Indy just lost to the Wizards. Yao + company put a hurtin' on the Pacers last night so bad that they actually lost to the Wizards. Kwame abused JO tonight.
GOOd I seemed to me that when the Rockets defeated the Pacers last year was start of their self destruction. Of course, that might have been more timing and Ron Artest's doing but I find it interesting.
Al Harrington played a lot of minutes tonight, and they still didn't get the win. Don't tell me Scott Pollard is the key to that team. Watch out for Steve Blake. He's going to show the league that he's a good point guard when the Wizards get all their guys back from injury.
The Rockets were lucky to win at Indy. They played poorly. The ball-handling and decision-making at crunch time was abysmal. Lucky for them, though, that Artest was injured. How bad was his shooting percentage... and he kept putting them up. Thanks, Ron!
Give them credit though. Yao, even though he finished 6/13 didnt have a good shooting night. He got some good looks that he just missed. Also, Mo fouled out quick, and didnt hit double figures in scoring first time this month i think. He probably averages 15 this month. Neither offense was exactly flowing. But we played just enough better D to win. Simple. Indiana wont go down though. I picked them to win the east last year, and i'll pick em again this year.
Don't want to get into talking about the Rockets win too much when we're supposed to be talking about Indiana's self-destruction, but I don't think you're (giddyup) giving the Rockets enough credit. Indiana had the refs in their pocket that night and having to fight through so many no-call hacking fouls made the Rockets offense look worse than it should have. If they had called the game fairly, I think the Rockets would have killed them from the free-throw line instead of being forced into turnovers because they couldn't go inside without being beaten up.
I think that, after the Celtics lost to us, one of their players was injured for the next game because a night of fronting Yao and having Yao's elbow in his back all night gave him a severely sore and bruised back. Yeah... Indy was just luck. It was just luck to win against LA, too (with Kobe, Shaq, and Payton - playing in LA)... It was just luck winning against New York twice (first one isn't fair to count)... and Minnesota, too (with Garnett, Cassell, Sprewell). Wow. We sure are lucky. -- droxford