Rockets on the move ... finally

The media has jumped onto the bandwagon.

Rockets on the move ... finally

Rockets on the move ... finally
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Mike Monroe / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 2 hours ago

It shouldn't be a surprise that the Rockets, who travel to San Antonio on Saturday, have suddenly become the latest of the NBA's runnin'-and-gunnin' teams, having averaged 110.6 points through its last five games.


Tracy McGrady is beginning to feel more comfortable in his new home, and its showing in his production. (Bill Baptist / GettyImages)
After all, their offense is led by a guy who scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds the last time the Rockets played the Spurs at Toyota Center, back on Dec. 9.

On Dec. 1 Tracy McGrady ¡X he's the guy who scored the 13 points in 35 seconds ¡X ranked 24th in the league in scoring. After Thursday's win over the Nets, McGrady was fifth, at 24.7 per game. It is no stretch to suggest McGrady will be solidly back in the hunt for a third straight scoring title by the time the All-Star break rolls around, especially with Kobe Bryant apparently on the shelf for a few weeks with his severely sprained ankle.

What is a surprise is that the Rockets have jumped on the racehorse basketball bandwagon, what with Jeff Van Gundy still presiding over their bench. But Van Gundy seems to have embraced the notion his team can have an offensive identity, even as it continues to struggle to find the defensive identity for which his teams always have been known.

The only thing worse than struggling to maintain an indentity, Van Gundy told a few of us earlier this season, is not having any identity at all.

The Rockets scored 124 points against Dallas on Wednesday night, their most this season. They made a season-high 61 shots and, most telling of all, had 35 assists, a number that matched the high figure in the league this season. Over the past 14 games, the Rockets have averaged 101.6 points on 47 percent shooting. Before that stretch, the Rockets were averaging 86.9 points on 42.1 percent shooting through 22 games. The Rockets scored 100 points seven times in the last 13 games. They had 100 twice in the first 22 games.


The Baseline

Here's a candidate for Most-Hoping-To-Be-Traded by Feb. 24: Raptors forward Donyell Marshall. Why? Because Coach Sam Mitchell has cut his playing time, which never is what a player wants in a contract year. He is averaging nearly four points and four rebounds fewer than he did last season, not the kind of statistics agents like to flash to potential new teams in the free agent signing period. So, as the Raptors look to develop rookie Rafael Araujo, often at the expense of Marshall's time, expect Marshall to be looking even more hopefully for a trade.

Heat coach Stan Van Gundy is going to have to find a way to give Dwyane Wade more rest or Wade, who sat out Wednesday against the Warriors with bruised ribs, sore ankle, sore back and sore knee (all on left side), is going to miss more games. Wade may be feeling the effects of that full summer of play on the U.S. Olympic team as much, or more, than any player.

Don't think Jason Kidd wouldn't love to be traded to a real title contender ¡X that means a team out West ¡X just because he declared recently that he won't ask for a trade before the Feb. 24 deadline. Kidd passed Larry Bird and moved into fourth place on the all-time triple-double list (with 60) after he went for 22 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in a loss against the Magic last week. "The triple-double doesn't mean too much unless you win," Kidd told the reporters after the game. Translation: I'm doing all I can here, but I can't take this losing much longer.

Speaking of players who might like a new location before Feb. 24 passes, veteran big guard Steve Smith has been rotated to the injured list in Charlotte so the Bobcats could activate center Jamal Sampson ¡X a bigger, younger player. That's consistent with Bernie Bickerstaff's original plan ¡X to invest playing time in players young enough to develop for the long haul. But Smith has demonstrated that, even at 34, he could still play. Smith is no malcontent, but contending teams looking for a shooter might be tempted to make Bickerstaff an offer.

Consider waiting a couple of weeks before declaring the Bulls one of the East's better teams. Their surge to the edge of the playoff picture has been a good story, but check out their schedule and you will see it is a little misleading. They had a huge home schedule in December and January. In December they played 11 of 15 at home. Heading into their home game Saturday against the Knicks, the Bulls have had 6 of 7 at home in January and 17 of their last 22 have been at home. Starting Monday, 17 of their next 26 are on road. If they remain in playoff contention by the All-Star break, then you can declare them "back" among the East's better teams.

Interim coach Michael Cooper hasn't exactly distinguished himself with his bench savvy since taking over for Jeff Bzdelik in Denver. He admits having forgotten he left Andre Miller on the bench in the final eight minutes of a loss to the Clippers and he failed to double-team Tracy McGrady when McGrady went off for 45 in a Rockets win. But the Nuggets seem in no rush to replace him. GM Kiki Vandeweghe wants to see how Cooper coaches while the team is healthy. The Nuggets have been hard hit by injuries this season; they've only been able to use their regular starting lineup of guards Andre Miller and Greg Buckner, forwards Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin and center Marcus Camby 17 times this season. The Nuggets are 10-7 while using this lineup.


The offensive surge has developed since the Rockets added Jon Barry and David Wesley through separate trades, so give some of the credit to general manager Carroll Dawson.

"I feel it's coming," McGrady recently told the Houston Chronicle. "Adding those two guys (Barry and Wesley), they're starting to get a great feel for this team. I definitely think we're starting to gel. Playing this inside-out game has been unbelievable for my part. Yao (Ming) is doing a great job getting great post position down there and opening things up for me and my teammates.

"Yao is such a big force down there, it's hard to come off his body. You come off his body, he's going to score down there in the paint."

While McGrady is the guy who makes the Rockets go offensively, Barry and Wesley have helped get them running. The Rockets' 12-6 surge over the last six weeks, that has gotten them to 19-17 as they prepare to face the Spurs again, also corresponds to Bob Sura's having discovered how to play effectively on a gimpy right knee that had to be drained on Tuesday.

How does 35 points on 16 shots for Sura in Thursday's win over the Nets sound for efficient and effective?

The Rockets have been more up-tempo and effective since the trades, but Sura's toughness has been downright inspiring.

"As far as his (knee) injury, it's not something minor," Van Gundy said. "Very, very few other guys in this league would still be playing right now. He's got a toughness that's unique. It's not just physical, because that's part of it too, but his mental toughness to allow pain to not deter him.

"He knows we're in dire straits. That's why Sura has great credibility as far as leading. Everybody knows what he's going through, and everybody sees how hard he's playing. So if he says, 'We've got to go play hard,' that's credible. If a guy says, 'We've got to play hard,' and he's the dog, it goes in one ear and out the other. So that's why, to me, Sura is credible, very credible. Because when he says energy and he says toughness, that's how he plays."

If Sura holds up and McGrady keeps moving up the scoring list, the Rockets are going to be as formidable a team as a lot of us predicted they would be before the season began.



Heat cool in West
Speaking of the Suns, their win over Miami on Tuesday means the Heat have an 0-5 record against the top four teams in the Western Conference, Seattle (0-2), Phoenix, San Antonio and Dallas.

"We've obviously struggled with the top teams in the West, and that's something that I think should stick in our mind every day," Heat coach Stan Van Gundy told reporters after the loss in Phoenix. "And any time we have any tendency to get complacent, that should be what pushes us and drives us to improve over the last 14 weeks of the season. We have to get a lot better to get to where we want to go. You can't argue the facts on that." Is it unfair to judge the Heat, which still have the best record in the East, when it loses to all of the West's top teams?

"It's a natural phenomenon," Van Gundy said. "Unless you have Phoenix's record, people are going to be looking for something."


Ford still hurting
You have to feel for Milwaukee's T.J. Ford, who this week was declared out for the season after tests on his spinal cord revealed it had not healed enough to allow him to begin basketball drills.

The most skeptical fear Ford's career may be over. Ford, the eighth pick in the 2003 draft, does not.

"You have to prepare yourself for the good and the bad," Ford said before the Bucks played the Spurs on Wednesday night. "But I will play again. It's just a matter of when." Ford refuses to believe his injury could be career-ending. But he did wonder about his future when he was carried off on a stretcher after suffering the injury on Feb. 24, 2004.

"I think those sorts of things would run through anybody's mind when something like that happens," Ford said. "It has been difficult. You have your ups and downs, but you stay positive."

Ford, who was a wildly popular player for the University of Texas in his college days, hasn't talked much with the media since his diagnosis this week. Curiously, he did a post-game "chalk talk" for Spurs fans at SBC Center after his team's loss. Of course, mot of those fans were big supporters of Ford during his playing days in Austin, just 70 miles north of San Antonio.

Veteran columnist Mike Monroe is a frequent FOXSports.com contributor