Who were those Rox fans in the 219-220 sections? I sat at 3rd row, and there was a big group of you like 10 rows behind me. We made almost as much noise as the rest of the audience. And there was this lady yelling "Tracy, I love you" as if it were a concert.
Haha. yeah, I was in 219 - there was one lady who was louder than the entire upper deck yelling "Go Rockets" and "OFF-ENSE" whenever the jumbotron tried to get the home crowd into it. Saw a lot of Rockets Red up there!
Heh! Great job holdin' it down and representin' H-town guys, I was wondering too why there were so many cheers for the Rockets in the arena, it was almost like playing home. Strangely enough, I have noticed that trend a LOT throughout this season wherever the Rockets play (that there are a lot of Rockets jerseys and a few rowdy Rockets fans cheering for the good guys).
No kidding. It was like home court, at least from where I sat. Those two sections were dominated by us. There were also Asian looking Yao-fans all over the place, not as packed though. The Nets fans sitting next to us were really depressed all night long listening to our cheerings.
thank god my favorite player came back, and what the f*ck Vince Carter doing jumping on TMAC back like that, damn it , it his counsin !! whew ! when i saw that i hold my breath and thought i was gonna die if TMAC comes up hurting......if he's playing like this WITH a bad back, imagine what he would be like when he's 100% healthy... can u say MVP !!!!
The rockets played great tonight. Wesley had three 3 pointers and swift had 6 rebounds and a block in just 21 mins. THose 2 guys are coming along well and will be huge role players by the end of the season. Anderson and Alston are better shooters than the first few games would indicate they are. This is a deep,smart and well balenced team and come playoff time everyone will see that. Go Rockets!!!
They had to stick JVG's bellybutton poking out of his spacesuit just to show he is out of shape. "J" stands for Junior.
Man, TMac's shot looked just effortless coming out of his hand in the second half. It was as if he was pulling up for a 10-footer instead of a 30-footer, his shooting form didn't look like it changed at all. I guess those reports about him practicing from that distance were true. Yao was dominating in the paint early, with 18 points in only 22 minutes. Head must be impressing JVG. He got into the game before Jon Barry and played more minutes than Alston and Anderson. Wesley may be getting his shot back. I keep expecting Alston to drive and dish more. Stromile, well, he plays hard, but not smart. Houston pretty much solved the Nets offense early on. It degenerated into an isolation offense with Kidd or Carter even in the first half. But Houston still isn't good at closing out on the 3-point shooters. I can't wait for the next game
LOL! JVG Cracks me up http://www.nba.com/games/20051112/HOUNJN/recap.html McGrady Back, Sparks Rockets Over Nets EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey, Nov. 12 (Ticker) -- Tracy McGrady returned from a back injury to carry the Houston Rockets. McGrady scored 20 of his season-high 35 points in the fourth quarter as the Rockets held on for a 99-91 victory over the New Jersey Nets. After winning their season opener with McGrady in the lineup, the Rockets lost three straight as the four-time All-Star and two-time scoring champion nursed a strained back. He returned against the Nets to face cousin and former teammate Vince Carter and stole the spotlight with a dominant performance in front of a sellout crowd. McGrady scored just five points on 1-of-9 shooting in the first two quarters. He bounced back with 10 points in the third and was unstoppable in the fourth, making 7-of-9 shots from the floor, including four 3-pointers against a porous New Jersey defense. "I felt pretty good the whole game, I didn't have any physical problems," McGrady said. "In the second half I felt I was going to come out and play better. I was just going to be more aggressive and my shots fell." With center Yao Ming on the bench in foul trouble, Houston had a 17-point lead dwindle to three after a 3-pointer by Jason Kidd with 8:28 left brought New Jersey within 77-74. But McGrady buried a 3-pointer over Jeff McInnis 20 seconds later and followed a free throw by Nets center Nenad Krstic with consecutive baskets, including another shot from beyond the arc over Richard Jefferson for an 85-75 cushion. "When I get that kind of feeling, it's huge," McGrady said. "The defense is pretty much at my mercy." "We were there a couple of times, a couple of times we weren't there," Kidd said. "He's 6-9 and he can shoot over anybody. All you can do is hope." After sinking a mid-range jumper, McGrady blocked a layup by Clifford Robinson, leading to a wide-open 3-pointer by David Wesley at the other end with 4:08 to go. Jon Barry added another undefended 3-pointer from the left corner 30 seconds later to give Houston a 93-80 cushion. McGrady padded the lead with his fourth 3-pointer in a span of five minutes and finished his flurry with a three-point play that gave the Rockets a hefty 99-82 lead with just 2:47 to go. "That's why you try to get great players," Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "It's hard to find them, though." ( ) The Rockets made 7-of-9 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and 13-of-21 overall, taking advantage of a Nets defense that has allowed a league-leading 59 3-pointers in seven games. "As a whole, our defense is a concern," Kidd said. "If we don't play defense, we don't have a chance." McGrady finished 13-of-26 from the floor and grabbed a season-high 10 rebounds. Yao had 18 points in 21 minutes and Wesley added a season-high 15 off the bench. Kidd led the Nets with 20 points and nine assists and Jefferson added 17 points. Carter netted 16 points in a foul-plagued first half in which he played only nine minutes. "It's definitely frustrating," Carter said. "You can't really get a flow. But it's never an excuse. We have to find a way to win if we want to be what we say we want to be." McInnis had a season-high 16 points but the Nets shot under 40 percent (29-of-79) for the second straight game and lost starting forward Jason Collins, who aggravated a muscle in his lower right leg early in the third quarter. McGrady's first points came with 10:07 left in the second quarter on a three-point play that sparked an 11-2 run. Rookie Luther Head buried a pair of 3-pointers during the spurt, which gave the Rockets a 40-26 cushion - their largest of the first half.
I love you tmac man this game (retro rocket days)would have gone of course with the star player coming back our dreams on his back and the rocket star struggles hurts himself again and rockets lose, but its tmac he goes 1-9 in the first half doesnt look like the back will be an issue and scores 30 in the second The Glory days have arrived Houston. Francis could never have done anything for this franchise thank you Tracy McGrady David Stern
http://www.nj.com/nets/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/11318553175810.xml&coll=1 Nets prove no match for McGrady It was one thing to get hammered by the Indiana Pacers' army of shooters Friday night, quite another to have your defense torn to shreds by one man. Of course, the Nets are aware that Tracy McGrady is no ordinary player, but they would be entitled to expect some rust in his game after he sat out more than a week with a back strain. That rust, as it turned out, lasted exactly 24 minutes last night. After a mortal first half in which he scored only five points, McGrady poured in 30 after halftime, turning Continental Airlines Arena into his personal playground in the fourth quarter and leading the Houston Rockets to a 99-91 victory. McGrady scored 16 points during a 22-8 run over a five-minute span of the fourth to help the Rockets end the three-game losing streak they had without him. He finished with 35 points and 10 rebounds. Jason Kidd led the Nets with 20 points and nine rebounds, while Richard Jefferson added 17 points. Vince Carter was held to 16 points on 6-for-19 shooting after battling early foul trouble. By the start of the fourth quarter, a 17-point Rockets lead was down to 70-64, and coach Jeff Van Gundy was having flashbacks to the last three games, which were all characterized by fourth-quarter meltdowns. In a home loss to New Orleans, the Rockets were outscored by 13 in the fourth period; against Orlando, they blew a four-point lead in the last two minutes; and they were outscored 28-20 in their four-point loss at Miami. "To lose the same way three straight games should be disturbing to all of us," Van Gundy said, "because it shows we don't believe in what we're doing, we don't trust enough or the plan is flawed because we can't physically do it." Of course, the only flaw in that analysis is that the Rockets didn't have McGrady in those three games. And as he usually does, he made the fourth quarter his own. Jeff McInnis, who made some big plays for the Nets, opened the fourth with a 3-pointer that brought his team within 70-67, but that's as close as they would come. Even though the Nets were having their best offensive stretch of the game, they were no match for McGrady. A Jason Kidd 3-pointer made it a 77-74 game with 8:27 left, but McGrady immediately responded with a 3-pointer over Jeff McInnis from the wing, and two possession later, he hit a catch-and-shoot fadeaway from the left elbow to make it an 82-75 cushion. He had his rhythm now, and he was only getting started. One stop later, he knocked down a 3-pointer from the wing after McInnis arrived late on a closeout. The Rockets' lead was back to double digits (85-75), and Lawrence Frank called timeout at the 6:06 mark. The Nets had one last run left, getting consecutive scores from Vince Carter (a bump-and-fade against David Wesley) and McInnis (a 3-pointer) to get back within 87-80. But they began doubling McGrady off every screen, leaving them vulnerable elsewhere, and both Wesley and Jon Barry made them pay with back- to-back 3-pointers to make it a 93-80 runaway by the 3:38 mark. And McGrady wasn't done, either, as he drilled a 3-pointer and scored on a bank shot in transition on the next to plays, creating a 99-82 score that better illustrated the Rockets' dominance. The Nets were in a 54-37 hole just two minutes into the third period, and to add injury to the humiliation, Jason Collins limped off at that point after re-aggravating the muscle strain in his lower right leg. But Kidd's 3-pointer at 7:23 got them within 60-46, and after Yao missed a two-foot gimme, Carter replied with his own 3 in transition at the 7:02 mark, giving the Nets the momentum for perhaps the first time all night. At 63-49, Marc Jackson -- matched up with Yao -- made consecutive big plays. The first was a lefty putback in traffic, and at the other end, his aggressive fronting caused Yao to pick up his fourth foul, in the form of an elbow as he tried to get post position. Two trips later, another 3-pointer from Kidd got the Nets as close as 65-55 at the 5:08 mark, and the defensive intensity rose considerably at that point. But it still took nearly three more minutes to get the deficit in single digits (68-59, after two free throws for Richard Jefferson at 2:30), but the Nets kept scrambling. By quarter's end, with Jackson and Carter making hustle plays that kept the crowd volume on a high setting, they were within striking distance at 70-64. Before all that, it was all frustration. Carter sat out the last nine minutes of the second period with three fouls, and the Nets' offense was an adventure, as reflected by their 48-37 deficit.
