Yao goes up against LA’s Lamar Odom on Sunday afternoon in a thriller of a game. Yao hit two big free throws to put the Rockets ahead 103-102 with 10 seconds remaining, and then held on for victory to win their fourth in a row, a season-high. Yao finished with 23 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SUNDAY, 2/6/05 – Not being overconfident, coming into Sunday’s game between the Rockets and Lakers I had a feeling that Houston had this game in the bag before it even started. After all, Houston was rolling after winning three games on the road. Meanwhile, the Lakers were still without Kobe because of an ankle injury, and they have to still be a bit discombobulated after Rudy Tomjanovich‘s sudden departure as head coach earlier in the week.

Well, I was about 75% right that it would be an easy game for the Rockets. Houston had complete control of the game through three quarters, taking a 84-69 lead into the fourth quarter. But LA staged an improbable comeback by outscoring the Rockets 33-15 to take a 102-99 lead with 1:23 remaining. Lamar Odom took control of the game with 14 points in the fourth quarter. Meawhile, a once-confident Rockets team suddenly couldn’t hit a shot during the Lakers run, reminiscent of the struggling Rockets team from just a couple of months ago.

But Houston willed its way back in the game when Yao came up with a big block on Odom underneath the hoop. On the other end Bob Sura responded by driving to the rack to get fouled and go to the line with 40 seconds remaining. Sura hit both free throws to cut the deficit to 102-101.

On the ensuing Laker possession, the Rockets were able to stop Odom again with 28 seconds remaining, which set up a huge Houston possession with the game at stake. Yao was given the ball in the middle of the lane, and was promptly mugged by two Laker defenders, sending him to the line.

Being a pessimist, I’m thinking the worst is going to happen since Yao has missed several free throws late in close games. So this trip to the line was going to be Yao’s moment of truth: Had he really turned around his season as we have all been thinking lately, or was he going to take some giants steps backward and miss these free throws in the clutch?

Yao stepped to the line and swished the first one with no problem, tying the game at 102-102. So now the question before his second free throw attempt was, “Okay, he tied the game. Great. But does he have the killer instinct to put his team up when he has the chance?” With the coolness of a future MVP candidate some day, Yao swished the second one, bringing Toyota Center to a deafening roar.

So with 10 seconds remaining in the game, the Lakers had one chance to win it. Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy decided to try something different to contain Odom, so he put T-Mac on him. Good move. Rather than forcing a shot over T-Mac, Odom passed to Brian Cook at the top of the three-point line, which is a make-able shot for Cook since he has become more of a three-point specialist this season. Cook was wide-open and had a chance to win it, but the ball rattled in and out.

However, Luke Walton momentarily grabbed the rebound in front of the rim and had an easy put-back opportunity, but T-Mac was able to get a finger on the ball from behind that knocked the ball off Walton’s hands out of bounds as time expired. Result: the Rockets survived a huge scare, winning 103-102.

If Houston had lost this game, it would have been devastating. This was one of those games that Houston HAD to win since the Lakers have been having the aforementioned problems lately. Plus, it’s feasible the Rockets could be vying against the Lakers for one of the final Western Conference playoff spots near the end of the season, and the Lakers already held a 2-0 advantage in games against the Rockets this season.

So even though their offense collapsed in the fourth quarter, the Rockets made the plays they needed to make when it counted. Earlier this season Houston was unable to win close games like this one, so maybe that old cliché is accurate: everything evens out in the end.

How they got there

At the beginning of the game, it didn’t look like it was going to be that close. The Rockets got off to a quick 17-7 lead, thanks to Yao, who got going with 3 baskets, two from the outside that hit nothing but net. It looked like Yao had definitely snapped out of his shooting slump based on how ‘money’ those two shots swished through the basket. Meanwhile, Sura was incredible, hitting three shots of his own in the first quarter. He also stole the ball four times in the first 6 minutes of play.

Meanwhile, T-Mac missed his first 5 shots, but got things going on a steal and a dunk to put them up 22-12. Since the Rockets seemed to be running on every possession, had forced eight Laker turnovers, and held them to 32% shooting, the Rockets enjoyed a 24-14 lead after the first quarter.

It looked like the Rockets were going to start running away with it in the second quarter as the Lakers continued to turn the ball over. But the Rockets couldn’t capitalize and let the Lakers back into the game 28-24.

The Lakers cut the deficit down to 31-29 until Rod Strickland passed a beautiful touch pass to Yao for a dunk. That triggered a nice 19-11 run that gave the Rockets a 50-40 lead at halftime. Not surprisingly, Houston at the half had a 26-12 points-in-the paint advantage thanks to Yao leading all scorers with 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting. But surprisingly, Houston had a 14-2 advantage in fast break points. And the Lakers turned the ball over 15 times (more than they average per game) leading to 20 Houston points, while the Rockets only had six turnovers leading to 8 Laker points.

At the beginning of the third quarter, T-Mac hit two shots in a row to break out of his 3-of-10 mini-slump in the first half, extending the Rocket lead to 56-44. With the Rockets passing well on offense and the Lakers collapsing on Yao and T-Mac, that opened things up for David Wesley, who nailed two three-pointers in a row. Then T-Mac hit another long jumper that pushed the Rockets lead to 66-52.

The Rockets kept the offensive pressure on the Lakers, extending the lead to 78-62 with 2:19 remaining in the third quarter thanks to Sura and T-Mac continuing to score with relative ease.

However, the beginning of the fourth quarter was when the Lakers started to make their move, cutting the deficit to 89-79 with 9:32 remaining thanks to some three-pointers. And although Kobe was hurt and couldn’t play, he was being vocal in the huddle spurring his teammates on as his team gained momentum.

Yao responded out of a timeout with 9:18 remaining by grabbing a big offensive rebound and finishing with a nice one-handed dunk. About a minute later, Yao held his ground defensively to draw a big foul on Lamar Odom, but Odom came back with a fallaway jumper to cut the deficit down to 93-85.

With the pressure on the Rockets, the offense continued to stagnate as the game became more of a half-court game and they continued to miss shots. Was this going to be another infamous Choke City episode? Ironically, earlier this season Houston’s offense was as its best when they played a half-court game, but now was struggling in this game where they suddenly couldn’t run a fast break.

Odom continued his scoring onslaught to bring the Lakers back into the game, leading to the final thrilling minutes of play where Yao made the difference.

Key individual performances:

Sura was aggressive driving to the hole and blowing by every Laker. They tried throwing a point guard on him, and it didn’t work. Then they tried a two-guard with no luck. They even tried Luke Walton, but no dice. Sura finished with 19 points, 8 assists, 5 steals, and led all Rockets with 12 rebounds. Amazing for a point guard. It’s not out of the realm of possbility to imagine Sura winning NBA player of the week honors if he keeps playing at this rate.

David Wesley also scored 19 points, hitting 5-of-6 from three-point land, to provide probably his best performance of the season.

Yao finished with 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting, grabbed 8 boards, and had four blocks. ABC analyst Hubie Brown loved Yao’s game, complimenting him for being active defensively and offensively. That’s saying something considering how active Brown made the Memphis Grizzlies as head coach last year and part of this season.

In those first three quarters, you could just see how infectious the confidence was among all the Rockets. When Sura, Wesley and Jon Barry are hitting shots, it seems to relax T-Mac and Yao so they don’t feel they have to force shots, which leads to relaxed shots of their own that come in the flow of the game.

The only thing I wasn’t too crazy about was how often the Rockets often settled for the three-pointer. They are shooting treys very well these days, but when they aren’t dropping, it’s tough to get other parts of the offense cranking again as the Rockets found out in the fourth quarter during the Lakers’ run.

The Rockets now have a 28-21 record and have won four in a row, their longest winning streak of the season. Extending it to five games will be tough on Wednesday night when they play the up-and-coming Chicago Bulls, a team very similar to the Rockets who got off to a slow start but have turned their season around almost overnight.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To read the Houston Chronicle’s post-game analysis, click here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 6th, 2005 at 3:16 am and is filed under vs. LA Lakers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.