Yao puts up a hook shot over Minnesota’s Michael Olowokandi on Tuesday night. Despite a rough start for Yao and the Rockets, Houston made a comeback in the second half to trip up the Timberwolves 94-89. Yao finished with 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting, and grabbed 7 rebounds. For more photos from the game, click here. Photo courtesy of NBAE via Getty Images.

by John

TUESDAY, 11/15/05 – Finally the Rockets showed some heart in the fourth quarter of a game Tuesday night, beating Minnesota on the road 94-89. The victory wasn’t pretty, but these days they will take any victory they can get. Give credit to clutch plays by T-Mac in the fourth quarter, and some long-awaited scoring by a supporting cast that had gone AWOL for most of the season.

Yao got off to a terrible start. In the first three minutes, Michael Olowokandi took Yao to school twice for two buckets, got Yao to pick up two fouls, and blocked one of his shots. It was an inauspicious start for Yao.

Meanwhile, the Rockets missed 8 of their first 9 shots and quickly fell behind 11-2. I thought, “Uh-oh, here we go again.” This time the Rockets didn’t have the excuse they had on Sunday of playing back-to-back games since they hadn’t played in 48 hours.

Down 20-13 in the first quarter, I saw something from the Rockets that I hadn’t seen often this year: Rafer Alston scored. On top of that, it was on a drive to the bucket and acrobatic shot in traffic. It was such a rare event, I had to rewind my Tivo a few times to savor it.

With that kind of rare event happening, I was thinking maybe some other special things could happen in the game.

One surprise was that the Rockets did not lay down, and ended up cutting the deficit to 24-19 by the end of the first quarter, although they only made 5-of-18 from the floor. Unable to hit a shot (Alston was 0-for-4, Derek Anderson: 1-for-3, T-Mac: 1-for-4), they managed to get to the line and make 9-of-11 from the charity stripe.

2nd quarter:

The Rockets managed to keep it close in the second quarter with Anderson finally starting to hit some shots (2-for-2) and Stromile Swift scoring twice on awesome moves around the basket. Having tied the game at 39-39 after a three-point play by Yao with 3:13 remaining, the Rockets had managed to play somewhat decent ball.

But the wheels fell off the rest of the quarter. T-Mac committed two turnovers in a row that led to a layup and dunk, giving the T-Wolves a 44-39 lead. Then Yao turned the ball over, and Olowokandi got Yao to pick up his third foul. After the Kandi-man hit his two free throws, and Kevin Garnett hit a jumper, Minnesota had gone on an 8-0 run to end the half to take a 47-39 lead.

By halftime, the Rockets had 9 turnovers, with three occurring in the final 1 ½ minute of the second quarter. Yikes.

3rd quarter:

Just when you think the Rockets were going to repeat ineptitude like they have done so many times this season, they were actually competitive in the third quarter, making a sizzling 11-of-20 shots.

Check out these third quarter stats: Yao was 2-for-2 from the field and made both of his foul shots. Both T-Mac and Alston were 2-of-3. And Anderson was 2-for-5. Not bad. And they outscored Minnesota 28-22 to only trail 69-67 headed into the fourth quarter.

4th quarter:

No surprise, T-Mac was the story in the fourth quarter, making up for the mistakes he made at the end of the second quarter. He was fouled on a 3-pointer, went to the line for 3 free throws, sunk all of them, and gave the Rockets their first lead, 74-71, with 9:36 remaining.

Subsequently, Swift hit two shots: a jumper and a layup where he was fouled. But Garnett also came up big, giving them an 82-79 lead with 5:26 remaining.

That’s when “T-Mac time” kicked in, driving into the lane for a sweet layup to close the gap to 82-81. After Garnett countered with a jumper, Yao came up big with a hook shot from the right baseline to make it 84-83 with 3:29 remaining.

T-Mac then elevated from the right wing to hit a huge jumper to make it 85-84. Then from the top of the key, he threw a beautiful one-handed bullet to Alston cutting through the lane for a reverse layup to make it 87-84.

On the ensuing Minnesota possession, T-Mac was able to pick off a pass, dribble it the full length of the court, go up for a tough layup attempt, but then he threw a beautiful NO-LOOK dish to Alston, who was running behind him, and Rafer scored on a layup to make it 89-84 with 1:38 remaining to cap off a 10-2 run.

During the final stretch run, you’ve got to give Houston credit for its smothering defense, holding the T-Wolves scoreless for about 3 ½ minutes down the stretch when it really mattered.

T-Mac was magnificent in the fourth, scoring 13 points and making all seven of his free throws. He led all Rockets with 25 points on 6-of-18 shooting (not great), but his 4 assists, two steals and 8 rebounds were huge.

Even though Yao picked up five fouls, he still managed in 27 minutes to chip in 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting, and grab 7 boards. And Swift started to show the flashes of brilliance that made him so coveted by the Rockets, scoring 10 points (4-of-6) in 17 minutes. Juwan Howard was solid by scoring 9 on 4-of-8 shooting.

But the key was the improved performance of the two new Houston guards, who had their best game of the season yet. Derek Anderson hit 5-of-10 shots for 11 points, and Alston made 5-of-9 for 13. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that when these guys produce, the Rockets’ chances of winning go up exponentially.

Unfortunately, it could be back to reality as the Rockets next play San Antonio on the road Thursday night, then play the next day against the defending Eastern Conference champs (Detroit) on Friday night at Toyota Center. But for now, it’s nice to see some improvement, especially on the road.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To read the Houston Chronicle’s story of the game, click here.

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Minnesota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.