http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-071110-11 1Getting A Read On The Rockets By Marc Stein ESPN.com (Archive) Miami coach Pat Riley has apparently seen enough. The Houston Rockets have already convinced him, not even two weeks into the season. "You just think about the three teams here," Riley said this week of the vaunted Texas Triangle. "It could be the three best teams in the league." It doesn't seem to matter that the Rockets, at this early stage of the Rick Adelman era, frequently need offensive direction barked out from the bench, whereas Chris Webber and Mike Bibby and Vlade Divac could run Sacramento's read-and-react attack out of the high post without a word spoken. It doesn't seem to matter that referees -- at least according to Adelman -- allow more physicality at the elbow now than they do down low, which Adelman believes is a change since the Kings' heyday that complicates Houston's transition to this new system. It doesn't even seem to matter that the Rockets, while clearly playing with the sort of offensive freedom that scouts along press row struggle to believe after Jeff Van Gundy's restrictive four-season reign, have lost some of their Van Gundy-inspired edge defensively, whether or not they're prepared to admit it. Houston had only played five games going into what is known in the Rockets' locker room as The China Bowl: Yao Ming's showdown with Milwaukee rookie Yi Jianlian on Friday night. Yet they're routinely getting lumped into the same class as San Antonio, Dallas and Phoenix, even though the next playoff series Tracy McGrady or Yao Ming wins will be the first. For a rapid-fire pulse take on this team of the moment, we checked in with McGrady. Here's T-Mac on … Concerns that Yao doesn't get enough touches some nights: "The offense is fine. Obviously I'm getting the ball a lot, but we're making the effort to get Yao involved. I just think he has to be a little more aggressive. Although teams are going to double-team a lot, he still has to be aggressive. In his mind, he thinks [that] when a team double-teams [him], he should pass the ball. That's what I'm trying to tell him, 'You don't always have to pass, stay aggressive.' But he's always going to be involved. We're going to make sure he stays involved." Whether the first five games of the season can really prove anything: "We're a good basketball team. There's no doubt about that. I think in crunch-time situations, when that defense tightens up and smart basketball teams go to different things and make in-game changes, that's where problems might come because we're still learning. But we're good. We have that type of talent." His early season scoring spree, including that 47-point night in Utah last week: "I'm right at the top of my game. I feel pretty good. I feel light on my feet. The offense, I'm already accustomed to it. I know how to get easy shots." The pressure he and Yao feel because of their playoff failings and their desire to break through together: "We're still growing, man. We're still getting better. And this is the first time we are surrounded with a bunch of talented shooters. We've got the things that we need. Now we've just got to go out and show people." The whispers that he might be traded to the Lakers for Kobe Bryant and the recent statement from general manager Daryl Morey to publicly insist that the Rockets weren't pursuing Kobe: "I wasn't worried for one minute. I think what [Morey] did was definitely a good thing for him to go ahead and put out that fire before it got too big. But I didn't even call him or ask him or nothing like that. If anything, I think they would have called me and let me know [in advance if the teams were talking]. But when a situation like that occurs during the season, I know who started it. The Lakers are trying to start [mentioning] all these teams that they can make trades with because they have to get value back for Kobe. And I'm a valuable person to be traded for. But I was not worried at all." Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here.
