Shameful? Yes. I was at AA Center last night here in Dallas for this game, wearing my Rockets sweatshirt, hat, and downright feeling pretty good. After all, Houston was due to steal another game from the Mavs, and Kenny Thomas was back. The first half was seriously making me dry-heave, or maybe that was the nachos and beer. But whatever it was, I was disgusted. Four things stood out in my mind in the first half: 1. Rebounding - Dallas got offensive rebound after offensive rebound. It was either Howard, Bradley (yes, he had 6 points and all of them were tip-ins), or Dirk getting offensive rebs. or tapping it to another player to reset the shot clock. 2. Turnovers - YIKES, it seemed like every time we gained a small amount of momentum, Dallas would steal an errant pass or we would lose the ball. 3. Free throws - DAMN, we missed them in the first half, and it didn't get better in the second. KT, Francis missed a lot of freebies. Heck, Cato may have had a better percentage than those two guys. 4. Hustle - or a lack thereof. Dallas was outhustling us to the boards in the first half, outhustling us for loose balls, and overall looked like they wanted the ball more than we did. The second half was tense, fun, and gave me a reason to hang out for more nachos and beer. This was the Houston team I love to watch. The gritty, fast-paced, high octane Rockets. Francis began to take over in the third, going to the rack at will, seemingly unstoppable unless they fouled him. He had some SWEEEET passes underneath to Cato for some dunks, he hit Mobley on the perimeter. Our guards (no, not you Moochie) got hot at the same time for a short stretch and I began to wonder if we'd break it open. No such luck..... Dallas hung in and had no answer for Steve Nash. None. Although when we were up 73-69, he pulled up for a TWO pointer (one of his feet was clearly on the three point line, they even showed it on the BIG screen), swish, they gave him three points, and it was all of the sudden a one point game. Our comeback died from there on. We had a problem executing after that offensively. I cried and walked out of the arena listening to all the Dallas fans make fun of me, the Houston guy.
I feel for you HOOP-T. I don't think I can go back to the Alamodome until I know the Rocks can win. But take some consolation in this -- most of the Mavs fans are bandwagoners. The Dallas Mavericks have become media darlings, and have attracted a huge crowd of younger people who will be Rockets fans when we become good again. It takes some fan dedication to stick through a season like this. I'm proud of all the CC.netters, and all the fans who still Believe It! Our average fan base may be kindof crummy, but our dedicated fans are the best around. How is it that we have the greatest free throw shooter in NBA history (or one of the greatest), yet we can't leverage him to get better?
Yeah, it was pretty rough. One guy said to me at half time, in the urinal next to me no less.... "You're a Rockets fan huh? I looked down at my sweatshirt and said, "Yes, how'd you know?" He chuckled. I said, "Well, you guys are really taking it to us. I seem to be the only Houston fan here in the whole arena." He said,"I guess that's why we're winning." (his exact words were 'kicking your a$$') WHAT?!
The Mavs fans were not too happy either because there was No Free CHALUPA. Go Rox D. Pretty intense in the second half... Until Rudy decided to change things up by putting KT on Dirk and Moochie on Steve Nash...
Mmmmmm, urinal cake! Moochie, don't get me started on him. He passed on about 6 open shots, and instead dribbled the ball to get around his opponent, get cut off, dribble back, make a sloppy pass or two. I was so pissed at the MOOCH!
