ClutchCity.net Game Thread: Pacers @ Rockets 12/18/2002

FEISHEN!!!!! Gotta LOVE this game!!!
Rockets and Yao, Yao and Rockets...

We're one of the same!

-peace



feisfriendSAGE

 

One play I liked very much, and I think a lot of people may overlooked, is when Yao Ming has to base-line inbound after pacers scored. They were pressing the inbound.

Yao Ming casually pick up the ball, look at the court once and look down as if to pick up ball again, and he faked all Pacer pressers out of their attention, then blast, he quickly and accuartely lobbed the ball to Rice--taking every pacer by suprise, and the full court pressure is simply dismentled.

This just shows how smart he is on the little things. Bill Walton might be right, Yao is light years ahead in turns of BBall smartness than others.

 

hahaha i know! Sorry, I already promised a few with my extras. Im sure if you go the classified thread, somebody is willing to sell you one.

BTW, the ESPN feed is showing a repeat of the game RIGHT NOW. Its great so I can see what Walton was saying to Ming.

 

Thank you.

I think you should also include Mobley in there though. We all saw how he started icy and finished what? 3-4? Including 2 3's and a basket and foul. I'm pretty sure it's a fairly common occurence for Cat to turn it on in the crunch or in the 4th quarter. Him AND Francis. I mean, hell, Cat hit a game-winning shot in the FIRST game of his ROOKIE season! Haha, I don't know why Rudy had him in there, but damn, that was cold blooded! I've said it before, I'll say it again, him, Francis, and Ming could help put the "Clutch" back in "ClutchCity".

And good GOD!!! 60 REBOUNDS!?!?!? 60-34 edge??? 9 boards in 10 minutes for Cato with 6 offensive!? Rebounding has to be the thing I'm most happy about with this game... seems like we've just been dominating this category lately. We were never bad (about average at the beginning of the season?), but now it's pretty much expected for us to substantially outrebound our opponent. My hope: best team RPG and opponent PPG numbers by the end of the season.

Anyways, WOOHOO!!! GO ROX!!!

 

Oh well... It was worth a try!

In the meantime, I was promised an actual Rocket Power Dancer by another fellow who attended the game. Next to Clutch the Bear and a Stevie Bobblehead, I guess aPower Dancer will have to do.



happySAGE

And here's a happy pic for a great WIN.

 

Sage, this was the best game I have ever seen in my life. Here are the things I want to share with my fellas, we were sitting about 10 rows (on the side) from the court:

1. I was sitting with bunch of young people. They had tons of energy. I think we were the loudest group in the crowd. We just kept singing the "Yao Ming" song throughout the night. I think I lost my voice.

2. 2 Pacers fans were sitting right behind me. They kept screaming, "Go Indiana". And they annoyed me big time, but hey, this things always happen. But they were fighting for the Rockets t-shirts balls thrown from the mascots. They were so pathetic. But I screamed "Go Rockets" in front of their faces whenever Rockets made shots.

3. Power Dancers were hot. They made an introduction to every single member. And a father and son (right next to me) both were busy flipping pages of the calendar during the introduction. That was hilarious.

4. I think when you watch Live, the feeling of the flow of the game is a lot better. I felt Yao was a lot quicker and a lot bigger. And SF didn't seem that fast. But CAT was extremely quick, and he was all over Reggie and Reggie could hardly catch a breath. And TMo was very impressive, just missed few passes and he could rebound the ball very well. MoT needs to lose some weight but he was trying his best to guard ONeal. EG will soon to be a star. He was aggresive and determined. And the Rockets need Cato. He is a great rebounder and plays tough D.

5. Issiah seemed lethargic.

6. J. ONeal was in a lot of pain. But the crowd gave him the applaud as he walked off the court.

7. Miller looked dazed and frustrated. When I saw he slammed Yao to the floor, I was so sure he's going to be called with a flagrant foul. I was surprised Yao could get up that quickly.

8. The officiating was horrible.

9. The crowd was only booing Moochie. Well, he was really horrible.

10. I think the drumers were doing a great job. That totally changes the atmosphere of the game. I just don't know why the Rockets fans were so quiet most of the game until the late 4th quarter.

11. A lady in front of me was belly dancing and the court camera swifted to our side. And we were on the big TV screen. Cool!

12. More to come...

 

Finally, the guards and perimeter players are starting to get it. The Rockets have a bunch of good shooters, Rice, Francis, Griffin, Mobley and Moochie are capable of putting up 30 points on any given night. Tonight they started to Pass the ball in the post and let "dynasty" have his way with the Pacers. When the Pacers tried to stop him, he knows where his teammates are, and one can only imagine what the score would have been if the Rockets were shooting their avg. This game is indicative of how far the Rockets have advanced, they manhandled the Pacers throughout the closing minutes. Yao Ming is SICK. 29 pnts, 10 boards and 6 blocks? Thats not normal. Steve Francis was working his magic and Mobley finally came through when we needed him. I'm sad to see Thomas leave, but that will definitely give Griffin more time in the game, and when he is out there with Yao Ming, it seems like no one can get a shot off in the key. If he gets a little more aggressive on offense, we will have the next incarnation of the Twin Towers. And Cato with 9 rebounds in 10 min, 6 on offense? We are deep with size and talent, and I think we are easily capable of making the Western Conference Finals. I'll throw down my 19.50 for the game vs. Atlanta. Houston's big three, Cat, Franchise and Dynasty are going to abuse Atlanta's, Rat, Dog, and Rahimi. Houston's en fuego, YAO MING, Yao Ming, Yao Ming, Yao Ming!!!!

 

Please don't put all those players in the same offensive group again. Thank you.

 

Man...it's kind of sad. Boki has alot of potential, and alot of skillz.
And yet, tonight he was the only rocket on the court to not get any playing time....every rocket played atleast 1 min, but Boki never even got his warm ups off. Poor kid, it's so tough to not get playing time. Expecially when everyone else on the team does, and there is garbage time cause ur team wins by 12pts.

 

Thx so much for the GREAT OBSERVATIONS youAndMe
These courtside observations really adds a lot of dimension to the chemistry that even TV can't capture. That's funny that you guys got into the "Yao Ming Song." It's an addictive little chant isn't it? All your observations were terrific (very descriptive and well written). I find these following observations particularly noteworthy.

I think that just shows u how "classy" Houstonians and Rocket fans are! Go to Boston Garden or MSG, and you're liable to hear the crowd boo in delight when an opposing team member goes down. Kudos!

heh heh. Poor guy. First he loses the game. Next, he loses his star player. What a disaster!

This, i"m really suprised about. Fans would BOO Moochie???


Anyways, keep the great posts coming and here's to a fast and rapid recovery from laryngitis

Cheers!!!



theSAGE

 

not cool mann, me and my cousin left ours under our seats on the floor during halftime, and we get back and they're gone...I still got one though, another friend had two, but my cousin didnt get another one...

On a side note: THE GAME WAS AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Best Rockets game I've been to in my entire life. Yao was amazing, Steve was amazing, Cuttino stepped up in the fourth. I got on ESPN. It was perfect.


I'm 2 for 2 this Christmas break for going to games since coming home from UT. Everybody needs to go out and watch Yao, and the exciting Rockets, with us behind them, we're gonna have one of the best home records in the league.

 

youAndMe,

What section where u sitting at? I was sitting in a section with all the descipition of your surroudings, its sounds like u were in the same section as me. I was sitting in Sec. 232. The 2 extra calenders i picked up were in the same section those Indy fans were sitting. Maybe I was right above you. I was the loud asian dude on the top section with the Griffin jersey in the first half, Yao jersey in the second. I was also the only one in the section, i think, that was banging the balloons.

 

Hey, I got mine AFTER the game ended. Who is going back to there seats AFTER the game finished?

 

Yeah, I wasn't blaming you, just venting.

I feel bad for Jermaine, I got his autograph before the game, and he's a really nice guy. He said he would hook us up with his headband after the game...but he got carried off before the game ended

 

Wow Dave2000...two jerseys!! You better keep them is good shape too cuz they things will be collectors items in 20 years.

Mabuhay!!! I checked out your website and I think you are Filipino. I'm actually Chinese but my fiance is Filipino. Nice website. BTW...I also like "A Thousand Miles." Oh shoot...I forgot the edit function doesn't work

 

You obviously have not idea what game is...

 

Unfortunately, I missed most of the game, but boy is it nice to get another big win against a quality opponent. Now if we could just show the same fire against the scrubs.

I'd like to comment on particular play at the end of the game. We were already up by 8-10 pts with the clock under 1 minute when the rockets had to inbound the ball from the sideline. Rice threw a high lob pass to Ming. You could see 3 Pacers rushing towards him even as the ball floated towards him in mid-air. Instead of worrying about catching and securing the ball (as most rookies should do), Yao threw an unbelievable touch-pass in mid-air before he landed back to a wide-open Rice. It was gorgeous. After stumbling over himself in shock, Rice collected himself and went o to the bucket to draw a foul. It's unreal that a 7'5" rookie center is doing that at the end of a game. Man, he's special, and the Rockets are getting that special look too.

 

before i read any more of this i just have to say LMAO.

this has to be the single ugliest game ever played b/t two quality teams, and the rockets took more than their fair share of the ugly. at one point we were shooting 31% and had 19 TO's and WERE WINNING. i was stunned. 4/18 with 8 TO's in the 3rd and a two point lead. our rebounding the last two games has been outstanding, especially cato. cuttino 0/11 and rice 2/11 at one point. shocking. ming couldn't miss. cuttino had that huge 3 point play on o'neal, amazing hang time. i am just so damn pumped about this win.

some of my favorite things.

lisa in the postgame interview with kelvin calls him calvin twice. i used to think maybe she just accented kelvin wrong and it sounded like calvin but nope, just called him calvin point blank twice.

cuttino thanking the fans for coming out in post game interview with bill and calvin. i love cuttino post game interviews, he's so excited and you can tell how much he loves playing plus he's funny. i want a cuttino interview after every game now.

bill walton (just saw the espn 2 am replay after watching the knws replay after going to LOTR tonight) with the "we all have a lot to learn from yao ming" quote. unbelievably hilarious. even yao ming's scrotum isn't as all over his nuts as bill walton is.

 

some other things.

cat may have been 0/11, but damn if about 8 of those weren't freakin' wide open. i can only remember one forced shot and that was with some serious crap (in terms of offense) out there on the floor with him so i'll overlook it. plus, if you don't have at least one forced shot a game then you ain't trying.

cat's D. reggie didn't seem to try to force it too much but cat made sure he was right up on him when he did. the only 3 miller got was off a TO and fastbreak and even then cat got back and challenged.

damn steve, pass the ball to your teammates, not the sideline. that missed bounce pass to yao and the throw away to EG, those weren't low IQ/forcing thing's TO's, just bad passes, not sure what was up with that.

TMo. apparently we can now add "walking and chewing gum at the same time" to the list of things he should never ever attempt (along with shooting in an nba game). that play near the end of the 3rd he had was amazing. cat throws him a pass, he bobbles it. regains control. immediately bobbles again, loses it down his arm, lets it go b/t his legs, then as he tries to turn to grab it, falls down and watches it go out of bounds. watching i was thinking, i'm pretty sure i'm watching an nba game, and tmo is on the court so he must be an nba player, why the hell can't he catch a basketball and stand on his own two feet. he did make that one shot so it wasn't all bad.

the last 20 seconds had possibly the worst sequence of shots ever. only 3 shots i saw in a denver game can rival it. MoT shoots a line drive from about 8 ft that goes over the rim and about breaks the backboard, steve gets it and shoots a shot that almost breaks the front of the rim, then tinsley come down and shoots a 3 that rockets off the back of the rim at which point artest shoots a buzzer beater from 17 that hits the backboard first and bounces way off. man that was an ugly 3rd quarter.

 

well technically there was no garbage time except possibly the last 30 seconds. we were scratching and clawing to hold onto our lead the whole game until we went up by 10 with under a minute so this was not a night for boki. other than that, i'm sure it sucks to be on the bench all the time, but hey the team is winning, can't really argue.

finally, notice how yao ming easily got good position tonight and he got a lot more touches?? notice how the guards don't refuse to pass to him, he just has to have position, which he didn't against miami. people hate our guards way too much.

also, sorry to keep wasting server space but i keep thinking of new stuff and there's no edit function. plus it's 4 am so no one else is wasting it.