[chron] Lopez: A few more Suras sure would help

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2992251


Jan. 14, 2005, 1:25AM
A few more Suras sure would help
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle




Bob Sura could do more with a bad knee than New Jersey's Jason Kidd could do with bad teammates.

At best, both Sura's knee and Kidd's team will likely get only marginally better this season. They both need help.

But the Rockets won this one and can officially be called streaking now, winning 13 of their last 19 with Thursday's 94-85 overtime victory, because what Sura brings to the team the Nets could never find on a waiver wire or on the trade block.

"He's one of those guys," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said, "that you walk away and think, 'I'm proud to coach that guy.' I like him. Fans do the same."

Lots of heart
This should have been the game that exposed one of the Rockets' biggest weaknesses, playing the second of back-to-back games with a point guard who is not really a point guard. And on top of all that, he is hobbling along on a knee that had to have fluid drained from it Tuesday and will be a sore point, literally, probably the entire season.

Of course, we say hobbling, but that's in theory only.

Sura fights the pain the way he fights everyone and everything. He never shows it if he is overmatched. He shows only heart and produces.

That is what has endeared Sura to Van Gundy from the moment the coach first saw him scrapping for loose balls, fighting through screens and knocking down big jumpers in practice.

When Sura finally stepped onto the court Nov. 27 after spending the beginning of the season on the injured list following September back surgery, fans were hoping he could be some kind of savior. That was asking too much, of course.

That's not him. And he hasn't been the perfect answer. His career-high 35 points Thursday notwithstanding, rare will it be that he can be the go-to point guard logging huge minutes and carrying the team.

What he has been, however, is the perfect example of what Van Gundy can point to when players are not giving the ever-important effort to the level they need to give it.

Van Gundy calls it grinding.

With just two true star-quality players in Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady and big holes elsewhere, this team needed to find a personality and style that will be there even when the shots are not.

Case of amnesia
Just one night earlier when everything was falling into the bucket in a road win at Dallas, it was easy to forget how this team needs to play to be successful.

On Thursday night at the Toyota Center, several Rockets indeed played as if they forgot. Yao played more like the one with some kind of injury on the second day of a back-to-back, and we're not talking about his scoring line, which included only six points and five turnovers.

We're talking about the things this team needs from Yao if it is going to win. We're talking about helping on a screen in the crucial minutes, which he did not do when the Nets' Vince Carter blasted through a clear lane to tie the game at 77 in the final moments.

Maybe Yao's legs were dead. But so were Sura's.

We're talking about Yao taking a borderline offensive foul moments later, giving the Nets another chance to tie it. Sure, it was a bad call, but Yao should not have put the ball on the floor when he caught it on the block. He should have gone straight up and perhaps drawn a one-and-one free throw.

And we're talking about grabbing a flat-footed rebound on the defensive end, then allowing Jason Collins to rip it out of his hands and give the Nets another big bucket down the stretch.

Yao was not alone in falling just short of "grinding" in the most important stages, but the point is this: Without Sura on the floor this night, the Rockets would have lost. No doubt about it.

With his teammates sluggish and McGrady hobbling after straining a quadriceps at the end of the third quarter, it was Sura who knocked down shots over his defender. It was Sura who sliced through the lane and grabbed a huge offensive rebound in overtime. It was Sura who played 43 minutes, showing the pain of his bum knee only in the Rockets' huddle.

"I'm going to play the way I always have," Sura said. "I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. I do what I can do. I've only known one way to play my whole life. If I play, I have to go full throttle no matter what's bothering me or what's hurting."

He wasn't trying to be a martyr. In fact, when asked about playing with pain, Sura grimaced more than he ever did on the court, uncomfortable, even, with the question.

"One thing he's not going to do is give you the NBA drama, where you know that he's hurt, like what is so evident throughout the league," Van Gundy said. "He's not going to make sure you know he's hurting and then try to be heroic."

The Rockets don't need heroes. They need more players like Sura. The problem is, even amidst this nice run and in the wake of Thursday's victory, the way Sura is playing has not taken hold throughout the lineup.

The Rockets are rolling only because McGrady has been unstoppable offensively and the schedule has been mostly kind the past three weeks.

"You either have what he has or you don't," Van Gundy said. "We didn't teach Bob Sura to play like that. I tell him, 'you probably were in so many fights as a kid.' ... That's who he his. You need that."

In the middle of three games in four days and with a four-games-in-five-days stretch upcoming — top point guards like Tony Parker, Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis on the way — Sura's knee will be tested more than ever. He still needs help, and the Rockets will search for it today when they bring in free agent Rod Strickland for a workout.

But until help arrives, Sura will have to continue to grind and show the way. More on this team should follow his lead. It is the only way this nice run will turn into a playoff berth.

john.lopez@chron.com

 

Yao always plays much better, after Lopez criticizes him. I expect Yao will do a great job in the next two weeks.