Yao high-fives Rafer Alston after their 98-90 victory over the Utah Jazz Monday night. Yao scored 27 points and grabbed 9 boards in the win to give Houston a 2-0 advantage over the Jazz in their playoff series. Click here for photos from the game. Click here for photos of Yao before the game.

With all the photos, video highlights, stories and blogs posted online (NBA.com, Houston Chronicle, etc.) about the playoff games, it doesn’t seem to make much sense for me to go into much detail about these games. You’re probably overwhelmed with too much information like I am. And you probably already watched the game yourself.

So what I’ll do is point out some of the stuff that you might not have read or seen anywhere else, especially since I was at the game, or haven’t had time to digest. I’m making sure not to waste this opportunity since I don’t know how long I will be able to keep getting a media pass from the Rockets as more demand from the national media kicks in as the team continues to win.

First, here are some helpful links if you haven’t seem them already in addition to links to photos underneath the picture above (I’ll continue to update these links with more goodies as I find them).

Link to Yao video highlights on NBA.com

Link to game video highlights #1 on NBA.com

Link to game video highlights #2 on NBA.com

TNT’s halftime highlights with Kenny, Charles, Ernie and Magic

JVG’s press conference

*New – Yao & T-Mac press conference

ESPN.com’s Greg Anthony – “How Jazz can rebound”

CNNsi.com – “Open Letter to T-Mac”

*New – I’m not able to find online any transcription of the quotes from Game 2 like what was available for Game 1. However, I have transcribed some myself. Check ’em out at the end of this post.

Now about the game…

When I got there about 1 ½ hours before tip-off, you wouldn’t believe what was playing on the TV in the press room. It wasn’t the Orlando-Detroit game. Instead, it was Dancing with the Stars. Very strange. Coincidentally, Clyde Drexler was in the other room nowhere near the TV. But finally someone asked for the channel to be changed to basketball.

I was able to get wireless Internet access while watching the game. The Rockets have had T-Mobile wireless access installed throughout the arena, so I decided to try something new and do in-game commentary in the discussion forum. You can click here where I started posting my account of what was happening in the arena.

In short, the crowd was incredible, just like Game #1 on Saturday night. About 90% of the fans were wearing red, and they would erupt on all the big plays you think they would, like 3 or 4 amazing drives by T-Mac for buckets that were Jordan-esque!

1st quarter

The Rockets got off to a tough start again, making only 30.4% of their shots in the first quarter while the Jazz shot 60%. Yao was 1-of-4 from the field, while T-Mac was 2-for-8. The Rockets were 0-for-8 from the three-point line.

Meanwhile, Carlos Boozer shook the cobwebs off from Game 1 and was 7-for-11 for 15 points to lead the Jazz to a 26-17 lead.

2nd quarter

But you had a feeling the Rockets weren’t in trouble and would come back. And that they did, outscoring Utah 22-15 in the second to lead 41-39 at the break. It was amazing they had the lead after shooting 34.8% from the field in the first half while Utah was 44.4%. The Rockets were 2-of-17 from behind the arc.

Yao led the Rockets with 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting and 6 rebounds. T-Mac shot a measly 5-of-16 from the floor, but it did count for 11 points.

3rd & 4th quarters

Carlos Boozer added 22 points in the second half to add to his 19 first-half points to finish with 41. No one could stop him.

But the Rockets took control in the second half, just like in Game 1. One of my favorite plays occurred 3:48 remaining when T-Mac drove to the baseline on the right side of the court, then threw a lob pass to Yao for the dunk! That play made it 84-78, and gave the Rockets more breathing room. For some reason we haven’t seen that play too often during the season, but maybe it’s good they are using it now for the surprise element. It kind of reminds me of the old Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley days when there seemed to be one or two alley-oop dunks every game.

Overall, though, it’s nice to see the Rockets taking care of business in the second half. No fluke plays gave them the victory. Just solid, good play. I’m starting to think this team could go a long way.

The Rockets made 29-of-32 free throws in the second half, and later JVG attributed that to the team attacking the basket in the second half and getting fouled.

Some highlights from looking at the boxscore:

* The Rockets free throw shooting (34-of-38) was outstanding, due in part to their requirement that players cannot leave the practice floor until they make 10 in a row. It’s paying off. I can’t remember the Rockets hitting that many free throws in a game. Yao was 9-of-9 and T-Mac was 12-of-14.

* All 5 Rocket starters scored in double figures, but collectively they only shot 4-of-24 from three-point land.

* T-Mac made only 9-of-29 from the field (31 points), with Yao making only 9-of-24 (27 points).

* Chuck Hayes had a double-double with 12 points (5-of-5 from the field) and 12 boards, with 6 offensive boards in the first half.

* The Rockets turned the ball over only 9 times.

* Rafer played the most minutes of any Rocket (44), but was only 1-of-6 from three-point territory. He had zero turnovers.

* Juwan Howard was 0-for-4 from the field with two points.

* Someone outside of the top 8 players actually got some playing time, with Kirk Snyder logging 3 minutes!

* There was only one block for the Rockets, and that was from Alston.

After the game, I headed down to the locker room and there was a big crowd of media outside the door waiting to get in. Finally the doors opened. Yao was in there after taking a shower, but unlike Game #1, the Houston public relations people said that Yao would be in the interview room rather than taking questions at his locker.

Before leaving the area, I was able to take note of Yao’s left foot with his shoe and sock removed. You can definitely tell he had some work on that big toe when I think they had to shave off some of it because of that infection he had. But hey, my big toe doesn’t look so great either.

I was actually thankful they asked us to wait for Yao in the press room because it’s pretty difficult to get to Yao and get a question in when he’s surrounded by 10 media guys and 5 cameramen around his locker. However, Yao seems to be pretty tight with a couple of Chinese media, one being Wang Meng from Titan Sports in China. After most of the media left Yao alone, Wang Meng was able to stick around and continue talking with Yao, and he seemed to enjoy talking with Wang Meng privately.

Not being able to interview Yao at his locker, everyone headed over to Alston’s locker and surrounded him. Since I couldn’t get in there, I headed over to the press room where T-Mac and Yao gave a joint press conference. I have a recording of it, but like I mentioned earlier, if someone can email me a free server where I can post it and everyone can access it without registering (kind of like a YouTube for podcasts), I’ll do that.

Finally, I don’t know if you caught it on TV, but Yao’s parents were wearing red, and they were actually smiling and clapping! I’ve seen it all!

Oh yeah, one more thing. I was able to see Yao get in his black Toyota Tundra (I think that’s what it was) and drive away. It’s still somewhat strange for me to see him drive. His driving must have improved over the years, just like his game. I wonder when he retires how much time he’ll want to spend in the U.S. driving wheels like that and go fast on freeways like he can do here.

Quotes from the locker room

I can’t find online a transcription of any of the locker room quotes, but I have typed up a few interesting quotes that were transcribed and printed for the media to use:

Chuck Hayes on the Rockets’ maintaining their intensity ni spite of cold shooting – “It’s really difficult. All you need is a lay-up here or an open shot there to get your team going and get yourself going. I can’t say enough about the fans here at the Toyota Center. Every little shot we made and any kind of play we did, they were loud and it’s been crazy the past 2 games.”

Shane Battier on the Rockets’ 38 visits to the free throw line – “Obviously we didn’t really have a shooting clinic tonight. We tried to go to the rack a little bit more. Mac (Tracy McGrady) did a great job of cutting to the basket and getting to the free throw line. That’s teh only way that we can survive 36% shooting.”

Shane Battier on the Rockets’ strategy of hard driving to the basket – “We know that if we go to the basket, we have to go really hard because you’re going to get fouled. They (Utah) are a very physical defensive team and a lot of teams don’t want to accept that challenge. To win in the playoffs, you have to accept that physical challenge and want to go in and get knocked down a few times.”

I’ll have more thoughts the next couple of days about my thoughts on this playoff series, so make sure to come back for more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 10:11 am and is filed under 2007 NBA playoffs, vs. Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.