Yao tries to swat New Orleans’ Jamaal Magloire shot on Friday night. The Rockets struggled after T-Mac left the game because of an injury, but the rest of the crew pulled it out in the second half, beating the Hornets 81-68. Yao scored 12 points and grabbed 7 boards in 24 minutes, once again plagued with foul troubles. Click here for more photos from the game.

by Chia-Chi and John

FRIDAY, 3/25/05 – In one of the scarier moments for Rockets fans this season, Tracy McGrady fell to the floor awash in pain three minutes into the first quarter. He repeatedly slapped the floor in agony as trainers rushed out to tend to him. He was eventually carried off by two teammates into the locker room.

T-Mac’s injury occured on a play where McGrady stepped on Yao’s ankle and twisted his right hip. Reports from the locker room were that McGrady was well enough to walk, but as a precautionary measure MRIs were done and McGrady did not return to the game.
Fortunately for Houston fans, the Rocket role players stepped up in T-Mac’s absence and pulled out an 81-68 win in New Orleans.

The Rockets, already without starting power forward Juwan Howard, became even more short-staffed against a young New Orleans team. Yao stepped up in the first quarter, scoring nine points and collecting five rebounds.

But as soon as Yao was replaced by reserve center Dikembe Mutombo, the offense stagnated. Without a clear inside presence the Rockets settled for outside jumpers. Their offense seemed to freeze starting at the 9:19 mark in the second until 5:33 when Yao came in and scored a bucket. But Yao picked up his third foul with two minutes left before halftime, and the Hornets tied the game 38-38 in an offensively ugly second quarter.

Yao came out strong in the second half, getting good looks at the basket, but his hooks and jumpshots that normally fall with ease just would not drop. After picking up his fourth foul on a questionable call on an illegal screen, Yao was pretty much finished for the game.

So Mutombo came in, and the Rockets bench went to work. Bob Sura, David Wesley, and Ryan Bowen did what they would have done with Yao and McGrady in the game by moving the ball around for open looks on the perimeter. Extra hustle and rebounding from Mutombo and Bowen sealed the quarter on the defensive end as the Rockets clamped down and stole the stinger from the Hornets.

With outstanding defense from the Rockets, they started the fourth quarter up 64-56 and allowed only 12 Hornet points the rest of the way. The Rockets’ scored 17 points for the win.

In some light-hearted moments, Jon Barry, who was 0-9 deep into the fourth, caught a pass from Sura on a fast break for an easy layup. As soon as he scored, Barry raised his arms in triumph and mockingly kissed the ground in front of the Rockets bench as his teammates jokingly blessed his head. In another rare moment of frivolity, Van Gundy was caught on TV smiling and joking with a referee.

Former Rocket Boki Nachbar also played a few minutes against his former team, but did not score. Overall, the game was exceedingly ugly, with Barry shooting 1-of-11, Wesley hitting 3-of-11, Mike James making 3-for-13, and Yao shot only 5-of-13. Overall, the Rockets shot a pathetic 37% from the floor.

The saving grace for the Rockets was the great defensive play of its bench. Clarence Weatherspoon and Scott Padgett each collected 11 rebounds.

As a team the Rockets outrebounded the Hornets, 54-46. The fact that Houston still won is a testament to their bench, and the lack of talent from the West’s worst team.

How did Yao do?

Yao did amazing well…only in the first quarter. He scored 9 of his 12 points and collected 5 of his 7 rebounds in the first quarter. Spurred on by the injury of T-Mac, he picked up his game and carried the Rockets through the first quarter. Unfortunately, Yao went cold after that and his foul troubles limited him to 24 minutes.

Even for the short stretches that he was on the floor after his foul troubles, his shots were not falling. The only bright side of his recent foul troubles is that he is getting more rest before for the playoffs, but he must learn to limit his fouls to be a larger influence for his team.

Chia-Chi
zenithnadir@YaoMingFanClub.com

John’s take of the game

When T-Mac went down with his injury in the first quarter, I got really worried about those Rocket playoff tickets I hope to be ordering soon. Would they even go very far in the playoffs if to be ordering soon. You could hear through the television audio how painful it was as T-Mac screamed in pain. Seeing him carried off by two teammates with no contact being made with the floor was just as bad to see.

At first you could see through the Rockets’ body language on the court that it looked like they had taken a blow to the noggin’. They appeared discombobulated on the court, but picked it up and built a small cushion, leading 22-17 after the first quarter.

As Chia-Chi mentioned, Yao played very well in the first quarter, scoring 9 points on a variety of shots and grabbing 5 rebounds. I thought that since T-Mac was out, Yao was going to step up and deliver a big game to make up for T-Mac’s absence. After the first quarter, it never happened.

Yao continued to pick up silly fouls, getting juked into the air a couple of times on pump fakes and coming down with a hack across the arm. Is Yao ever going to learn not to do that? He’s 7’6”, so he shouldn’t need to jump to block shots against most opponents.

The Rockets led 29-19 in the second quarter, but they let the Hornets back in the game by letting them rip a 13-3 run. The Hornets even took a 38-37 lead near the end of the second quarter thanks to awful 31% first-half shooting by the Rockets, including 3-of-14 from three-point territory.

At the start of the second half, Yao was missing everything. He was definitely not taking advantage of the void T-Mac left in the lineup, going 0-for-3 when they really needed him most. Since he wasn’t going to be “The Man,” who would step up?

None other than Bob Sura, who scored 8 points in the third quarter. Even low-scoring Ryan Bowen hit three long jump shots to go 3-for-3 in the third, a stark contrast from Yao’s 0-fer. Who would have ever thought Bowen would outscore Yao in a quarter?

With Sura and Bowen’s scoring boost, it really started to provide some separation from the Western Conference’s worst team, help lifting them to an 18-9 run to end the third quarter ahead, 64-56.

Padgett (10 points, 11 rebounds) and Jon Barry also deserve credit for hustling for rebounds and bothering the Hornets on defense. If the offense ever lets them down, the Rockets always have a chance with their tough defense and rebounding, even if T-Mac or Yao are absent or ineffective.

Let’s just hope that T-Mac will be back soon. There’s a game in San Antonio to win on Sunday, and Tim Duncan isn’t playing.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

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

This entry was posted on Friday, March 25th, 2005 at 11:55 pm and is filed under vs. New Orleans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.