This Rockets-Jazz series already has some interesting sub-plots. But today we got another one when we found out that Andrei Kirilenko was shedding a few tears at the end of Sunday’s practice. Evidently it was because of the very little impact (2 points, 1 rebound, 1 block, 1 steal) he had in Game #1, and the fact Jerry Sloan pulled him in the third quarter right before the Rockets went on a 16-4 scoring run and only played 7 seconds at the end of the fourth quarter.

The Salt Lake Tribune writes how AK47 is upset that Sloan isn’t playing him, and how it’s an awkward situation that both Sloan and Kirilenko is going through.

Tonight on Inside the NBA on TNT, they reported that Kirilenko cried, and of course Charles Barkley asked, “You’re kidding?” and then said, “That’s ridiculous.”

You can bet the talking heads are going to jump all over this one because it’s an easy target to jump on. Just look at what they did with Dirk Nowitzki and his comment during the playoffs last season ridiculing him that the way he relaxed when shooting clutch free throws was to think of a David Hasselhoff song. Even opposing teams’ fans got into the act, jeering Nowitzki with signs about the Hoff. Let’s just hope Rocket fans don’t do anything classless to mock Kirilenko during Monday night’s game.

Then you’ve got the other storyline about the Jazz collapsing at the end of the season to lose homecourt advantage to the Rockets. And you’ve always got the standard T-Mac-has-never-advanced-past-the-first-round, which is getting very old.

Obviously, the Jazz are on the ropes mentally with diminished confidence, so the Rockets need to lower the hammer and not give the Jazz a chance to gain any momentum in the series by letting them win Monday night.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 12:34 am and is filed under 2007 NBA playoffs, vs. Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.