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.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2005 at 11:56 pm and is filed under vs. LA Clippers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.