L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant scores on an alley-oop pass Sunday afternoon at Staples Center. Despite Yao scoring 33 points (16-of-25 shooting) and grabbing 16 rebounds, Kobe was too much, scoring 43 points in a 104-88 defeat of the Rockets. Click here for more photos from the game from sina.com.

by John

SUNDAY, 4/2/06 – After having impressive offensive showings against the Sonics and Wizards this past week, the Rockets’ Sunday ABC television game against the Lakers was an opportunity to show everyone in the country just how much they have improved recently without T-Mac.

The Rockets were delivering on those expectations from the get-go. In the first quarter, Yao was showing the nation just how much he has improved, hitting 4 of his first 5 shots and finishing the first quarter scoring 14 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

Rafer Alston was also impressive, hitting 3-of-4 shots. Hitting 50% of their shots, the Rockets looked good. On top of that, they didn’t commit a single turnover in that first quarter.

The problem is that the Lakers were just as good, hitting 12-of-21 (57%) and committing just two turnovers to only trail 29-27 heading into the second quarter.

The Rockets showed they weren’t a one-quarter wonder, though, extending their lead to 46-40 after Luther Head drove to the basket for a dunk. Then a couple of minutes later, Keith Bogans scored on a layup, then followed up with a dunk to make it 50-45.

Those aggressive plays brought the players on the Rockets’ bench to their feet, with a feeling that maybe they could shock the Lakers in their own gym.

By halftime, the Rockets’ lead was cut to 52-51, but Yao was rolling. He already had a double-double (20 points on 10-of-16 shooting, 10 boards) and was neutralizing Kobe Bryant offensively (19 points).

But no one could stop Kobe after halftime, who went off for 22 points in the third quarter alone (9-of-13 shooting) and outscoring the suddenly-cold Rockets team by himself, 22-18. It reminded me of his 81-point outburst in January against Toronto when he was hitting everything from the outside. There’s nothing anyone can do when he’s hitting shots like that.

The only way to counteract that kind of firepower is to respond with an attack of your own. Unfortunately, Yao only got off three shots, whereas Alston took six, missing five! Big problem! Even Alston admitted after the game, “We should have found Yao more. Yao should have had 50 points tonight. He should have had 50.”

After the game, Yao confirmed my hunch that there is nothing you can do except attack back. “In the third quarter when Kobe made those shots — those are great shots — I think our defense did everything they could do. But we didn’t get a good answer at the other rim. It’s about being mentally tough. When he hit a couple shots in a row, we were frustrated by that. But we cannot let games go on like that. If they score, score back. It’s on us. We have to take care of our game.”

On the bright side, Richie Frahm showed he can shoot from the outside, hitting 3-of-4 treys. But by the time the quarter was over, it was too late. The Lakers outscored the Rockets 37-18 and led 88-70 headed into the fourth quarter. That basically was the ballgame.

The Rockets couldn’t get any closer than 13 points, but Yao did hit 4-of-5 shots in the quarter to finish with an impressive 33 points, 16 rebounds and 3 assists.

Disappointing was the fact that Rockets who have been shooting so well lately couldn’t deliver. Luther finished 2-of-10 from the field for six points, Bogans was 3-of-11 (maybe tired from chasing Kobe all over the place), and Alston was 5-of-13 for 12 points.

The only other bright spot was Stromile Swift’s 5-of-10 shooting in 22 minutes. For a guy who is known for his dunking ability Swift has a really sweet shot from the top of the key. I don’t think I’ve seen him miss a shot from there the past three games. All the announcers keep ripping on Swift, but I’m okay with him. He has been playing well lately, this season is a write-off anyway, so the time to really judge him is the remaining games this season and early next season.

The Rockets are now on a brutal stretch of games. They next play Tuesday at Seattle, Wednesday at Portland, Friday at Golden State, Sunday at Sacramento, and Monday at Utah.

These games will be critical for the front office to use in evaluating young players on the bubble like Bogans, Frahm, Rick Brunson, Chuck Hayes, as well as veteran players like Juwan Howard and the aforementioned Swift.

In addition, if they can win some of these games on such a difficult road trip, that could be a big confidence boost for this young team as they head into the off-season trying to figure out how to get back into contention next year.

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 Sunday, April 2nd, 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.