Rocket players continue to honor and respect Yao while he is out of the lineup, keeping his spot open during pre-game fesitivities. A few minutes later, the Rockets got off to a fast start thanks to Tracy McGrady’s aggressiveness, and they never looked back, beating a very good Utah Jazz team 100-86. Click here for more photos from the game.

The Dallas Mavericks are getting all the publicity, having won their 13th game in a row on national TV against San Antonio Friday night. Meanwhile, the Rockets are quietly humming along, beating a very good Utah Jazz team at Toyota Center Friday night, 100-86.

That’s okay with me. Let’s let Dallas, San Antonio, and Phoenix get all the pub and have everyone overlook the Rockets. Remember what happened with Miami last year when they flew under the radar for most of the season – just like the Rockets are doing – and shocked the world by winning a ring?

T-Mac was amazing once again, scoring the most number of points he has scored in Houston as a Rocket: 44 points, along with 9 boards. That’s his fourth game in a row with 30+ points. Absolutely no one expected McGrady to be this dominant after coming off the injured list from back spasms.

He was aggressive all game long, taking it to the basket every chance he could, it seems. He just knew that to beat a good 23-9 team like the Jazz, they were going to have to do something different to keep them on their heels. He started off the first quarter propelling the Rockets to an incredible 18-3 lead, scoring 17 in the first. He followed it up with 10 in the second, 8 in the third, and 9 in the fourth. And he had only one turnover all game long.

That was another key to this game: the Rockets turning it over only 7 times! And four of those were from one player – Juwan Howard, who didn’t have a good shooting night (3-of-11).

But Dikembe Mutombo had his back on the front line, racking up 19 boards (8 of them on the offensive glass) while playing a season-high 36 minutes.

Rafer Alston continued to struggle from the field, hitting only 5-of-17 shots and bringing the team FG% down to 41.5%. But the Rockets traditionally strong defense held the Jazz to only 40% shooting, and they outrebounded a very good rebounding team 48-43.

Alston is still attacking the basket, which is good to see, but he’s not making those running tear-drop shots he was making earlier in the season. He missed several of those Friday night, and if he hadn’t hit a surprising 4-of-9 from three-point land, his FG% would have been even worse.

So the Rockets have now won five in a row and are 5-1 since Yao’s injury. Many people may be thinking that Yao is overrated and/or the Rockets don’t need him after all, or that he could disrupt the chemistry that the team is currently developing when he returns. But I’ll have something to say about that in my next blog post.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 5th, 2007 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.