[Quotes] Coach Casey: "Yao is a handful for us. We tried three people on him"

http://www.nba.com/timberwolves/gameday/HOUMIN_quotes_060307.html


Minnesota Houston Quotes

NBA Post-Game Quotes
Minnesota vs. Houston
March 7, 2006 @ Target Center

Houston 93
MINNESOTA 87

Minnesota Coach Dwane Casey:
"I thought tonight's game was a good example of a team imposing their will on us. We want to make sure we establish the tempo, and we didn't do that. We want to push it more. I thought we had some open looks, but we shot 39 percent. But we wanted to establish the tempo. I thought we did that in stretches of pushing the ball early, and when we did that we were in good shape."

"I thought in the second and fourth quarter, they imposed their will on us and got it into a tempo that wasn't to our liking. They were force-feeding it to Yao and he was quarterbacking from the post. I thought overall defensively we did as good a job against him as we possibly could. With his strength and brute force, he got deep in the paint and we muscled him as much as we could."

"We got into a mud game (in the fourth quarter). We slowed down and started walking it down and allowed them to get it in their tempo, which is what they are very good at... We wanted to increase the tempo, push the envelope and play as fast as we could... If you are going to be a running team, you have to do it every night. You have to force it. Sometimes the guys think they are running, and they are jogging instead of sprinting."

"(Yao) is a big man. He is a handful for us. We tried three people on him and he is just a handful down there wrestling with him… He has really, really had a stretch of games the last couple of weeks where he has played well and been a force."

"I don't think our bench came in to attack. They came in and slowed down instead of coming in and running and being aggressive, hustling and scrapping the way they have the last couple of games. We have to have more than that."

"I want (Banks) to be more aggressive -- keep pushing it, don't be tentative, keep going to the basket, looking for his shot. On makes or misses, jumping out of bounds and using his speed and quickness and athleticism to keep us up-tempo. Maybe in his mind, he thinks he is doing that. He has in the past, and that is why we were able to score 100 points the last four or five games."

Minnesota Guard Ricky Davis:
"It was terrible. We gave the game away tonight. I think everybody needs to take it upon themselves not to lose leads. When we get ahead, we just have to stay on it. But that's what happens when teams make their runs. It takes the breath right out of you, and we can't let that happen."

"We can't fall back into our bad habits. We've got to stay focused, and when teams make a run we have to make a run back at them. We'll have to play through it and hopefully those bad habits will fade further and further away."

Minnesota Guard Marcus Banks:
"Sometimes you're on and sometimes you're off. Unfortunately, we were on early and then struggled later on in the game. We need to finish the game out, and the last two minutes wasn't enough."

"This was a great opportunity to have a three-game winning streak, so it would've been great momentum heading to Utah. But this is a minor setback. We can just look forward and get ready for tomorrow."

"We've got to pick our spots to run. As the point guard, I have to make sure we get a great shot every time down. If that takes us pushing the ball, then I'll do that."

Minnesota Forward Kevin Garnett:
"Usually we get a better boost from our bench. It's been a rough 48 hours, personally. For the most part today, we withstood every blow, and then the fourth quarter came and they were a lot more aggressive. We tried to be as aggressive as they were, but they hit shots and we didn't."

"The ball wasn't as crisp, moving, as it was the first half. Mark Blount in the first half, everybody was just in the flow -- from him to Banks, to Rick, to Trenton. In the second half I think we got away from that. I'm sure it will be brought up on tape tomorrow, and we'll try to apply some of that same motion and movement for tomorrow's game."

"We're disappointed with the loss, because the momentum is everything. But we've won at home, hit the road and then lost, so there's nothing consistent there. So this could totally be the opposite way. Hopefully this makes us a little ticked off and a little hungrier so we can come out tomorrow to start a long, long, long road trip."

"Banks is a very, very gutty kid. He plays with a lot of confidence. He sometimes doesn't rely on his instincts, and tonight he didn't rely on them and he was beautiful tonight. He's about the only person who could hit something. He was the edge that we needed. Banks is playing well right now. He's giving us the edge."

"Kirby was a dear friend. Probably until I stop playing basketball professionally, he'll always be with me. Way after my days of playing, you can almost say he's a part of me. I can remember the days of him sitting where Glen sits, right in the front row. He'd talk a little junk to me."

Houston Coach Jeff Van Gundy:
"We played a good fourth quarter. (Without McGrady) we still expect to win. Stromile had a great effort and played really well. Yao bounced back and had a much better second half tonight."

"Our guys try hard on defense. Any time a team goes 1-for-19 in a quarter, they are probably going to hit some of those shots most times. But we try hard, too, on defense. We got back and made things difficult for them, but whether or not we did it or not to force the 1-for-19, you would have to go ask them."

"I had concerns about our bench, but I thought that Stromile and Rick did really well off the bench tonight. We played well together tonight as a team. You can never reduce it to just one person, because everyone has a part. Lots of people contributed to the win tonight."

Houston Guard David Wesley:
"I think we're just sticking with what got us there. We're playing a lot less random and a lot more structured. We're pushing and still getting stuff in transition, but when we don't have it, we're finding Yao in the paint, we're going inside-outside, that kind of stuff. This was probably one of our best finishes, minus missed free throws, the way we created the 10-point lead. Usually we depended on someone like Tracy doing it all and making plays for us, but now we're just playing basketball and getting the job done."

"I think we covered up well in the paint tonight. Our rotations were good. I think we moved our feet a little better there in the second half. And it may be a combination of them settling for some outside shots and for us to be able to rebound those shots and not give them a second and third shot. It kept us around. We missed and they missed a lot of shots, but for a long time there, we didn't let them score when we couldn't score."

Houston Guard Rafer Alston:
"It was a great win. One of our best players couldn't go, so a lot of us felt the need to really step up. But we came with a sense of urgency to come here and get a victory and continue our good roll of success."

"We keyed in defensively. We locked in. Unfortunately, we let Banks get a lot of points, but if we could've taken away some of his points, some of his shots, we could've had a much larger victory. But overall, it was a great team effort. We did it with great team defensive rebounding."

 

http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Rockets_Bite_Timberwolves_for_-171060-822.html


3.07.06
Houston Rockets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves
Rockets 93| Wolves 87
Game Recap


Houston is now 16-15 on the road this season.

The Rockets are now 2-0 when Keith Bogans is in the starting lineup.

After starting the season 0-13 when Tracy McGrady doesn't start the game, the Rockets have now won two straight with T-Mac out of the lineup.

With 30 points, Yao Ming recorded his second consecutive 30-point game and fourth overall this season. Yao has now recorded 20-plus points in each of his last eight games (2/22/06-3/7/06), marking the longest 20-point streak of his career.

The 45 free throw attempts by Houston were a season-high surpassing their previous best by nine.

Stromile Swift outscored the entire Minnesota bench 11-6 Tuesday. It marked the second time in the last three games that Swift has equaled or outscored the opposition bench by himself.

The Rockets have now won 13 of their last 17 games.

Carmine Pirone-Rockets.com

With their backs to the wall and their season potentially on the line, the Houston Rockets rallied from a six point third-quarter deficit Tuesday to defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves 93-87 at Target Center. The win moves Houston to 28-33 on the season and closes the gap to just three games between the Rockets and the idle Los Angles Lakers, who are currently eighth in the Western Conference playoff race. Minnesota falls to 26-33 with the loss.

The Rockets were once again led by Yao Ming, who scored 30 points and ripped down 13 rebounds Tuesday in 37 minutes of action. With Tracy McGrady out with soreness in his back, Houston leaned on its big man big time and he delivered, despite facing double and triple-teams for much of the night and added four blocked shots to his stat line, while affecting countless others.

Rafer Alston found his shooting touch from long range Tuesday, hitting on four of seven shots from downtown, fueling a 17-point performance. Stromile Swift was dynamite off the bench recording a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Kevin Garnett scored 15 points, pulled 21 rebounds, dished out five assists and swiped four steals, but was just 6-17 from the field in 42 minutes of action to lead Minnesota.

Down 67-61 to start the fourth quarter, the season, not just the game seemed to be in jeopardy for Houston. The Rockets shot a mere 36 percent through three quarters, while Minnesota was hitting at a 45 percent clip, going 12-21 from the field in the third quarter.

After the Rockets took a 61-60 lead near the end of the third, Minnesota ended the period on a 7-0 run and looked to be in control of the game. They were not.

The Rockets came out determined defensively at the start of the fourth and held Minnesota to one field goal in the first 11 minutes of action in the final stanza.

Garnett finally threw down a dunk after clearing the offensive glass, but by then Minnesota had missed 14 straight shots, allowing Houston to begin the fourth quarter on 15-1 run.

The Rockets suffocating defense and strong play from Yao and Swift gave them a 76-68 lead before Garnett finally ended the scoring drought with a little less than five minutes to go in the game.

By then Houston had already taken the game from the home team and Minnesota scored just four more points until the final minute of the game when they finally found they’re scoring touch, netting 13 of their 20 fourth-quarter points in the last minute of action as they played catch-up with a Houston team on cruise control.

Rick Brunson played four solid minutes Tuesday with the bulk coming in the opening moments of the fourth. Brunson ran the offense like a man who’s been playing in the Rockets system for five months, not five days. With Brunson at the controls to start the game and Alston in to close it out, Houston outscored Minnesota 32-20 in the final period to take the win, which seemed unlikely as early as the first four minutes of the game.

Minnesota started the game on fire Tuesday hitting on five of their first six shots. Mark Blount led the way for the Timberwolves pouring in four of those field goals on his way to 12 first-quarter points.

The hot start by the Timberwolves allowed them to take an early 10-4 lead before Houston climbed back into the game with a 10-5 run to get within one point at 15-14, Minnesota.

The Rockets leaned on Yao heavily in the first quarter and the big man delivered six points in the opening period.

With Houston back in the game, Minnesota re-took control with a 10-0 run that gave them a 25-14 lead with a little over a minute to go in the first quarter. Stromile Swift gave Houston its seventh field goal of the first quarter to close the gap to single digits by the end of the period.

Houston shot 35 percent in the first, while Minnesota enjoyed a 55 percent performance from the floor to start the game.

The Rockets didn’t fare much better in the second quarter, but Minnesota joined in the shooting doldrums. Both teams began the second period 0-6 from the field with only the Rockets recording points in the first three minutes of the period thanks to a pair of free throws from Swift on four attempts.

Houston closed to as close as one point at 31-30, Minnesota, but the T-Wolves went on a 7-0 run to take back control of the game momentarily. Back-to-back three’s by Keith Bogans and Alston closed the gap to two points, 38-36, Minnesota as the two teams headed to the locker room.

Houston took its first lead of the game early in the third at 43-42, but Minnesota fired right back with a 6-0 run to take back the lead.

Houston’s mini-surge just before halftime was even more impressive considering Yao was out of the game for the final three minutes of the first half with three fouls.

Houston took its first lead of the game early in the third at 43-42, but Minnesota fired right back with a 6-0 run to take back the lead. Houston would regain the lead at 55-54 and then again at 61-60, thanks to six straight points by Yao, but when Minnesota scored the final seven points of the third quarter, it looked like Minnesota might run away with the game.

Houston had other ideas and displayed its best 12 minutes of defense all season to steal a critical road win with McGrady on the bench.

The Rockets return to action Wednesday night against the Pacers at Toyota Center. Tip-off is 7:30 p.m. and the game can be seen on KNWS, ch. 51.