I wrote alot of notes during the Rockets-Spurs game last night, which the Rockets lost 99-92, and was planning to put them in this blog post since I thought this final preseason game would be close enough to a real game to finally make my notes relevant.

But it was still too “pre-seasony” of a game to get a glimpse of where the Rockets stand as a team. Most starters didn’t play their regular minutes. For example, Yao Ming only played 29 minutes, scoring 12 points and grabbing 12 boards.

The Spurs rested Manu Ginobili and Bruce Bowen, along with Robert Horry who is tending to a family matter. With those guys out, the Spurs still shot 51% from the floor. I guess every Rocket fan is concerned about the drop-off in defensive intensity we’ve seen this preseason, but I’m still not convinced yet it’s that big of a deal. To modify a phrase Allen Iverson once used , “It’s preseason. We’re talkin’ about preseason.”

Maybe one of the reasons the Spurs were hitting so many outside shots (like 9-of-17 three-pointers) is that everyone legs’ are still fresh because it’s still early yet. Maybe once the grind of the season kicks in, those shots won’t be falling as easily. The Rockets did keep the Spurs out of the paint for the most part.

Instead, during this preseason I have looked more at what the Rockets are doing on offense. By halftime, the Rockets outscored the Spurs 24-8 in the paint and 12-0 on second-chance points. I can live with that.

Tracy McGrady looked great, getting to the hole with ease in the first half and scoring on multiple layups. Part of the reason for his ability to drive to the hoop was because the lane wasn’t as clogged with Yao now spending more time in the high post area. McGrady finished with 21 points in 29 minutes.

Not that Yao is spending too much time camped outside of the lane. All his points came in the low block, including an impressive basket in the first quarter. In the block, Yao spun baseline, faked like he was going to take a shot from underneath the basket, pulled the ball down, then spun away from the basket (and Tim Duncan) to score on a little baby hook shot. It reminded me so much of that famous play where Hakeem Olajuwon did the same thing against David Robinson in the 1995 playoffs. Maybe that was one of the things Hakeem taught Yao during their workout sessions during the off-season.

Yao scored his 12 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the field. One of the concerns I had for him from this game is that he missed a few chip shots around the basket as he was moving toward the basket, showing a lack of touch. In one sequence alone, he missed two consecutive shots around the rim, then after getting the second rebound just decided to dunk it for the score. I think he missed those because of a lack of concentration, which should get better as his brain gets ‘warmed up’ as the season starts up.

Bonzi Wells looked fantastic, scoring 13 points in 21 minutes on 5-of-10 shooting, including 3-of-3 from three-point range. He also had a beautiful assist when he hustled for a rebound in the middle of the paint and threw a quick touch-pass to Luis Scola for a layup. Wells knows how to play, and will really help the Rockets’ attack this season after missing most of last season because of injuries.

Luis Scola scored 14 points, making only 6-of-14 shots, probably because he was nervous playing in front of the team that held his rights for the past 5 years. He had one impressive bucket when he got the ball at the top of the key, dribbled it into the paint, and scored on a jump hook. His ability to drive the ball like that is really going to help when Yao has cleared out of the lane to open it up for other players like Scola and McGrady. Scola also grabbed 10 rebounds.

I also liked alot of the ball movement I saw out there. In addition to Wells’ assist, I was impressed by good passing chemistry between Luther Head-Chuck Hayes, Mike James-Luther Head, and Mike James-Luther Head that resulted in easy layups. That didn’t seem to happen as much last year under the painful Jeff Van Gundy offensive “attack” when they relied too much McGrady or Yao to do the scoring.

Like I mentioned earlier, I could write alot more of my other observations taken from the game, but c’mon, it was a preseason game, so I don’t want to bore you with it. Let’s get it on Tuesday night against the Lakers!

In the meantime, if you want to see more photos from the meaningless game against the Spurs, click here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 10:58 am and is filed under NBA preseason. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.