As he goes up for a dunk attempt, Yao is fouled by a Blazer player on Wednesday night in Houston. The Rockets won their 6th game in a row convincingly, winning 108-77. Because of the easy victory, Yao only played 21 minutes, scored 13 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

WEDNESDAY, 3/16/05 – You know when Tracy McGrady is your team’s third-leading scorer in a game and Yao is the fourth, and you still win 108-77, you’ve got a lot going for you as a team.

Not that T-Mac (19 boards, 6 assists, 6 rebounds) or Yao (13 points, 7 boards) played poorly. They just weren’t really needed, playing 28 and 21 minutes, respectively.

The Rockets game against the Portland Trailblazers in Houston Wednesday night was close until about the two-minute mark in the first quarter when the Rockets opened up a 30-23 lead, and finished the quarter on a 15-6 run in the last 4 ½ minutes to lead 34-25.

Houston’s shooting was a phenomenal 11-of-18 in the first quarter, with Bob Sura hitting 4-of-5 for 10 points.

In the second quarter, David Wesley continued his hot shooting, hitting an amazing 4-of-4 to add on to his 2-of-2 in the first. Wesley has been., shooting 53% over the past 5 games, and hitting 50% of his three-pointers. Unconscious.

And he wasn’t the only one. The Rockets offense hummed along, building an 18-point lead on a sweet fast break when Jon Barry threw a no-look, behind-the-head pass to Scott Padgett for a layup attempt that was blocked, but Dikembe Mutombo followed from behind to lay it in, bringing the Toyota Center crowd to a roar as the scoreboard read 49-31 Rockets.

By halftime, the Rockets were in command 57-43, and were shooting 57% as a team and 4-of-6 from behind the arc. And even with power forward Juwan Howard out for a month because of a sprained medial collateral ligament suffered on Monday night at Golden State, the Rockets had out-rebounded 21-14 a very young and inexperienced Blazers team. Although the Blazers are young, the Rocket “old men” were leading in fast break points 14-5.

When Wesley hit a 3-pointer – his seventh shot in a row — at the 10:38 minute mark of the third quarter, the Rockets led 60-45 and it was never really close after that. All that remained for Rocket fans was to enjoy the fireworks.

For example, Wesley got the ball on a fast break and drove to the basket, but his shot was blocked by a Blazer. However, Yao hustled down the court behind the break, grabbed the rebound in mid-air, and threw it down two-handed on a rare follow-up dunk to push the lead to 70-51! The Blazers called a timeout, and as Yao came back to the bench, he was greeted with high-fives and a rare mid-air chest bump by reserve forward Vin Baker. The good times were rolling!

The Rockets played out the rest of the game free and easy, outscoring the Blazers 51-34 in the second half. Wesley finished with 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting, and Sura got back to his old scoring self by scoring 21 on 7-of-8 shooting, including 3-of-4 from three-point land. Collectively, Houston shot 8-of-16 from behind the arc.

Portland’s interim coach, Kevin Pritchard, said after the game, “When you shoot the ball that well and you have Yao Ming on the team, there is really no chance of beating them. They have so many pieces.”

The only suspense that remained was if the Rockets were going to hit the 100-point mark, which would send all fans home with the opportunity to get a free Big Mac the next day. Dikembe delivered at the free throw line when his first attempt dangled on the back rim for a few seconds, putting the Toyota Center crowd in suspense. As the shot finally fell through the net, the fans erupted with a deafening roar as Houston led 100-72 with 6:24 remaining in the game . In a rare show of emotion on the court, Deke couldn’t contain himself and broke out a huge smile because of the levity of the situation. Dikembe played the rest of the way, giving Yao a breather on the bench.

Outside of the Miami Heat, who have won 10 in a row, the Rockets are the hottest team in the league right now, having won 6 in a row. They are shooting great (51% on Wednesday) and playing very good defense (35% shooting for Portland). They also had an astounding 24-10 advantage in fast break points, and only turned the ball over 9 times.

The Rockets next play the Boston Celtics, winners of 9 of their last 10 games, in Houston on Friday night. It should be a high-scoring game considering Boston has scored over 100 points in four consecutive games.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

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

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 16th, 2005 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Portland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.