Rockets officially become best defensive team in the league after tonight's game.

Even more impressive to me is their opponent field goal percentage. They are holding teams to .389 shooting (San Antonio is holding teams to .397). That is simply unreal. No team since the adoption of the shot clock has held its opponents under 40 percent shooting for an entire season. That is pretty damn incredible.

 

These are the Rockets? Wow. And tonight Cato and Taylor were below average compared to what we've come to expect. Of course, the Spurs are still playing.

Houston's defense has become nothing short of amazing. I have to give Van Gundy and his staff credit. And I haven't always been that enamored with Van Gundy or us getting him. Damn impressive. What's really scary is that you can see that there is much room for improvement. I wanted to add that Jim Jackson may be one of the most outstanding signings of recent years. He's just terrific and is the glue that is holding this young team together, in my opinion.

 

well according to ESPN:

"The Rockets took advantage of the Pacers' poor shooting and dealt the Eastern Conference leaders a rare home loss, 78-74 on Friday."

houston it seems to me has a really rough time getting any respect nationally...espn, si etc. like, nevermind what our opposing team field goal percentage avg is...nevermind that we are without a doubt, stat bonafied now the best defensive team in the entire NBA...when we beat the best team in the NBA...they REALLY beat themselves and we just so happened to be there to take advantage of that. yeah, we had nothing to do with the pacer's low shooting night tonight. pffffftt

 

Jeff you sounded like Bill Walton in that comment. hehe

J

 

ahh well mad pr ops to the rockets

 

What Houston defence? Shaq, KG, Ronron, Marbury, TMac, AI, Pierce, etc were just having bad games. I can't believe people here are too dumb to figure it out.

 

Only if the Suns scores more than 83...

 

According to ESPN, the Rockets "took advantage of poor shooting" to beat the Pacers.

Funny how so many teams tend to have poor shooting nights against the Rockets, eh? Must be a coincidence .

 

What's unreal is that this team has played half a season, is on pace to break several defensive records (lowest pt avg and fg pctg) and yet every time they shut a team down, the opposing team remarks that they were simply off or the Rockets were lucky :

I wonder how many games it takes before people realize that excuses such as the other team had off-night or was short-handed just doesn't wash any more.

 

The Suns are leading 84 to 82 now... So the Rox is the best defensive team for the moment.

 

We are #1 after today! we just passed SA for the fewest PPG allowed and retained our low FG% defense!

You heard it here first.. I just verfied it by looking up who was #1 previously..


1 Houston 0.389 83.4
2 San Antonio 0.397 83.3

Since we beat Indy and held them to 36.8% FG and 72 points and SA won allowing 84 pts 45.6%

that should put us in first even though Minnesota did a great job against the Pistons tonight.. Pistons only shot 37.5% w/ 79 pts.

We are now the #1 Defense in the NBA and I hope we crush the Miami teams to secure that position even more.

J

 

I like being underdogs ... I hope everyone continues to be surprised.

 

according to all defeated opponents and commentators we must be the luckiest team in the NBA.. for some reason other teams have a bad shooting night against us. You know the whole argument of the "shots were there we just couldnt make them"\

hehe we are also 7 games above .500% what a great team!

J

 

I loved how the double team on O'Neal at the end of the game completely flummoxed the Pacer team, forcing O'Neal to throw up a prayer airball three.

 

The rampaging Rockets won 78-74 Friday in Indiana, but the Pacers' Rick Carlisle still clinched the right to coach the East All-Stars.

- taken from nba.com..

yes we are rampaging!

J

 

I agree that what's incredible is we can be even better with the right personnel.

 

Rox defense is great in this session, but Ron Artest did play with a hurt thumb in tonite game which somehow limited his shoot.

KH

 

man, the next time i ever think cat or steve are jacking up too many shots, i'm just gonna think back to ron artest tonight. dude has a messed up hand and is shooting about 15% but had 17 shots THROUGH 3 QUARTERS. he just wouldn't stop, much to my delight.

 

Bah...we don't think the Rocket's defense is anything special.