Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy stares into space for at least 15 seconds after another disheartening loss, this time to Utah 82-74 after Tracy McGrady had to leave the game at halftime to witness the birth of his new baby boy. The Rockets have to be asking themselves if anything else can go wrong this year.

by John

TUESDAY, 12/27/05 – The Rockets cannot catch a break. They had a great chance to break their two-game losing streak Tuesday night. They were playing a struggling Utah Jazz team that settled into Houston around 2:00 AM Tuesday morning after playing in Salt Lake City the night before. The Rockets led 46-41 at halftime, T-Mac came out in the first half very aggressive and scored 21 points, dished 5 assists, grabbed four rebounds, and blocked two shots. It looked like he was going to have a monster game and score 45+ points.

Playing with more energy fueled by T-Mac’s aggressiveness, the Rockets clearly had more confidence and energy, seemingly putting their losing ways behind them. You just felt like the Rockets were going to win this one.

Then typical Houston luck kicked in: T-Mac was told at halftime his fiancee was about to deliver a baby, so he had to leave the game. The Rockets offense fell apart in the second half, and that was it. Game over, man.

At the start of the third quarter, they were outscored on an 11-2 run and missed their first 7 shots. They resorted to rookies Luther Head (2-for-10, 3-of-12 overall) and Stephen Graham (1-of-6 at halftime and overall) jacking up jumpers. No one drove to the hole to create free throw opportunities. Where are you, Mike James?

Every offensive possession became a huge, grind-it-out exercise. They were outscored 24-18 in the third quarter, and they didn’t score a point in the fourth quarter until the 4:35 mark.

It was so painful to watch the Rockets’ offense stall so quickly without T-Mac. Overall, they shot 34% from the floor, including a pathetic 12-of-42 (29%) in the second half.

After the game, Jeff Van Gundy said that T-Mac’s absence wasn’t the reason why they lost. He said it was because their offense failed them. If JVG still hasn’t realized that right now the offense IS T-Mac, and thinks players like Head and Graham are going to fill the void of T-Mac’s absence, then there is a lot more wrong in Rocketville than the offense.

Another painful thing to watch was Stromile Swift. It seemed like he was either missing shots (2-of-10) or turning the ball over (3 times) or fumbling passes. He had a massive dunk at the 2:28 mark in the third quarter to tie the game at 56-56, getting the Houston bench and the crowd back into the game after the Rockets’ 46-41 halftime lead had evaporated. That’s when you thought that play would be the catalyst to ignite Stromile and give the team another offensive weapon to turn it all around. But that play was only fool’s gold. Stromile went back to his struggling ways the rest of the game.

The only encouraging performance outside of T-Mac’s first half performance was Juwan Howard, who scored 19 points (nine in the second half) on 8-of-15 shooting and grabbed 8 rebounds.

What if?

All I want to know is what would have happened if this had been a road game? Would T-Mac have left the game to jump on a plane? Probably not…it might have been too late to really get back in time to witness the birth. Playing one more hour of basketball might not have changed anything. What might have happened is that perhaps they would have considered inducing labor during the 4-day holiday break before T-Mac had even left for the road trip.

Now I know you might think this is all very insensitve on my part to even pose this question, but I think I am qualified to at least bring up this scenario. I was brought into this world through induced labor, all because my mom’s obstetrician was going to be on vacation during my expected delivery date. Was this ever a consideration?

I’m sure there are lots of reasons for not inducing labor, and I am not totally serious about this having been an option. But you can probably tell I am frustrated. After all, what are the chances of this baby-delivery scenario playing out like it did? The Rockets hadn’t played a game in 4 days, or almost 100 hours when they are in the midst of game. What are the chances that out of those 100 hours, the last hour would be the one where his baby is being born (when he is obviusly the most needed by his team)?

Regardless, T-Mac deserves the chance to see his baby being born, but he’s probably as disappointed as anyone that he couldn’t finish out the game.

What else can go wrong this year?

Now the Rockets go to a wild and crazy Oklahoma City arena on Wednesday night where they are almost certain to lose another one…unless T-Mac can make it there in time.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article about the game, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2005 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.