Saturday night the Rockets lost their 7th of seven games when Yao and T-Mac aren’t in the lineup, losing to the Memphis Grizzlies 93-81 at Toyota Center.

Houston trailed 29-17 the first minute into the second quarter, but then outscored the Grizzlies by 10 points in the second quarter to get a 46-46 tie at halftime. I thought maybe the Rockets were in position to upset the 46-33 Grizzlies, currently the 5th seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Stromile Swift was looking great, hitting 4-of-5 field goals in the second quarter alone, and leading all Houston scorers with 10 points at halftime.

But that’s all Stromile would score, attempting only 2 shots (and missing them both) in just five minutes of action in the second half. Not sure why Stro’ didn’t get more playing time after such a great first half.

The Griz’ pulled away as you would expect in the second half, opening up an 18-point lead early in the fourth quarter. It was clear sailing from there.

It was kind of sad that the Houston broadcast team had to award somebody their Rocket “Player of the Game” award at the end of the broadcast considering no one really stood out. They ended up giving it to Rafer Alston, who had 10 assists, but only scored 13 points. I think that’s the lowest number of points I’ve ever seen a “Player of the Game” recipient ever have. What’s worse, he was 6-of-15 from the field. They could have given it to Juwan Howard, who scored 16 points. But Juwan’s field goal shooting was even worse: 5-of-18. It’s amazing the Rockets were still able to shoot 44% from the field for the game considering their top scorers shot 33%.

The most entertaining part of watching this game was that Houston had recently-retired Jon Barry commentating alongside Clyde Drexler and Bill Worrell. It was interesting to hear Barry’s comments since he is so familiar with the current players. I enjoyed hearing his perspectives on coach Jeff Van Gundy, who he said was the best coach for whom he ever played. He said he learned alot of new things from him basketball-wise, and that he really cares about his players.

All in all, I think Barry has a bright future ahead of him as a broadcaster. Watch out Clyde, you may have some competition on your hands!

One interesting tidbit of information after looking at the standings after this game. As of late Saturday night, there are three other teams (Minnesota, Golden State, Seattle) tied with the Rockets’ 33 wins this season, and another team (Boston) with 32. The teams with 33 wins all have 2 games left to play, with Boston having three. Considering the five-spot swing now at stake in the NBA draft, it’s going to be very interesting to see how competitive these teams are in their final games.

john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 15th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Memphis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.