Yao drives to the basket for a jam against the Jazz in Game 5 at Toyota Center. Despite hitting only 6-of-18 shots, Yao was 9-of-10 from the line and grab 15 boards to help the Rockets win Game Five 96-92 to take a 3-2 lead in their playoff series against the Jazz.”
Click here for a page that has more photos from the game and pre-game preparations.
Click here for photos from the Rockets’ practice earlier in the day.
You all probably saw the game Monday night where the Rockets held off the Jazz 96-92. Houston is now up 3-2 with Game 6 scheduled in Utah for Thursday night. Instead of going into too much detail, I’ll try to recap some of the highlights and emotions from the game.
On Monday night it was obvious Tracy McGrady was the key to the win. He was finally intent to take it to the basket more often, and it worked, scoring on several highlight reels that were incredible. Two of them were “layups” that were actually very difficult shots where he drove into traffic, then spun the ball off the glass with a lot of ‘english’ on it for the buckets. Then there was that long, stretched-out dunk over Andrei Kirilenko that got Toyota Center off their feet and was the McGrady of old.
He was 11-of-25 from the floor for 26 points, but just as important had 16 assists, with 10 coming in the first half.
At first Houston started off the first 14 minutes of the game shooting only 29%, while the Jazz had hit 55% of their shots. The Rockets were on the ropes. It looked like the Jazz were on their way to an easy win, taking a 10-point lead that looked like it could deflate the Rockets for the third straight game.
It looked like things were going to get worse when McGrady was in severe pain after getting a push from behind while playing defense. Grimacing, he went to the locker room, and it looked like it was something to akin to ‘back spasm city’ all over again.
At that moment, everyone in the building felt like the ballgame was over, that the Rockets would lose Game 5, and all kinds of repercussions in the off-season were on their way after Thursday night’s game in Salt lake.
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