Yall have no idea how much fun it is to see everyone talking about my Chuck Quote ------------------------------ http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/6421085.html# PLAYA VISTA, Calif. – Undersized and overachieving, unknown yet unrelenting, he is the epitome of the new Rockets. Chuck Hayes is a foot shorter than the center he replaced, six inches shorter than the centers he defends. He appears to be too thick to be quick, too short to come up large. Yet, as with the Rockets themselves, shorthanded yet still surviving, looks deceive and assumptions have been wrong. Hayes, however, does not mind. If anything, he said that the misconceptions help. When stepping in for Yao Ming, and matching up with two-time All-Star Pau Gasol, Hayes is easy to overlook, in several ways. But he said he can use that to his advantage. "All the time, they feel like it’s an easy bucket," Hayes said. "They underestimate me. It’s up to me to prove they have their work cut out for them." The doubts can be obvious. When Hayes is on the floor, the Rockets often switch on screens, leaving him to defend point guards from Steve Nash to Chris Paul. Most will take a look at his thick legs and immediately call for teammates to clear out so they can operate one-on-one, only to have Hayes usually and inexplicably cut them off. The Lakers’ strategy has seemed to be to go to Gasol, which would seem a wise course against any defender. Hayes, however, has gotten that treatment since he began getting NBA playing time in the second half of the 2005-06 season when he beat out the more prototypically-talented Stromile Swift and proved himself to be a difference-maker as a defender. He started through much of the next two seasons, before he was eventually supplanted in the Rockets’ rotation by Luis Scola and Carl Landry. But he has continued to hold on to a role as a defensive stopper, stepping in when high-scoring forwards from Dirk Nowitzki to LaMarcus Aldridge get on a roll. He drew a charge to clinch Game 4 of the Portland series, and set an early tone in Game 4 against the Lakers. "He’s got very quick feet, he’s smart and he’s stronger than hell," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "You don’t back him down. He’s got strong legs and he doesn’t give an inch. I had Buck Williams, the same way. You don’t push him around. He didn’t look that strong. Chuck doesn’t either. But he is. He has a very low base. "When guys try to back down, it’s a lot different when Yao is standing 7-6 and stands so high. Chuck is down there lower than them. "He sees the plays coming. That makes all the difference." It helps, however, that opponents so often don’t see him coming, whether sliding over to draw a charge or taking on the toughest front-court assignments. As a player that rarely scores – through four games in this series, he averaged four-tenths of a point – he is relatively unknown even to other players. "He guarded me," Rockets guard Ron Artest said of his first encounter with Hayes in a game in which Artest scored 30 points to force Hayes to take a turn against him. "I was like ‘Wow, this guy can move his feet.’ When I first saw him, I was like ‘What kind of player is this guy? He’s short. Is he a small forward, is he a center?’ I asked my teammates in Sacramento, who is this guy Chuck? Can he play? What does he do?’ They were like, ‘He just plays.’ When I played against him, I was like, ‘Wow, he’s a solid player.’ "He’s been guarding Yao in practice. When Dikembe (Mutombo) wasn’t here, Chuck had to guard Yao. Yao scored on Chuck, but it was still a challenge. If you can guard Yao, you should be able to have some success against other centers." This is not, however, where Hayes is the most surprising. At the end of every practice, the Rockets engage in a half-court shooting contest. During games, Hayes rarely shoots from beyond the shadow of the basket. Free throws are an adventure. From halfcourt and beyond, however, he is a force. "Aaron (Brooks) wins the most often," Hayes said. "At the beginning of the season, though, I was hot. Trust me, I’m a close second. And if we go to the free-throw line on the other end, that’s me." If that is expected, it also is typical of a player and team of unknown, overlooked players trying to overachieve. As usual with the Rockets, so much of what they do and who they are starts with the guy in the middle. "We got a bunch of underdogs here," Hayes said, "a bunch of scrappy guys." jonathan.feigen@chron.com
