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.

But Sura choked on both free throws, and Phoenix had one last possession to win the game with just a few seconds remaining. Steve Nash had a pretty good look at the basket with a fadeaway jumper, but it missed and Phoenix’s Steven Hunter had a relatively easy put-back dunk to win the game, but he blew the shot and the Rockets walked away with a win.

It was an important victory since the hard-charging Denver Nuggets won their game on Saturday night also, putting them ½ game behind the Rockets. If Houston had lost to Phoenix, it would have put Denver ahead in the race for the sixth playoff spot. Whoever wins the sixth seed will most likely play the very beatable Seattle Sonics, who are struggling and have lost four in a row. The team that finishes in the seventh seed will play the much tougher Suns or Spurs.

It didn’t look like the Rockets had a chance at the start of the game. They were out-hustled in the first quarter, getting beaten to loose balls and leaving the Suns wide open for easy shots. The Rockets easily fell behind by 14 points, but T-Mac kept them in the game, hitting 5-of-8 from the field for 10 points and closing it to 31-25 at the end of the first quarter.

In the second quarter, the Rockets held the Suns to 6-of-21 shooting (29%). Part of it was good defense, but a lot of it was Phoenix missing open shots. The Rockets weren’t much better, through, shooting 37% overall, hitting only 1-of-11 from three-point territory, and David Wesley missing all four of his shots. Wesley had really become a liability.

But the Rockets held the Suns to 16 points in the second quarter, and whittled their halftime lead to 47-45. It was nice to see the Rockets hold the Suns, a team that scores 110 points per game, to a 94-point pace. And amazingly, the Suns were only able to muster three fast break points by halftime.

Yao got into foul trouble in the first half with three fouls, but even with limited action (11 minutes), he only attempted three shots, making two of them.

Being so close at halftime, we knew the Rockets could probably hold their own in the third quarter. The question was if Houston would wither away in the fourth quarter, something they have done so many times this season.

In the third quarter, the Rockets more than held their own. They quickly tore off a 21-10 run and took a 66-57 lead, thanks to scoring by Ryan Bowen, T-Mac and Wesley. And they didn’t let up. By the time the third quarter was over, the Rockets had scored 33 points to Phoenix’s 17, and held a shocking 78-64 lead. The Rockets shot 50% (12-of-24) to Phoenix’s 6-of-23. And T-Mac scored 13 points in the quarter, Sura had 8, and Wesley had 6.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Rockets extended their lead to 16 points after a rejuvenated Wesley hit a three-pointer to make it 83-67 with 10:44 remaining. But you knew the Suns wouldn’t go down without making one more run, which they did by rattling off a 12-1 run to close it to 84-79 with 7:20 remaining.

Embarrassed the play before by Amare Stoudemire blocking his shot, Yao came back and hit a big shot in the lane to make it 86-79. Unfortunately, Wesley was lazy on defense and failed to block out Jim Jackson, who easily scored on an offensive rebound to make it 86-81. But Jon Barry responded by hitting a big three-pointer to make it 89-81 with 5:50 remaining.

Stoudemire fouled out at the 2:01 mark when he bumped into T-Mac, who stepped to the line and made one of two free throws to give the Rockets a 96-91 lead. Stoudemire’s absence really had an impact when Yao scored easily on an offensive rebound, giving the Rockets a 98-93 lead.

After Shawn Marion hit a jumper and Steven Hunter got a dunk, the Rockets had a slim 98-97 lead when the Suns fouled Sura intentionally and got what they wanted when Sura shot two free throw bricks under pressure with 7 seconds remaining, which set up Nash’s fadeaway and Hunter’s missed dunk attempt.

As hot as they were in the third quarter, the Rockets did wither in the fourth quarter as they have done all season long, shooting 5-of-20 (20%) from the field. And although T-Mac missed all four of his shots in the quarter, he made 6-of-8 free throws and got the critical sixth foul on Stoudemire, and scored 34 points on 12-of-25 shooting. Although Wesley missed all four of his shots in the first half, he made 4-of-5 in the second half to score 9 overall.

Dikembe Mutombo played a huge game while Yao sat on the bench in foul trouble. Deke scored 12 points and grabbed 13 huge rebounds.

The Rockets play their last road game of the regular season against Seattle on Monday, then finish the last four games of the season at home against Memphis, Denver, the Clippers, and Seattle. It’s anyone’s guess if they will secure that all-important sixth playoff spot, but at least they will go through a playoff-like experience the remaining games of the season since there is something at stake for which they can play.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

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

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 9th, 2005 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Rockets' off-season, vs. Phoenix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.