limit Yao's minutes... Great night, MAVs...refs did their best Hope everyone in rockets keeps healthy this whole season!!
love this game. Close tight match till the 4th quarter, and the rox pull away for the win. AB really needs to play more, and rafer should get spot minutes. PG duty could be spread among Brent Barry and Tmac. We are so lucky to have 3 good PFs, Scola and Landry is in foul trouble the whole night, and who step in? Hayes who hold Dirk to ZERO points in the final quarter. (The only point he got is a non-existence Technical FT). If only he could dunk. Ron plays big on both side, but he should never handle the ball. Tmac plays pretty well, he did not force his shots, a huge improvement on his shot selection, and he is making his FTs. Still waiting for Barry to start making his 3p. And i cant wait for Battier to come back.
+1K In the situation we are in at the moment (Shane out, Mac not near 100%, team still learning each other) when you have a Yao Ming out there having his way, you play him. You guys want Yao to get respect and be the Number 1 option? That requires not being a wussy about his minutes when he is tearing up the opponents. You cant play conservative and treat him like a child and then at the same time demand the respect from everyone that they give other stars in this league. There will be plenty of games where we dont need to lean on Yao to win...this wasnt one of them.
Yao Ming Great Job. Aggressiveness is the way to go. Ron Artest Beast! Thank God!! TMac..... Get well, your time will come. Aaron Brooks OOOOOOweeeeeeee Battier when you get healthy , you will fit right in! Hayes underrated , but not unappreciated WE NEED ANOTHER BIG MAN (above 6"10)
People, DPballer has shown me the light. Don't worry about Rafer's second consecutive poor shooting night (1-for-6 after 2-for-8). Don't worry about the fact that he didn't get to the FT line one single time in almost 30 min of play. Don't worry about the fact that he didn't dribble penetrate more than once in 30 min of play. He is a great floor general and is excellent at bringing the ball just past halfcourt and handing it off to another player. He also rarely turns the ball over. It doesn't matter that this is because he never penetrates and takes the slightest risk.
Great showing by the team, especially in the 4th quarter. Yao dominated, RonRon was sick, and Tmac looked pretty good considering how little he played in the preseason. The one thing that is evident is how good this team is going to be defensively when Shane gets back, how versatile this team will be with Ron and Shane guarding every 2/3 in the league, and Chuck hooking up with all the tough 4s when the game gets to crunch time. This is going to be an up and down team while they continue to get healthy, but the upside could be remarkable.
Once Battier returns and McGrady recovers from knee surgery, then we will finally see the Rockets full potential. They will give Boston a run for their money for the best Big 3 in the NBA. Was a great game, and Artest's and McGrady's joyful expressions after Artest's clutch 3 in the 4th were priceless. I am still smiling after the Artest "Leap of Victory". We should breeze by OKC then comes the real test in Boston. Expecting a hard fought game.
great game! i was always on my feet ... after every shot by brooks, artest, yao, etc. in the 4th. gotta love it. why was tmac not in the clutch minutes again? was it a coach decision? not that i'm like freaking out over it but it was odd to see ... ARTEST!!! i loved yao's swagger today. he wasn't taking any crap. when josh howard was throwin cheap shots, yao recognized it, walking right into him without even looking. i love that type of "i'm not backin down but you're not even worth looking at" thing. even in the post with diop and dampier tryin to get under his skin, i saw yao throw a few elbows to free himself. and someone told me that yao threw an elbow at howard's face? man i wish i didn't miss that. but ya ... i'm loving it. tmac's a bit rusty from what i've seen but still our best playmaker ... and i'm really lovin aaron's game. he brings energy! that's the big thing. his lightning speed, ability to create for himself ... and others ... i love it. i was real impressed with the coaching at the end of the game. instead of having landry or scola out there we had artest and hayes out there to contain howard and dirk ... and it worked to perfection. dirk was driving me crazy with his "i'll just fall back and hope they call a foul" thing ... but hayes and artest really laid it down. everytime howard and dirk or whoever and dirk would do a pick and roll, we'd simply switch. worked beautifully. on offense, we made a few more cuts that were done with accurate passes but failed to convert on a few gimme's ... but i'd like to see the tmac/yao pick n roll used a tad bit more often when we're getting nothing out of what we're usually doing. good game boys. we're nowhere near our peak ... nowhere near ... and we're still pretty good. the upside of this team is exciting.
i still didn't like how artest is misunderstood. hopefully his reputation will change. dude played his hearts out tonight, along with others.
Anyone noticed, when Yao got tripped in the 3rd quarter, it was because the punk Josh Howard purposely tripped him from behind. I played that several time on the DVR. It was very innocent looking but I thought Howard should have been ejected for that.
It was a win. I do not think that Dallas is very elite so this is a team we should beat. Aaron Brooks looked pretty good pushing pace especially. Chuck Hayes was aweome. He shows up and gets what you need. He had 7 boards, 0 points, one assist, and one steal. He played so well doing what he needed to do without demanding the ball or really making us play 4 on 5 on the offensive end. As I am adding Praise, T-mac was good, Yao was Yao which was great and Artest provided that will we have missed after losing Sura. Artest was also great on the offensive end. I just keeping looking at this team and thinking... how good will we be when we get Battier back? So far we have won two games I think we should have won Boston will be our first test. Fierguard
If anyone recorded the game the tripping of Yao by Josh Howard happened with 5:10 remaining in the 3rd quarter.
