Unfortunately, somebody also invited the Houston Rockets.

With Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming and the newly acquired Ron Artest, the Rockets verily are weapons of potential mass destruction this NBA season.

New coach Rick Carlisle and the Dallas Mavericks didn’t need opening night’s 112-102 defeat to tell them that. Dangerous neighbors abound in the Mavericks’ Southwest Division.

At Mavs, Inc., hope abounds. Hope that, somehow, the NBA augurs are wrong and that the Mavericks really aren’t the fourth-worst team in the Western Conference. Hope that Jason Kidd will revel in his re-bestowed freedom to run the offense. Hope that, frankly, Carlisle isn’t the ill fit that cynics in Indiana and Detroit snort that he is.

So they turned it up a notch at American Airlines Center on Thursday night. Turned up the volume to 11. Unleashed PA guy "Humble Billy" Hayes to holler at will.

And just before the season-opening tipoff, the ever-erudite Jerry Stackhouse took microphone in hand and told the packed house, "I’ll tell you right now. It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be fast. So you better put on your seat belts."

And then the Rockets went out in the second quarter and scored the period’s first 14 points.

This appears destined to happen often this season — not necessarily to the Mavericks, but certainly by the Rockets. By halftime, Houston’s new big three already had combined for 44 points.

Before the game, Carlisle said he had been impressed with the Rockets’ Wednesday night opener, a victory over the Memphis Grizzlies.

"They certainly didn’t play their best game," Carlisle said, "but they won by 10.

"We’ll have our hands full, but Western Conference games are going to be like this on a night-in, night-out basis."

It turned out to be a far more prophetic observation than Stackhouse’s was.

If the Mavericks are going to stay with the Artests, the McGradys and the Yaos of the conference, they are going to need more consistent defensive nights than this. The Rockets present matchup problems that most teams, not only the Mavericks, will not be able to solve.

But after the long climb to erase Houston’s 14-0 second-quarter run, the Mavericks couldn’t match Yao’s size or the Rockets’ numbers down the stretch.

And as if to apply the mustard on the Mavs’ distasteful night, Artest even got in a chippy push on Josh Howard in the final quarter.

"Look," Carlisle said after the game, "I mean, we needed to be better, and they were."

Howard proved to be one of the Mavericks’ few bright spots. Cheered loudly during the opening introductions, he finished with 28 points and 11 rebounds.

Teammate Dirk Nowitzki led the Mavs with 36 points. But down the stretch, when Artest and the Houston bench were scoring from inside the free-throw paint and out, Dirk was no help. His only point of the decisive fourth period came on the technical foul that was called on Artest.

"In stretches we were good," Carlisle said. "But the consistency defensively wasn’t there."

They’ll go back to the practice court, the new coach said. At the same time, he acknowledged that a lot of his team’s defensive problems weren’t entirely the Mavericks’ fault.

"They’re a tough matchup," Carlisle said. "Yao and Artest had great games. McGrady played well, but he didn’t need to play his best tonight to win. That shows you how good they were."

The day had begun festively, with NBA boss David Stern in town and the league announcing that the 2010 All-Star Game will be played in Jones’ new Arlington stadium, the Jethro-Dome.

Alas, for the Mavericks, the Washington Generals must have had a previous engagement. The Rockets are loaded.

Carlisle casually cautioned against any knee-jerk opening-night predictions of doom.

"The caliber of opponent," he noted, "can also skew things a bit."

In truth, it skewed the home team by a convincing 10 points Thursday night.

"We’ve got enough good players," Carlisle said.

Was that another prediction, or just a hope?

 

I guess I've become accustomed to that writing style. There is a lot of it in novels too. Still, my emphasis on it being a good article was based more on content than style. I love this line. "With Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming and the newly acquired Ron Artest, the Rockets verily are weapons of potential mass destruction this NBA season."

 

He looked liked someone punched him in the stomach a few times during the game last night. He better get used to it, because it is going to be a long season for the Mavs. They will make the playoffs, but I would predict as the 7th or 8th seed, which means that we might see them first round. I can't believe so many picked the Mavs to beat the Hornets in the playoffs last year. In any case, no one will make that mistake again this year.

 

Well, we are long ways from that, of course, but there is absolutely no way the Mavs could oust the Rockets, if our big three played. The Mavs actually played a heck of a game and they were just thoroughly overmatched, and we were not even at full strength. Next time we will bring Battier and may try playing defense for the entire 48, and then you will see how far the gap has widened.