Rockets pull out a victory over Pacers
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007
by John
Yao towers over Jermaine O’Neal in a closely contested game where the Rockets broke free from a lackluster showing and finally pulled it out in the fourth quarter, winning 86-76. Yao was awesome, scoring 32 points and grabbing 14 boards. Click here for more photos from the game. Click here for pre-game photos of Yao practicing before the game.
After beautiful offensive games where they had scored over 100 points in six of their last 7 contests, the Rockets finally had a game where they sputtered offensively, including lots of missed layups and shots around the basket. It’s strange how some of the Rockets’ stinkers have occurred at home.
But Houston overcame a lackluster performance on national TV against a sub-par Indiana team, turned on the juice in the game’s final minutes, and won 86-76.
That’s what good teams like Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix do. They can sleepwalk through a game and struggle offensively, but have their superstars kick it into a higher gear to win it down the stretch. That’s what happened Tuesday night with the Yao/T-Mac combination.
I’m not as upset as others may be with the Rockets’ lackadaisical showing on Tuesday. The Mavericks and Suns have been known to do it. And there are still 14 games to go before the playoffs, so if they played every night like they did against Philadelphia the other night and won by 50 points, there would be nowhere else for them to go but down. Now if the type of game they had on Tuesday night against Indiana occurred in the final week or two of the regular season as they are tuning up for the playoffs, then I would be more concerned.
But more importantly, the Rockets are going to have to stick with the players they already have. It’s not going to change before the playoffs, so we just have to get used to the fact that T-Mac, Rafer Alston, and Luther Head can struggle on any given night (more on that later), meaning a first or second-round exit in this year’s playoffs.
Yao towers over Jermaine O’Neal in a closely contested game where the Rockets broke free from a lackluster showing and finally pulled it out in the fourth quarter, winning 86-76. Yao was awesome, scoring 32 points and grabbing 14 boards. Click here for more photos from the game. Click here for pre-game photos of Yao practicing before the game.After beautiful offensive games where they had scored over 100 points in six of their last 7 contests, the Rockets finally had a game where they sputtered offensively, including lots of missed layups and shots around the basket. It’s strange how some of the Rockets’ stinkers have occurred at home.
But Houston overcame a lackluster performance on national TV against a sub-par Indiana team, turned on the juice in the game’s final minutes, and won 86-76.
That’s what good teams like Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix do. They can sleepwalk through a game and struggle offensively, but have their superstars kick it into a higher gear to win it down the stretch. That’s what happened Tuesday night with the Yao/T-Mac combination.
I’m not as upset as others may be with the Rockets’ lackadaisical showing on Tuesday. The Mavericks and Suns have been known to do it. And there are still 14 games to go before the playoffs, so if they played every night like they did against Philadelphia the other night and won by 50 points, there would be nowhere else for them to go but down. Now if the type of game they had on Tuesday night against Indiana occurred in the final week or two of the regular season as they are tuning up for the playoffs, then I would be more concerned.
But more importantly, the Rockets are going to have to stick with the players they already have. It’s not going to change before the playoffs, so we just have to get used to the fact that T-Mac, Rafer Alston, and Luther Head can struggle on any given night (more on that later), meaning a first or second-round exit in this year’s playoffs.
With the Chinese Basketball Association Finals going on, Yao offered his thoughts on China’s top NBA prospect, Yi Jianlian.