Dallas’ Jason Terry elevates over Yao for a big bucket Saturday as no one could stop the Dallas guard on his way to 32 points. The Rockets led by six points in the fourth quarter, but lost the lead once again and the game, 97-93. Yao scored 20 points, blocked 5 shots and grabbed 5 rebounds. The Houston-Dallas playoff series is now tied at 2-2. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SATURDAY, 4/30/05 – It’s the day after the Rockets’ gut-wrenching loss to the Mavericks in Game 4, and I’m prepared to file my report after a painful 24 hours. Not only did the Rockets lose to ruin my day, but I realized I left my laptop power cord at home and didn’t have enough battery power to file my report last night. Yesterday was a disaster all the way around.

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Yao throws one down in the first quarter against Dallas on Thursday night. The Rockets led by eight points in the fourth quarter, but lost the lead and the game 106-102. Yao scored 15 points and grabbed 10 boards. The Rockets hold a 2-1 advantage in ther best-of-7 game playoff series against the Mavericks. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

THURSDAY, 4/28/05 – If you live in the US and you tuned into the beginning of the Rockets – Mavericks game Thursday night, you probably saw that the first quarter wasn’t televised because the Miami – New Jersey game preceding the game went into double-overtime. The OT of that game ended up eating into the TV coverage for the Rockets game. So no one tuning into TNT could see the Rockets.

Funny, but if you watched the fourth quarter of the Rockets game, the same thing happened again: no one could find the Rockets. If you didn’t see it, Dallas went on a 20-0 run in the fourth quarter and eventually won 106-102.

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Yao celebrates after throwing down a dunk near after a beautiful assist from T-Mac near the end of Game 2 of the Rockets-Mavericks series. In the game, Yao played one of his most amazing games, scoring 33 points on 13-of-14 shooting, making all 7 of his free throw attempts, and grabbing 8 rebounds in a stunning 113-111 playoff victory against the Mavericks. The Rockets now lead the series 2-0. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

MONDAY, 4/25/05 – When you think about the most important moments in Yao’s NBA career thus far, you think of that rookie season where he shocked the Lakers and scored 20 points that made Charles Barkley kiss Kenny Smith’s donkey after losing a bet. Or you think of those famous “Shaq vs. Yao” matchups from that rookie year. Or maybe the three-pointer at Golden State. Or the no-look behind-the-head passes to Cuttino Mobley or Moochie Norris. Or maybe that behind-the-back dribble and fast break dunk in Portland a few weeks ago.

It’s time to add one more moment to the list. Monday night’s game between Dallas and Houston might go down as the game that gives Yao a reputation as a big-time playoff player we have all looked forward to seeing.

Yao led all scorers with 33 points on an astounding 13-of-14 shooting (the one miss he had shouldn’t have been counted as a shot attempt), made 7-of-7 free throws, grabbed 8 rebounds and had two blocks. In the first quarter alone he made 5-of-5 shots and scored 17 points.

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Dallas’ Erick Dampier takes a swipe at the ball Yao was holding in the first quarter Saturday in the first game of the Rockets-Mavericks playoff series. Dampier was not called for a foul on the play. In the game, the Rockets surprised the Mavericks, winning 98-86. Yao was in foul trouble for most of the game, playing only 20 minutes, scoring 11 points and grabbing 8 boards. T-Mac was the Man, scoring 34 points, dishing 6 assists and grabbing 5 boards after playing 47 minutes. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SATURDAY, 4/23/05 – At the end of the regular season with Houston winning 7 games in a row, the Rockets were hoping their hot shooting streak and smothering defense would continue into their first round playoff match-up with Dallas on Saturday.

It did, and they pulled off a big 98-86 victory in Dallas to stop their 9-game winning streak while also taking a 1-0 series lead.

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Yao relaxes with T-Mac during Wednesday’s game against the Sonics in a blowout victory over Seattle, 106-78. Since the Rockets had already clinched the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoffs, T-Mac didn’t suit up because of a sore back, and Yao played only 23 minutes in the meaningless game, scoring 13 points and grabbing 6 boards. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

WEDNESDAY, 4/20/05 – Look up the definition of “blowout” in the dictionary, and you’ll see the Houston-Seattle boxscore from Wednesday night’s season-ending finale, which ended with Houston winning 106-78.

As bad as the Seattle Sonics were without Ray Allen (ankle), Rashard Lewis (tendonitis), Vladimir Radmanovic (injured list), and Antonio Daniels (injured list), the Rockets shooting was that good. I have never seen such great shooting through three quarters in my life. Layup after layup. Three-pointer after three-pointer.

With 8:47 remaining in the game, the Rockets were shooting 62% from the field, and 71% (9-of-13) from behind the arc, and held a 38-point lead, 99-61. When Mike James hit another three-pointer with 8:00 minutes remaining, the Rockets had their biggest lead of 39 points (102-63).

By that time, little-played Moochie Norris and Torraye Braggs had been inserted into the game, and the Rockets finished disinterested the rest of the way. By the time the game was over, the Rockets’ overall shooting was 54% from the field and an amazing 11-of-16 from three-point territory.

And they did it all without T-Mac, who sat out because of back spasms.

But Mike James was unconscious, hitting 10-of-13 shots (24 points), mostly from the outside (4-of-5 three-pointers) to lead all Rockets in scoring. Everything he threw up seemed to go in, even a last-second desperation heave at the end of the third quarter where he was twisting in mid-air from way behind the three-point line.

Yao played 23 minutes and finished with 13 points and 6 rebounds. He had a couple of sweet moves down low that fooled Vitaly Potapenko so much, he looked like a mannequin standing in place as Yao went around him.

Since it was such a blowout win, there’s really no sense in my rehashing any other details from this game other than to point you to that impressive boxscore to see how the other Rockets fared statistically.

The main thing to point out is that the Rockets are rolling as they finished the season on a 7-game winning streak, with their final three victories having a winning margin was over 25.

Now the Rockets enter their first-round playoff match-up against a Dallas team, winners of 8 in a row just as hot as themselves and 17-2 under new coach Avery Johnson.

Although Dallas finished the season with a better record, it just doesn’t seem to matter that the Rockets don’t have home-court advantage. The Rockets are hot, and they are a very good road team. I don’t know who will win this series, but the best team should win.

JUDGEMENT DAY

Speaking of predictions, now that the season is over, I wanted to go back in time and recap my pre-season prediction of how the Rockets and Yao would do this season. I have included it below (you can go to the real page where I made the prediction by clicking here and scrolling to the “Predictions for 2004-05” section).

I’ll let you judge for yourself on how close I came to hitting the mark. 😉

With all the new players on the Rockets this season, I predict the team will get off to a very slow start. (I know, that’s not much of a stretch given their mediocre preseason.) Their won-loss record will suffer as they try to get accustomed to each other. They will lose many of their games in the first couple of weeks of the season. In many ways it will mirror the season of the Houston Astros: by mid-season the Rockets will be hovering around .500, and the national media will be saying the Rockets trade for T-Mac might have been a mistake.

So here are my projected stats for Yao: 19.1 points, 10 rebounds, 2.3 blocks, 52% field goal percentage, and 82% free throw percentage. [Yao finished with 18.3 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.0 blocks, 55.2% shooting, and 78.3% free throw shooting].

Not bad, huh? Now only if my fantasy league team had done as well. ;-(

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

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

Yao takes it strong to the hole over the Clippers’ Elton Brand as the Rockets dominated LA 115-90. Yao led the Rockets in scoring with 24 points, 7 rebounds and two blocks. With the victory, the Rockets clinched the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoffs and will face the Dallas Mavericks in the first round. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

MONDAY, 4/18/05 – For those of you who wanted the Rockets to tank their final two games of the season so they could face the Seattle Sonics in the first round of playoffs, I’ve got some bad news for you. The Rockets not only clinched the fifth seed in the playoffs on Monday night to set up an opening series with the Dallas Mavericks, but they did it in convincing fashion by blowing out the LA Clippers 115-90.

It was the second game in a row the Rockets scored 115 points, having scored the same against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday in another dominating performance, 115-87.

The Rockets picked up where they left off from Saturday night, coming out in the first quarter with guns a-blazin’, scoring 40 points in the first quarter – the most points scored by the Rockets in the first quarter this year. It was also the most points scored against the Clippers in a quarter this year. Yao came out aggressive, cutting to the basket and getting nice feeds from T-Mac to score 10 points down low on 5-of-6 shooting in the first quarter.

Throughout the game Yao continued to dominate against the smaller Clippers, finishing with 24 points on 10-of-14 shooting in 28 minutes of play. He shot all of his fadeaway jumpers decisively and most of them hit nothing but net.

David Wesley was just as hot, making all four of his shots, including two treys, to score 11 points in the first quarter.

The Rockets shot an amazing 16-of-21 from the floor (76%) in the first, including 5-of-6 from behind the arc. The Rockets’ incredible shooting overshadowed an awesome performance by the Clippers’ Elton Brand, who scored 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting in the first quarter alone. He would go on to score a career high 36 points.

The Rockets extended their 9-point first quarter lead to as many as 23 points in the second quarter, helped by Scott Padgett hitting 2-of-3 three-pointers.

They took a commanding 70-49 lead into halftime, the most number of points scored in a first-half this season by the Rockets. But the Clippers weren’t playing that poorly. LA shot 61% from the field, but Houston was unconscious themselves, shooting 64% and hitting six more three-pointers (7-of-15) than the Clips.

At the beginning of the second half, the Rockets experienced their only lapse of the game, turning the ball over and missing all of their shots for the first 3 minutes while the Clippers went on an 8-0 run to cut the deficit to 70-57.

But because the Clippers jammed up the middle defensively and left Houston’s shooters on the perimeter wide open, the Rockets finally responded with a Bob Sura three-pointer at the 8:44 mark in the third to stop the momentum, 73-57. Then Sura hit another wide-open trey to make it 77-57, and the Rockets never looked back. The rest of the game was a yawner, with the Rockets winning handily 115-90.

Houston’s bench played fabulous, with Mike James scoring 11, Dikembe Mutombo scoring 9, Wesley 13, and Sura 15.

But the guy who has stepped up recently when the Rockets have needed it is power forward Scott Padgett, whose 15 points were much welcomed since the Rockets have missed Juwan Howard’s scoring punch after getting hurt a few weeks ago and who will miss the entire playoffs. Padgett hit 5-of-6 three-pointers and had 9 rebounds. He reminds me of former Rockets’ three-point specialist Matt Bullard, but with better rebounding capability and hustle. Hopefully Padgett and Clarence Weatherspoon will be able to slow down Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki just a bit on his way to 30+ points when the Rockets start playing the Mavericks later this week in the first round of the playoffs.

Not to be forgotten, T-Mac had 16 points and 10 assists, with 8 coming in the first quarter alone. That’s 26 assists in three games, which is close to the average of league assist leader and MVP candidate Steve Nash! T-Mac also had some humorous moments. During a break in the action as he was preparing to inbound the ball into play along the sideline, there was an empty fan seat next to where he was going to inbound the ball, so he sat down in it to rest in between two fans. And after Yao got fouled hard on the left arm, T-Mac came over and massaged his elbow and forearm for several seconds, making Yao himself crack up a bit.

The Rockets have now won six games in a row, and hope to make it seven in their final regular season game on Wednesday against the Seattle Sonics, who may be back on track now that Rocket-killer Rashard Lewis is back in the lineup. Lewis was a key component in the Sonics’ last victory against Minnesota, eliminating the T-wolves from the playoffs. Maybe, just maybe, the Rockets are better off playing Dallas in the first round after all. It doesn’t hurt that Houston is only a one-hour flight from Dallas, so travel should not pose a problem to either team.

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

Yao lofts a hook shot Saturday night at Houston’s Toyota Center against the Denver Nuggets on his way to 13 points, 11 rebounds and 5 blocks in a stunning Rocket victory over Denver, 115-87. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SATURDAY, 4/16/05 – I was fortunate enough to attend the Rockets-Nuggets game on Saturday night in Houston, and I couldn’t have picked a better game to attend than this one. If you’re a Yao or Rockets fan, you probably saw the game on ESPN or have read the AP news story. The Rockets stunned the Nuggets 115-87 in dominating fashion on Saturday night. Like any other news story, I will give you many of the facts you would expect from any sports story. But I’ll also try to give you a sense of what it was like to be there.

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Yao puts up a sweet finger roll in the fourth quarter to help lead the Rockets to a 100-92 victory against the Memphis Grizzlies Wednesday night in Houston. Yao scored 12 points in the pivotal fourth quarter, and finished with 29 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

WEDNESDAY, 4/13/05 – It’s something you can’t say for every game this season, but without Yao on Wednesday night, the Rockets would have lost. Yao was clutch when the Rockets needed him most, scoring 12 points in the fourth quarter in a very tight game against the Memphis Grizzlies, leading the Rockets to a 100-92 victory. Yao finished with 28 points, 9 boards and 4 rejections. Although Yao has always been known for his high percentage field goal shooting, Yao’s defense and shot-blocking skills have improved over the past few weeks and made a difference in this game.

Yao got off to a great start in the first quarter, hitting all four of his shots with confidence for eight points. T-Mac was the reason for at least two of those made shots, dishing two assists to Yao down low for easy buckets. T-Mac also scored 8 points in the first quarter, but the Grizzlies still led at the end of the quarter, 26-24, thanks to Mike Miller’s 9 points.

In the second quarter, the Rockets went on an 8-0 run to take a 40-30 lead, and a few minutes later they held a 46-33 lead. Yao scored 6 points thanks to 4-of-4 shooting from the free throw line, and point guard Mike James shot an amazing 3-of-3 from three-point territory. Miller continued his hot shooting, scoring another six points on 3-of-4 shooting. By halftime, the Rockets led 52-42 thanks to 44% shooting in the first half and five three-pointers. T-Mac and Yao both had 14 points each.

In the third quarter, the Rockets opened up their largest lead of the night at 62-46 after running off an 8-0 run. But the Grizzlies came storming back, thanks to a 20-7 run sparked by a McGrady-like scoring binge by Miller, who scored 13 points and three treys to bring them to within 69-66.

The fourth quarter was a nail-biter, with the game nip-and-tuck the entire quarter. Every time it looked like the Rockets were going to pull away, the determined Grizzlies would battle back and stay within striking distance. It wasn’t until T-Mac dished a nifty pass to Yao who was cutting down the middle of the lane to lay it off the glass for the deuce, and was fouled with 1:08 remaining. Yao then went to the line and hit the penalty free throw to give the Rockets a 93-88 lead. Twenty-seven seconds later, Mike James (15 points) hit his fourth three-pointer of the game at the 41 second mark to give the Rockets a 96-90 lead to basically seal the deal. It was great to see James hit a big shot when the Rockets needed it.

Mike Miller (career-high 37 points) gave the Houston fans lots of headaches during the game, but he won their favor by fouling T-Mac with only .2 seconds remaining when the game was in the Rockets’ hands 98-92. That foul gave T-Mac a chance to go to the line and shoot two free throws to hit the 100-point mark and give the attendees free Big Macs. Needless to say, after T-Mac drained both free throws, the Houston crowd was ecstatic.

With the victory, the Rockets kept the Grizzlies, currently battling Minnesota for the 8th and final seed in the Western Conference playoffs, from clinching a playoff spot. The Rockets also stayed neck-and-neck with the Denver Nuggets for the sixth playoff seed.

Denver won their game on Wednesday night against New Orleans. So if the Nuggets beat Memphis in Denver on Friday night, the Rockets and Nuggets will have the same record (48-31) with only three games remaining. One of those games involves a duel between the two teams on Saturday night in Houston, which will most certainly be a showdown for that 6th playoff spot (or maybe the 5th) to play Seattle (or Dallas) in the first round of the playoffs.

I will be at that game, and I can’t wait to file my report…unless the Rockets lose, of course.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

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

Yao moves laterally to defend the Sonics’ Luke Ridnour on Monday night in Seattle. Yao scored 20 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and blocked 3 shots on the way to the Rockets winning their second straight, 90-78. Click here for more photos from the game.

ClubYao writer Chia-Chi attended Monday night’s game between the Rockets and Sonics. John also had commentary about the game, which is directly below Chia-Chi’s report below.

by Chia-Chi

MONDAY, 4/11/05 – The rest of the Rockets’ season all of a sudden seems much smoother with another convincing win on the road. The T-Mac/Yao one-two punch was in full force as the Sonics, missing four of its top six scorers, valiantly struggled to stay in the game but had no answer for T-Mac’s 38 points.

It took a while for the Rockets to get into gear in the first, with the Sonics playing a quick and faster pace. But after a timeout from Seattle, the Rockets defense stepped into gear, not allowing a single Sonics bucket for a six-minute stretch. But while the defense by the Rockets was particularly commendable, the defense of the Sonics was particularly rough.

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Phoenix’s Steve Nash drives against Yao Ming on Saturday night. It was a crazy game, with the Rockets lucky to escape with a win, 98-97. Plagued with foul trouble, Yao scored 10 points, grabbed 8 boards and had 3 blocks in 24 minutes of action. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SATURDAY, 4/9/05 – The Rockets escaped with one of their luckiest wins of the season Saturday night, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Leading by only one point against the Phoenix Suns, point guard Bob Sura went to the line with a 98-97 lead and could have at least guaranteed overtime if he hit both free throws.

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