ESPN Daily Dime : Rockets Wouldn't Be Moved In Game 3

I think he bring sup some good points/stats

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-090425


Coming into their first-round series, Rockets-Blazers shaped up as a battle between the immovable object and the indomitable force -- Portland's slow-paced, highly efficient attack ranked second in offensive efficiency, while the Rockets' smothering D finished fourth on that side of the ball.

Score one for the immovable object. So far, the Rockets' defense has owned the match-up, and Houston has a 2-1 series lead as a result after beating the Blazers 86-83 on Friday. For the second time in three games, the offensive lowlights for the Blazers were numerous: Portland didn't hit double figures until 1:13 remained in the first quarter, managed only 30 points in the paint, and earned but 10 free throws.

The only reason the carnage wasn't worse was a final, desperate 3-point shooting barrage, when Rudy Fernandez, LaMarcus Aldridge and Steve Blake all hit from downtown in the last 30 seconds to put a last scare into Houston. That rally failed only after a rushed 3 by Blake missed everything, and after Aaron Brooks rebounded his own missed free throw with 2.7 seconds left and ran out the clock.

Friday's result mirrored Game 1's offensive struggles for the Blazers, when they were clocked by the Rockets 108-81 to surrender home-court advantage; that game featured only 16 Portland free throws, and just a single Blazer 3-pointer. And even in a 107-103 Game 2 victory, the Blazers had only 12 assists -- Houston succeeded turning them into a one-on-one team, but they just happened to make all their shots that night.

Reasons for the Rockets' defensive dominance aren't hard to find. For starters, Brandon Roy has been able to create reasonably well for himself (82 points in 3 games), but has done absolutely zippo for this teammates -- he has only five assists in the three games after averaging over five a game in the regular season.

Behind Roy, it only gets worse. Second option Aldridge played one very good game and two invisible ones, including tonight when he needed 44 minutes to compile modest totals of 13 points and seven boards. Meanwhile, third banana Travis Outlaw has been a basket case -- he's shot mostly jumpers and mostly missed them, shooting 2-for-10 on Friday to drop to 9-for-30 on the series. He's earned only six foul shots in the three games and has yet to make a 3-pointer.

The one really interesting part is that we've yet to see much of Blazer coach Nate McMillans' favorite tactic: going small. With Yao Ming in the opposing lineup, Portland has been understandably reluctant to guard him with undersized players.

Yet at this point, he may need to damn the torpedoes and give it a whirl. Right now the Rockets can crowd the paint with Yao in the middle, because he doesn't have to respect the threat of Joel Przybilla or Greg Oden shooting jump shots. As a result, Roy has company any time he turns the corner.

But that all changes if McMillan goes small, and he's had success with it over the past two years. On a per-minute basis, one of Portland's most effective lineups this season has been playing Aldridge at center and Outlaw at power forward, with Roy, Blake and Fernandez on the perimeter.

That look has five shooters, so the Rockets have to stay honest; when Portland uses it and sets up Roy out high with the ball, opponents must pick the poison of allowing Roy to drive to the hoop or giving up a high-quality look from one of Portland's other shooters. Fernandez in particular was the one Blazer who proved deadly tonight, nailing five triples and scoring 17 points on just nine shots to keep them in the game.

Yet Portland seems so hung up on stopping Yao that it hasn't figured out how to attack him. The Blazers played in front of and behind him in the early going, essentially conceding a series of wide-open jumpers to forward Luis Scola and Carl Landry (29 points combined) before tightening their D in the second half.

But at the offensive end, Yao has been allowed to play free safety with impunity, utterly disregarding Przybilla and Oden while waiting for Roy to come off the turn on screen-and-rolls. He's controlling the glass too -- the Blazers were the league's best offensive rebounding team in the regular season, but retrieved only nine of their 41 misses Friday; for the series, they've grabbed just 24.2 percent of their misses.

That's yet another reason to go small -- the bigs aren't getting the offensive boards anyway, and that's been their main offensive contribution all season. It may not prove a cure-all for a Blazer offense that's been able to find few cracks in Houston's rock solid D, but if the Blazers can't find something that works offensively their offseason will begin much earlier than expected.