Nor is it a big playoff game to decide the championship. To a lot of people, outside of Houston and outside of Rockets fans, it's much more. I live in NYC, and I've heard people make references to the Houston Rockets the last few days. People who aren't even basketball fans. People who have nothing to do with the city of Houston except they made a business trip their once and it was too hot and humid. So I realized something. This isn't about basketball or sports so much as values. It's about a philosophical question. It's more than an underdog facing a Goliath... It's everything we as Americans idealize in the spirit of competition. That camaraderie, teamwork, self-sacrifice, hard-work, and perseverance can move a mountain. It's the bad news bears, Hoosiers, and Rocky I, II, & III all rolled into one. Except people aren't sure if that's real or just a movie. We want to believe it, but life teaches us that it's always those with some advantage - connections, money, charisma, looks - who gets the spoils. The story of the hard working small guy is the exception, not the rule isn't it? What else explains our fascination with a Cinderella team in the NCAA's? Except, you only have to get lucky and beat a good team once. How how often does such a team go the distance? The 86' Wildcats? These Houston Rockets have no business beating the 65 win Lakers. It's so unfathomable, that Sundays game was credited more to the Lakers messing up than the Rockets overcoming. But secretly, people...not just Houston Rockets fans...are hoping it's something more. Can a group of guys....without their two superstars, without their back-up center....with a bunch of undersized players throughout their line-up and a mercurial cast-off who once represented everything wrong with sports and is only marquee name on the team!.... These cast offs and late round picks....who were expected to roll over and die, shocked the world not just by winning, but by DOMINATING the best basketball team on the planet...the team who just 9 days ago was the shoe-in for the championship...can these cast-offs do it again? Because if they do....it's no longer about the Lakers. It becomes something real....something so much bigger than the Houston Rockets beating the L.A. Lakers. It becomes more than another notch in Rockets lore. This is bigger than any championship ring. Any comeback. These guys are on one step closer to showing us something we want to believe in, but are too cynical to actually accept. A win today will inspire and awe people. It will teach kids a lesson. It will teach adults a lesson.
you should take up writing sports editorials... this is the best post I've read in a long time. -slightly biased newspaper editor
I hope they don't think like this.. it would put more pressure on them than they need. But it is fun to be able to talk about my Rockets with people who have no idea how cool it has been to watch this team. Not only this season, but last season as well.
i think all this "heart" and "work together, for together" concept is starting to get overplayed...and will work as a disadvantage to us.
