VERY hip-hoppy. They have a DJ spin during timeouts and half-time, and they feature all the hip-hop artists that are in attendance. One thing I really notice about the Rockets players was that many of them cursed or hung their head after a mistake. Dmo, Lin did that a lot. Parson would get frustrated and blame the refs more. Overall, it seems that players lost their cool / composure - and that was in the first half. When we got down, you could see Parsons shake his head at one point. Harden looked at the guys with who haven't gotten a lot of PT after they made a mistake - but you have to hand it to him - he remains cool. A couple of times during ft's he'd come over to the Rockets bench and have somewhat animated conversations with the Rockets assistants - and this was not late in the game. It was clear the team was out of sync from the very start. Not just from what was going on the court, but around the bench. This is definitely a young team who has a *LOT* of pressure on itself. You could see the stark difference between Brooklyn who walked in playing so loose and the Rockets who looked like they had everything to lose and nothing to gain. They played a weird combination of uncaring and tentative. There wasn't much camaraderie after runs. I was really surprised. In years passed usually you see the bench get very animated when the team was making a run. Seems to me that having Bev, Dwight and Jones our affected chemistry a lot.
Here's some pics: http://pho.to/58leZ I didn't take a whole lot once the game got started. Lin gets the biggest applause out of any Rocket - it's definitely fun. Looking around, I'd say 50% of the rocket's jersey belonged to Lin, the rest were mostly Parsons (all chics) and Harden (all kids). There were a few old school Jerseys - a couple of number 34's, and even a 22 and even a 1! Tinmac faints!
Thanks for the feedback. How would you rate McHale as a coach up live in person. Is he doing a lot of coaching from the sidelines and calling plays, telling players to adjust on each play?
There was a few times when he would have the pgs sitting next to one another and he was giving them instructions while other players were just half listening around them. He also drew up plays at times - using his chalkboard. He's doing x's and o's for sure. But yeah, he spends a lot of time on the pg's. One thing I noticed about Lin is that he does seem to get down on the court at times. If he doesn't get a call he doesn't hustle back at times. His body language isn't always so great. I think losing really affects him. He definitely needs to toughen up mentally a lot. McHale really lost it on that block called goal-tending - he was so animated. I just think it's hard to motivate players every game and when you have the injuries and really there's not a whole lot to play for since we're comfortably in the number 4 seed....well, that's what I think is going on. The passion just wasn't there.
I was in section 13, right off the side of Houston's bench. I dragged along my little brother and sister and forced them into Battier and Parsons jerseys lol. Fun game all around, lots of Rocket fans. Once the 4th quarter lead grew a bunch of Net fans were taunting us but it is what it is. I was the same way when I went last year.
Yeah, i got a couple of pictures of Rocket fans thinking some might be on here... Is this your brother? I saw a girl with him as well. But didn't see another obvious rocket fan with them. http://s26.postimg.org/htl5xeiqh/Screen_Shot_2014_04_02_at_1_38_10_PM.png
No I was to that kid's left a section or two over. Fourth row off to the side of Houston's bench. My brother was a giant red-headed kid in a Battier jersey. Kind of hard to miss if you saw him. =P Shoutout to the 4 Rocket fans behind the basket! Riled up all the Net fans in like 3 sections.
