Here's the deal, and I realize I shouldn't even be admitting this. My Houston Rockets haven't won a playoff series in 10 years, and I have tickets to Game 7 tomorrow, and I am bored. Bored out of my freaking mind. During an idle Friday's work, my mind wandered, but I didn't think about Utah once. All I could think about was Golden State. How would Stephen Jackson match up defensively against T-Mac? Would our outside shooters make their shots, or would they just create a bunch of long rebounds for the screaming horde to run another of their fast breaks? Has Don Nelson figured out everyone, or just Avery? It's not that I'm looking past tomorrow night, because I am not. It is very, very possible that T-Mac could disappear tomorrow, and Les Alexander could be personally cleaning out Van Gundy's office halfway through the fourth quarter. It is just that this series is so played out, with the Rockets not doing any of the things that made them fun to watch in the regular season, and Utah committing the second-degree assault that they term defense. Both teams appear sluggish and uninspired. Which may not be the case at all, but that how it looks from here. And it's always been this way. Jeff Van Gundy can suck the life out of games, but Jerry Sloan is a hundred times worse. In 1994, I was watching the Western Conference Finals. This series was the bridge between the legendary Phoenix clash that birthed Clutch City, and the seven game battle with the Knicks where we won our first title. And I remember sitting in Fuzzy's pizza, where I watched most of those games, looking at my watch. The slow-it-down foulfest made those games seem interminable. When we finally ran away with Game 5 in a laugher, I remember sighing in my chair, "Thank God that's over." Fine, I'll grant you 1995 was a legitimately interesting series, but that's mostly because Phi Slamma Jamma II was barely a month old at the time. And we should remember that these '95 Rockets, the ones that annihilated the seemingly invincible Spurs, the ones that swept an Orlando Team that Vegas sized up as 2:1 favorites over us, did not look much better than T-Mac, Yao, and company do today. Malone and Olajuwon were the two best players in the NBA playoffs that year, but Jerry Sloan's soul-destroying, grind-it-out approach overshadowed that matchup, and forced our great team to claw up from ten down in the fourth quarter of Game 5 to take that series. 1997. What a bunch of A-holes. Does it get any worse than 1998? If Barkley hadn't gone down then the prospect of us pulling a #8-#1 upset could have made this a thrilling contest. But he did, and so I remember sitting in a room on a slow, slow summer day, watching paint dry while Utah beat us 28-22 in Game 5 to win the series. I don't even care if we win or lose, I just want to watch us play Golden State. Let's get some tempo back into the playoffs, watch the locust swarm envelop Yao, test our transition D to the limit, scream in anticipation as Battier and Head take a bunch of open three point shots, take bets on which felony Stephen Jackson commits first, and just have a great old time, like we did during the Phoenix playoff matchups. Is that too much to ask?
I hear you man. I enjoyed reading that. We need to get away from these jazzholes. They bring out the worst in our team. That could be a good thing if we can move on. I mean this game is all about matchups, Utah could be our stiffest competition on our way to the Finals, you just never know. You are right though, I think what we would see in a Rockets vs Warriors matchup is what we saw in our last regular season game vs. the Suns. We just have to get there first. We have to. We're gonna make it happen.
Nice post. Really a) took me back to the good ole days and b) fanned the flames of what is already a re-ignitied hatred for the Jazz. The tempo and defense of this series makes this feel like we're waiting for Game 17 instead of Game 7. Let's win this one so we can play basketball instead of wrestling/football in the trenches...
Yao's shooting in last 3 home games: game 1: 8/18 44% game 2: 9/24 37% game 5: 6/18 33% Let's hope the trend will reverse in game 7.
If we advance, I'm looking forward to seeing what our team will look like playing against a team that isn't as sound on the defensive as the Jazzholes (sound can be interpreted good defense or blatant cheating/physicality). The defense and impeding and the holding and the rough play in this series has seriously set basketball back a few years.
This may be the only team to get away with hacking Yao out of snyc. He is not himself partly due to the defense of their big fellow. Warriors won't hack as much as stop the entry pass in the first place. When the Rockets meet the Warriors, it's going to be intersting in that Yao will need to show he can get the ball because when he does, it's over. With the Jazz, they are allowning Yao to get the ball and then bascally hitting the ball/him and getting away with it because it's the playoffs. Warriors are quick but not physical so Yao will have a chance to show something. TMac is the one that will win or lose this game for the Rockets and I believe he is going to come out victorious.
The problem with the Jazz is they're "physical" and they defend the perimeter and the pick and roll very well. It is the worst possible defensive scheme for our offense. We're having to go outside our offense to score on them. On the other hand, they are very good at scoring on midrange jumpers and layups off of screens and picks. They are hard to defend, period. We've done a fair job, but we can't shut them down. The way you beat the Jazz is you break their will. This takes constant pressure. You also have to beat their adjustments, because Sloan is STUBBORN and you can beat him if you exploit a basic assumption of his system. This Rockets team, sometimes it comes out hot when its in a corner, and sometime it doesn't. Hopefully, Game 5 wasn't the best game of the Rocket's playoffs, or we're dead. If we make it, GS will be much more interesting. We can't stop their speed, they can't stop our pick and roll.
The j*zz is a poor matchup for the Rockets, and I'll be glad when we get away from them too. I think people really underestimate the j*zz, as much as I hate them. Deron is a very good young PG, Fisher is a quality veteran, Okur is an allstar, Harpring and Giricek are big and can shoot and defend, Millsap is a spark off the bench, and Boozer is pretty much unstoppable unless he has an off night. They are very tough, physical, they beat you up, push you around, play tough defense and rebound, yet they can score too. They are a damn good team, even though they are flopping, dirty pieces of $hit. I do think we will take care of the Jazzholes in game 7, because we are a damn good team too. I then think we are going to play MUCH better against the Warriors. If you guys can think about that last reg season home game with the Suns, we won 122-118, Tmac and Yao were phenominal and it was a amazing game to watch, and that is what we will have with GS.
I agree with you. But how would that be possible? The ref just stand beside Yao and Ocur, Ocur can do all the pushing and any slight move by Yao, then they call foul...
I completely disagree. I love the series and find it interesting. Scoring more doesn't affect my interest.
Yeah, it'll be up to T-Mac and the role players to pull this one out, because Utah has taken Yao out of the equation (blatant cheating albeit, but nonetheless)...... But if we get past Utah and play Golden State, Yao will have a big series, and it would be fun just to watch how we handle Golden State's constant running, but we ain't no punks!
I checked the stats of the regular season win against Jazz back in January. Key to that victory: 19 rbs by Deke, including 8 offensive rbs. 44 pts by TMac on ~50% shooting. 7 TOs Why JVG would not play Deke more minutes now? Yao clearly can't keep up with Boozer during 4th quarter with the kind of minutes he is playing?
That would be interesting start Deke & JHO and have Yao come out 8-10 mins later against weaker or tired defenses similiar to how Ben Gordon is used.
It is not a matter of who stars. But I hope to reduce Yao's minutes to 25 minutes or so. So he is not too tired in 4th quarter -- that's seems to be one of the reasons that all his defense mishap and silly turnovers occured. JVG is an idiot. He said he does not understand why that Yao did not play "efficient games like he is capable of" in the series. You moron, you asked the guy to guard the best players on the other team, and come back fight on the offensive end. He just can't handle that! Do you get it!!!
Strangely enough that doesn't sound like a bad idea. You don't have to play Deke long... and then put Yao in and it throws off the other team. On the other hand... JVG is not going to give Jerry a mental edge by changing his line up in the last game of the series. We saw how well that worked for Avery J and the Mavs trying to play with GS!
I don't think Jazzholes are the toughest team Rockets have to play against. The team I am most worry about is Phoenix. Other teams we have a very good chance to beat, with Phoenix, we have to bring our A+ game every night.
