Fran strikes again! Amazing amazing article on Battier by Chron's Fran Blineberry: http://blogs.chron.com/franblinebury/2008/03/alone_on_kobe_island_rockets_1.html#comments Alone on Kobe Island: Rockets 104, Lakers 92. These are the times when you start looking for angels hiding up in the rafters. Or, considering the time of year, leprechauns sitting on the back of the rims. How else do you explain Rafer Alston hitting a pot of gold with eight 3-pointers? Or Bobby Jackson dancing an Irish jig with 10 points in the fourth quarter? They're magically delicious. But there are no lucky charms in Shane Battier's world, which has had just as much effect on 22 in a row. During the historic run, there has been LeBron James and Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson and Carmelo Anthony and every other offensive star with a name and game to chase around. Then there was Sunday. "Welcome to Kobe Island," said Battier with a wry, tired smile. It's a tough, forbidding place, where trouble and danger lurk every trip down the floor. "I saw how good Kobe was in my rookie year when I was in Memphis," Battier said. "Everyone makes a big deal out of his 81-point game against the Raptors. But he gave me personally about 63 in my rookie year -- in three quarters. And no one really talks about it. He's unbelievable. Unbelievable. All the praise that he receives, he earns." Just like Battier. But while Kobe gets the headlines, what Battier gets is more aches and pains than a month worth of Advil commercials and a body that he has to treat like it's a frozen salmon. More than an hour after the Rockets had finished off the Lakers, Battier finally emerged from the trainers room after soaking himself in a tub of ice. "Sorry, guys," he said to the waiting media as he hurriedly got dressed. "But I'm freezing." No more than Kobe on this afternoon when the unheralded and underappreciated Rockets' win streak finally got its day in the bright spotlight on national TV against the NBA's glamour team. Bryant finished the day with 24 points, but needed 33 shots to get them. When it was over, finally over, and Battier had spent 46 grueling minutes and 24 exhausting seconds chasing him all over the floor, Kobe was just 11-for-33 shooting. "I'll take that," Battier said. So will head coach Rick Adelman every night of every week. That's why he told Battier that his job would be to shadow Bryant for virtually every minute that the Laker star was on the floor. "Yeah," Battier laughed. "And I told him his early Christmas present was in the mail, too." A team wins 22 games in a row because at different times different players make key plays and contributions. This day there was Alston and Jackson covering up for a 4-for-16 effort by Tracy McGrady. Other times it's been McGrady or Luis Scola. There was the 3-point buzzer-beater by Steve Novak to take down Sacramento. But a team takes a real step forward to earn and become the No. 1 seed overall in the brutal Western Conference race because it has a player like Battier, who accepts any challenge. Twice last season Bryant dropped 53 points in a single game against Battier's defense. And the Rockets won both times. "The funny thing is, I thought I played good defense against him," Battier said. "He's like that. You can be there in front of him. You can be all over him and he can still make shots." Battier does it with the meticulous preparation and attention to detail as a member of a bomb squad. He breaks down video. He analyzes and crunches all the numbers. Then he takes the floor and just spills his guts. He's rarely the most athletic player on the floor, but he's always the most active. If he can't get up high enough to swat back Kobe's jumpers, he can put a hand through the middle of Kobe's arms to get into his line of vision. Contest every shot. One of the fundamentals of defense. "(Kobe) never shows frustration," Battier said. "He's the only guy in the league. That's why I respect the hell out of him. He keeps coming at you wave after wave, just attacking you. So against him, you have to attack from the tip to the buzzer. Because the second you let up and lose your focus, he's got you." But Bryant never got Batter this time, just the way nobody has gotten the Rockets now in more than six weeks. In large part, that's because Battier is the mirror image of Kobe on the defensive end -- wave after wave after wave after wave. He never stops. Usually after a game, Battier is so full of energy that he crackles like a live wire for hours after a game. He'll stay awake until the wee hours before finally drifting off to sleep. Not this night. Not after an unrelenting afternoon of toil on Kobe Island. "Oh, I'll crash," he said. Not before the Lakers did. Sometimes you look for angels and leprechauns and all you find is hard work.
You are crazy! Can you tell me the 11 else in the dozen? Artest? Ben? They are more expensive than Shane.
Think it twice, Victory cannot only depends on outstanding offensive,but also outstanding defensive. Look at Denver ,they have Iverson,Anthony,but since the bad defensive, Nuggets still far away behind the Golden State Warriors. The ext of Rocket is weaker than before ,so we need a defensive player extremely.
lets bench rafer the rest of the season before he comes back to earth and maybe we can trade him at the end of the year for chauncey billups or deron williams.
hey i heard chris anderson is back lets trade battier for the birdman seriously battier is important to us
The funniest part about this thread is the amount of people taking the idea seriously and the apparent lack of sensing sarcasm when it is very blatent.
i like the guy,battier Yao,Tmac,Battier-core of Rocks! Scola,Landry-new star! Alston will be excellent if stable enough! Uncle is great! Others can be trade
