not even the Magic, with Rockets Insiders everywhere from Stan Van Gundy to Patrick Ewing and Rafer Alston, could stop what the Rockets were doing last night... now lets grab that 6th seed and get to the second round and beyond. ITS TIME
We only lost the third quarter by 1 point, but it needs to be a focus point. We constantly struggle to find offense or sometimes even stop the opponent in the third quarter, in the playoffs we HAVE to come out strong after half time to put our opponents away, and keep them there. Good game rockets!
We are Orlando's Utah, we match up tremendously against them, becasue Dwight struggles with Yao's size and no one else beside Rashard has the capability to get off. Turk shrinks when he see's Ron or Battier. Ron also dominates when drives to the bucket against Turk or the other SG. I really liked the defensive adjustment with the point guard dropping into Dwight's lap once he starts to dribble. Just like Yao, they are not good once the double comes after the dribble has started.
funny the Magic lose to the rockets and ESPN Daily Dime has its first two articles about the Magic and how people shouldnt sleep on them (and the heat) and 7 reason reasons why to fear the magic. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-090408 man i didnt see the game or look at the scores I would have thought the Magic killed us last night.
"TUESDAY'S WORST Steve Novak, Clippers: Even good shooters have bad shooting nights. He went 0-for-9 from the floor, including 0-for-8 from 3-point range, to finish scoreless against the Wolves." Aw, if I didn't click the link, I wouldn't of known about Novak's poor preformance..
Something bad could happen tonight. Portland def SA PHO def NO Utah def Dallas This would move Hou into a 3 way tie for the 3 seed with Portland and SA. Hou has split the season with SA and owns a head to head edge of 2-1 over Portland. SA still has the tie break against us (by merits of their 9-6 divison record to our 8-6). This would also move Utah into a tie with NO for the 6 seed...Utah has the tie break by merits of their 3-0 record against NO. Eek. It gets scarier. Utah and SA play friday night. A Utah win would move Utah further into the 6 seed and us further into the 3 seed (esp since we are playing Sac - the worst team in the NBA - and GS this weekend). I want the 3 seed. Badly. But only if Utah is the 7 or 8 seed. 3 seed means we give the Kobe 2 whole series to tear an ACL before we see him in the conference finals. And I really do believe that if the Rockets can avoid Utah, the only team we are likely to lose to is the Lakers...and after that, the Celtics. I think we can beat any other team in the NBA in a 7 game series. I never thought I would say this in my entire life...but... GO MAVS!!!!!!!!! ...just for tonight ...esp because if they can pull it off, we might see us vs Dal in the first round. Rockets in 5. Another interesting scenario, we play NO and Dal in the last 2 games of the season. I will be livid if beating either of them lands us Utah in the 1st round. ...but then again, if we could pull off the Utah series I would be the happiest man alive. I am not sure but I think I would rather beat Utah in the first round than win a championship this year. I may be serious about that. RocketDoc
So maybe I am overthinking it...there is a lot of basketball left to play...but I have been obsessing over this and needed an outlet.
They tried to give Yao some looks from 18 feet, when Yao came in the league I thought he would be a great shooter from out there, but he hasn't shot many after his first 3 years in Houston, finally RA is giving him the chance to shoot from out there, it will save some of his energy from banging down low trying to get position every single play of the game
Yao needs to work on his jumpers, he can't knock down shots from 18ft consistently. He has enough weapons in his hands, adding more takes too much effort, may not end up worth for it
