Yao rises above the T-Wolves for a beautiful hook shot on his way to 30 points, 13 boards and 4 blocks in an impressive Rocket win over Minnesota without T-Mac in the lineup. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

TUESDAY, 3/7/06 – Before the Rockets game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, it was announced that T-Mac wouldn’t play so that he could rest his back.

I then wrote down a note to myself that said, “If the Rockets win this game, it will be quite an accomplishment.” After all, the odds were stacked against them. They were playing without T-Mac (2-13 without him) on the road against a Minnesota team that also is vying for the 8th and final spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

And as we continue to witness the evolution of his greatness before our eyes, Yao Ming came up with yet another dominating performance, scoring 30 points, grabbing 13 boards and blocking 4 shots to propel the Rockets to a huge 93-87 victory Wednesday night in Minneapolis.

The chips were on the line, and he delivered big-time. The only thing he didn’t do was hit all of his free throws. He missed all four of his FT attempts in the first half (0-for-4), but he made all eight of his attempts in the second half to finish 8-for-12 from the line.

Also coming up big was Houston’s team defense. The Rockets trailed at the beginning of the fourth quarter 67-61, but then locked down on D and forced the T-Wolves to make only 1-of-19 shots in the quarter while the Rockets went on an amazing 18-3 run to take a 81-70 lead with 1:52 remaining.

It would have been cool if the Rockets could have played good defense through the final 1:52 and hold Minnesota to 3 points overall in the quarter, but then they (e.g. Rafer Alston) started committing stupid fouls and putting Minnesota on the line.

The T-Wolves ended up scoring 17 more points in garbage time to salvage their reputation, but give credit to Houston and their defense. It was a thing of beauty as they forced Minnesota to take bad shots.

Houston was awful in the first half. In the first quarter, the Rockets shot only 35% and trailed 25-16. In the second quarter, both teams shot terribly, with each team shooting 1-of-7 to start the quarter. But that’s when Yao made his move, shooting 4-of-7 from the field. Excluding Yao, the rest of the team shot only 3-of-15.

Except for that fourth quarter stretch where the Rockets clamped down, it was frustrating through the whole game watching lots of boneheaded plays, like missed layups (Keith Bogans, Alston), traveling on the way to an easy layup (David Wesley), throwing dumb passes when they had wide-open layups (Luther Head, among others), and missing 17 free throws!! (28-of-45)

Even with all those mistakes, Yao came through when the Rockets needed him most. He also got help from Alston, who hit 4-of-7 three-pointers. Without those threes, Minnesota would have run away with this game in the first half. Also chipping in was Stromile Swift, who went strong to the hole, finishing with 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting, and playing great D.

Houston is now only 3 games behind the Lakers for that final playoff spot, but they have a tough back-to-back on Wednesday night against Indiana at Toyota Center. The Pacers are in the middle of a pack of teams in the Eastern Conference where only two games separate the fifth team (currently Indiana) and the #8 team.

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, March 7th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Minnesota, Yao's best games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.