Yao and Rockets shock Suns in dominant performance
March 11th, 2005by John
Yao reacts after scoring two of his 27 points in a shocking 127-107 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Friday. Yao also grabbed a career-high 22 rebounds. Click here for more photos from the game.by John
FRIDAY, 3/11/05 – With Bob Sura returning to the lineup for the first time Friday since being put on the injured list a couple of weeks ago, everyone expected the Rockets to at least be competitive against an awesome Phoenix Suns offense. But there was no way they were going to win considering they were in for a “track meet” and certain to fade down the stretch.
Instead, the exact opposite happened. Sura’s contribution was minimal (2 points on 1-of-5 shooting, two rebounds). But the one-two punch of Shaq-Kobe, er, I mean Yao-T-Mac carried the Rockets to an improbable 127-107 victory against the best offense in the league…and on the road in Phoenix!
The Rockets were down 14 points in the third quarter that made most pre-game predictions look like they were going to be fulfilled. But their 41-17 outburst in the fourth quarter was completely unexpected, thanks to Yao and T-Mac doing their thing.
Yao was incredible in this game, dominating in the fourth quarter with 14 points to finish with 27 overall on 10-of-18 shooting (7-of-9 from the free throw line). Yao also grabbed a career-high 22 rebounds and had 5 blocks. Maybe I’ve been reading too much hype about Amare Stoudemire, but I couldn’t believe that Yao was able to take Stoudemire (who only scored 7 points on 2-of-10 shooting) to school like he did in the second half. Four of Yao’s 5 blocks came against Stoudemire, leaving him discombobulated.
Rather than myself include lots of quotes here about how amazed Yao’s teammates were with his performance, you’ve got to read all the props they gave Yao after the game by clicking here and reading the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of the game.
T-Mac was also amazing, scoring 38 points on 16-of-27 shooting, filling it up with 21 points in the second half. He also had 9 rebounds. What else can you say about him? He’s unbelievable.
Other amazing stats of this game were that the Rockets outscored the Suns 20-9 in fast break points, and had 6 steals to Phoenix’s three.
My colleague Chia-Chi is traveling right now, but he will provide his take of Friday’s game later today (Saturday).
Now that the Rockets have won two games in a row on the road that hardly anyone expected them to win (Seattle and now Phoenix), the hopes of a sweep of the remaining games on this road trip (Sacramento and Golden State) may amazingly be possible.