[Chron] Yao returns, but most of the Rockets are missing

March 05, 2007
Yao returns, but most of the Rockets are missing
For a few minutes after Monday's 91-85 loss at Cleveland, I didn't know what to do. For so long now, before leaving the locker room, I would ask Keith Jones about Yao Ming. How is he doing? When will he be back? Anything new?

Keith, I thought, would think I had forgotten him.

But then a new question arose.

"What happened to Tracy McGrady?"

I'm not talking about his boo-boo on the outside of his knee. I did ask McGrady about that, and McGrady pointed to it, actually on the outside of both knees, but he said he was fine. Though he looked like he was laboring all over the floor, he said that was not to blame for his 10-of-32 shooting.



Tony Dejak: AP
Jeff Van Gundy wants more out of his big players at this time of the season.


And it's not just McGrady. The Rockets offense has been awful for weeks. The standard line is that they got their shots and just missed them. Don't blame the players for that. Usually it comes from sort of a kiss-up question, or really non-question. "It looked like you guys got your shots." There's really not much of an answer to that.

But if you get "your shots" and keep missing them, then maybe they're not your shots.

The Rockets keep missing them. The Rockets have failed to reach the scoring average in four of the past five games or the shooting percentage in five of the past six.

They did, however, get their shot-maker back. And despite Yao Ming's early troubles, he might return to the usual Yao more quickly than many thought. That would, of course, make a huge difference, but the Rockets are simply playing badly. Monday morning and before the game, Jeff Van Gundy kept saying they had been soft. On Saturday, he said the bigs had to play big. By Monday night, they lacked offensive energy.

They are making foolish plays. Rafer Alston's foul at the shot-clock buzzer in the final seconds should not have been made, whether he actually got a piece of Larry Hughes or not. They are back to turning the ball over. They are closer to sixth (three games ahead of the Lakers) than fourth (five games behind the Jazz).

If Yao seems to have returned just in time, there is a good reason for that.

Time is running out.

• • •
The game and Yao Ming's return did not draw any extra media, with the exception of Richard Justice and a few Chinese media members. One of the newbies, unaccustomed to the locker room, crowded Yao too much and then stepped right on his foot, crunching the toe that gave him so much trouble in the past.

"I'll miss two weeks now, maybe," Yao said, not seeming amused.

Moments later, however, he was fine and funny.

By then about 20 minutes into the icing of both knees, he was asked how the knee felt.

In a pretty typical Yao moment, and as deadpan as ever, he said, "Cold."

Posted by Jonathan Feigen at March 5, 2007 10:41 PM