Kobe Bryant blocks one of Yao’s shots during the Rockets 89-78 loss to the Lakers Wednesday night at Toyota Center. Yao scored 14 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in a loss that ended Houston’s 4-game winning streak. To see more photos from the game, click here.

by John

WEDNESDAY, 2/8/06 – Through three quarters Wednesday night, the Rockets game against the Lakers was one of the best of the year in my opinion. Not that the Rockets played that well. They were trailing 44-33 at halftime. But the buzz among the 18,000+ Houston fans was palatable as they watched the Rockets go on a 15-3 run to take their first lead at 48-47, and it looked like it was going to be an exciting game the rest of the way.

The largest Toyota Center crowd of the season was finally able to get excited about the game, and you could feel how badly they wanted a win since the Lakers currently occupy the eighth and final spot in the Western Conference playoff seedings, with the Rockets only 5 games back in the standings. On top of that, the Lakers had lost their last four games, so the fans smelled blood.

But then Kobe went off and scored 12 points in the third quarter with an amazing array of shots, and the Lakers cruised to an 89-78 victory. So instead of only being 4 games back if they had won this game, the Rockets are now 6 games back.

It was interesting to hear Kobe’s comments after the game about how much the Rockets appeared to take him lightly when he said, “I started coming off the pick and roll and I was so wide open. It really threw me off at first. It’s been two months since I’ve been that wide open.” What?! Even more wide open than the 81 points you scored against Toronto? We’re lucky he only scored 32.

Of course, Jeff Van Gundy wasn’t happy as you can tell by these post-game quotes:

“How little we put in the game, from the start of the day to the end of the game, was totally uninspiring. We went through the motions, but didn’t even fake it very well.”

“We didn’t try hard enough. It gives you pause to think what do we really have here? We should’ve been frothing at the mouth, like pit bulls. I so much want to have a team that really, really, really wants to play every day, every night.”

Unfortunately, the highly anticipated showdown between Kobe and T-Mac never materialized. While Kobe ended the game with 32 points, 9 assists and 6 steals, McGrady struggled from the floor again, shooting only 5-of-18 from the floor and scoring just 11 points and grabbing 4 boards. And since Yao had a so-so game (14 points, 7-of-17 shooting, 13 rebounds), there was no way the Rockets were going to win with Yao and T-Mac both having sub-par games while Kobe and Brian Cook (of all people) combined for 59 points.

Even more disturbing is that T-Mac has now only made 30% (19-of-63) of his shots over the past 3 games. Hopefully he’s not going through back problems that are affecting his play. We’ll find out Saturday when they play Utah at Toyota Center.

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 Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. LA Lakers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.