Tough game. 1) Back to back home/away. 2) Tracy's seemingly injured. 3) Suns are on a good run (so r we) but this is one team that will gladly take our dare for them to shoot 3s all night long. 4) Alston vs Nash matchup. Yao vs the smallball lineup. Let's hope we play a good game. We will absolutely need Tmac to play like he's in his prime to win on the road. Btw, great job Red Rowdies, 5-1! What home court disadvantage? Tough schedule ahead.
oh man this game is going to be exciting/crazy. or the anticipation for it is at least. the game itself..hopefully rocks aren't tired. lets beat them!
I think the key here is definitely Marion. 2004-2005 is a good indicator of how me match up against them. We went 2-2. Marion led the Suns in scoring in both of their wins. He was out for one of our wins and Amare was the main scoring option in the other, although Marion still dropped 20. Hopefully Battier can contain Marion and Chuck can help Yao out with Amare. If we slow this game down at all we will have them. The Suns also suffered (at least last year) from the same second half collapses as we have lately. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it could bail us out. I'm really looking forward to this game.
why people kept saying that we are going to lose? I mean, they destroyed a paralyzed rockets last year, but we are a totally different team now. THis is the 2nd toughest opponent since the spurs game, but we aren't bad either.
i'm worried about the game. they had 4 days to prepare for us. we are coming off a travel day and a game the previous night. all matchup problems aside, our guys already have that going against them.
The way to beat the suns is to not play their game. You have to play slow, get your half court sets down. run back on defence, and not try to outshoot them in a 3 pt contest. If the rockets can find creative ways to pound it into Yao we win but if alston does what he did tonight then we lose.
the thing with the suns is they play absolutely NO DEFENCE, and because they are a jumpshooting team they are prone to long stretches where they can go stone cold. If we can just play smart basketball and get easy baskets...dunks by whoever (yao, hayes, etc. doesn't matter).... then we win. You have to outsmart them because there is no way on earth you are going to outshoot them.
we'll win if there's more efficient motion in our offense. none of that running horizontally crap, just go to your spots, penetrate, hit the shooter, and roll with it. novak would be great, especially playing with hayes, t-mac, head, and battier. that's a great line-up right there. alston would be great with that line-up in place of t-mac if he would only be more decisive. we need a more decisive passer to run.
Rockets going to lose this one. Purely a bad situational matchup as Suns are well rested and Rockets off b2b with T-Mac banged up and Rockets a poor running team anyway. Rockets do have a shot obviously but do not be surprised/angry if they lose.
The key for winning this game's how to play Vspan; i think he's as fast as steve nash, and his defense's very good, hopefully can slow down nash with some steals. Battier and Hayes have to be really hustle and Yao (probably too tired for B2B) need to dominate on both sides. GL ROCK
Rockets Win. Yao Owns Amare and Kurt Thomas, shows all the haters out there that Amare cannot be regarded as a 'center' at all. Rocks win by 5 to 10 points. I think Novak could rack up a lot of 3s in this game as Suns dont really have good defense... knowing JVG however, he won't do anything unorthodox so its unlikely Novak will see lots of playing time. Vspan will play but how long he plays will depend on how impressively he defends against Steve Nash. Vspan can really prove himself tomorrow if he performs well.
Not necessarily, yes the Suns provide matchup problems for us but for those who say we have NO chance in this game. I submit exhibit A. A game vs the Suns where the game went back and forth. The Suns were up by 15, and then we were ... highly intense, exciting game and then, in the 3rd Q Yao became unleashed. He did not just beat Amare, he OWNED him! He posterized him! So his effort coupled with T-Mac, Jon Barry and Bobby Sura and the Rox ran the Suns out of their OWN gym! I believe the final score was 124-97. That being said, the hand is stacked against us and we are going to have to have some clutch performances in this one. You cant just shut down the Sun juggernaut. You HAVE to score. We have a lot of work to do in that department. Someone other than the usual suspects, will need to step up their game. A 20+ pt game from T-Mac would help the bottom line immensely. I think he will along with Da Monster Yao! But ... I say this for a final. Rox 108, Suns 99.
