Yao Ming goes up for a shot against the Dallas Mavericks Wednesday night. Yao’s numbers were phenomenal: 30 points, 15 rebounds, 6 blocks. But the Rockets blew a big lead and lost another one in the clutch. Click here for more photos from the game.

The Rockets choked another game away, blowing a 17-point lead in the third quarter and a 5-point lead with 1:40 remaining, this time to Dallas on national TV. I knew it was going to happen even when they were up by 17. Now that’s pretty pathetic when you know the Rockets are going to blow a lead that big. I wasn’t happy with what I saw as the lead started disintegrating. This choke job was inevitable. Choke City II, anyone?

I’m furious about this loss because this Rockets team hasn’t changed one bit from last year’s team that blew a nice lead against Utah in Game 7 of last year’s playoffs.

I’m not going to hold back like the Houston Chronicle columnists probably have to do because they are getting paid to write professionally, whereas I’m a blogger that doesn’t get paid one cent to do what I do, so I’m beholden to no one. I’m going to let it fly, so forgive me if it sounds like I’m a kid ranting in a discussion forum, or if I have typos. Like that famous line from a movie, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”

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Yao Ming expresses his frustration to the ref during the Rockets-Suns game on Saturday, November 17th. Yao had a sub-par game against the running Suns, hitting only 4-of-17 shots for 12 points in a 115-105 loss, the Rockets’ fourth loss in a row. Click here for more photos from the game and here for photos that include Steve Francis, Luis Scola, and Tracy McGrady.

What an embarrassment. I’m not going to point the blame for the Rockets getting schooled by Phoenix Saturday night on playing five games in 7 days, like the Houston announcers did. I’m also not going to blame it on Tracy McGrady not being in the lineup. Those are cop-outs. (I’m kind of reminding myself of how JVG talks. Scary).

Instead, you’ve got to look at the major drop-off in defensive intensity under the Rick Adelman era. All the experts say he focuses on defense just as much as offense. But I have never, ever seen a team shoot 73% in a first half, and 62% overall, like Phoenix did Saturday night, and have as many open 3-pointers (which turned into 6-of-12 from behind the arc in the first half).

Sure, the Rockets’ offense looked good in the first quarter scoring 30 points to the Suns’ 37. But you knew they weren’t going to be able to keep up with the Suns, who kept pouring it on in the second and third quarters, hit half their shots in the third, hit three 3-pointers, and outscored the Rockets 25-19 in the third to take an insurmountable 94-76 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

The Rockets did cut the deficit down to 9 points in the fourth, but all Phoenix had to do was turn on the jets again by putting Steve Nash back into the game, and that was the ballgame.

Even Steve Francis’ first action of the season didn’t make any difference. With Adelman finally figuring out that Rafer Alston had to be replaced in this game starting in the second quarter (a little too late in coming, though), Francis was rusty, hitting only 3-of-11 shot to score 8 points. He did show an ability to penetrate into the lane a couple of times, including dishing a nice bounce pass to Yao for a layup attempt where Yao was fouled. But he also went brain dead a couple of times on defense trying to guard Leandro Barbosa. We’ll see if Adelman keeps playing Francis in lieu of giving Alston so many minutes. I wouldn’t mind it.

But to me, the second biggest story of the game right behind the Rockets’ bad defense was Yao Ming’s second bad night in a row. He was only 4-of-17 from the floor, which is about the worst I have seen him shoot when taking that many shots. He was having so many problems, he only played 22 minutes when Adelman decided to take him out and go small with Luis Scola playing center.

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Yao Ming drives to the hole against San Antonio’s Tim Duncan on Friday night in a game the Rockets lost 90-84 in San Antonio. Yao had a sub-par game, scoring only 14 points on 7-of-16 shooting and turning the ball over 7 times, but he did grab 9 rebounds and block 3 shots. But boards and blocks don’t really matter because the Rockets have now lost 3 in a row. Click here for more photos from the game.

I knew that even with Tracy McGrady out of the lineup for Friday night’s game against San Antonio, the Rockets had a very good chance to win, even after one night after the Spurs got beat by the Mavericks on national TV. On paper, the Rockets still have enough talent to beat anyone. But in order to have a shot of beating the Spurs, the Rockets were going to have to play a near perfect game. They didn’t, losing 90-84, and it’s starting to bug me how they are losing.

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A few days ago I posted a trivia question at the end of a very long post. A few people wanted to know the answer, so I thought I would post the question by itself to bring more attention to it before providing the answer. So here’s the question one more time:

What common term have I not used this season, which I had used alot over the past couple of seasons, and why?

You can provide your answer by submitting a comment below. The first one who gets it right will earn bragging rights as a top YaoManiac!

Yao Ming goes up for a shot against the L.A. Lakers Wednesday night. Yao had 26 points and 13 rebounds, but it was an off-night for him since he made only 6-of-18 field goals, and uncharacteristically missed 6 free throws (one was missed intentionally). The Rockets had their chances in the end to win the game, but couldn’t make shots down the stretch in a 93-90 loss.

This is probably going to be short since many of you in the U.S. probably saw the game on ESPN Wednesday night, it’s late, and Tuesday night’s loss against the Memphis Grizzlies compelled me to write a longer post than normal that kept me up fairly late Tuesday night.

Wednesday night’s game against the Lakers had so much drama that it could take me hours to recap it, but I’ll try to boil down my key observations for you.

As I’m sure you heard, Tracy McGrady injured his elbow, and as I write this late Wednesday night, it looks like the MRI results show it’s just a strain, and that he may miss only a week. It’s a pretty big week to miss with all the important games they are going to play, which includes San Antonio on Friday, Phoenix on Saturday, and Dallas on Wednesday.

In the first quarter, I decided I was going to start tracking all the questionable shots that McGrady threw up, and it didn’t take long to find one. At the 4:40 mark, McGrady could have passed it to Luis Scola, who had hustled down court on a fast break, but McGrady didn’t reward Scola’s hustle with a pass to the baseline where he was wide open. Instead, he shot a three-pointer on a freakin’ fast break, and missed. The Rockets didn’t get the rebound.

So McGrady was “down one” on my questionable shots tracker.

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The Rockets went back to their old style of play Tuesday night in a 105-99 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. I swear, if Rick Adelman hadn’t been seen on the bench, I would have thought I was watching the 2006-07 version of the Rockets, but this time with a worse defense.

Before I start talking about the Rockets’ offensive struggles, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a bad defensive effort where the Rockets couldn’t stop the likes of Mike Miller (6-of-11 for 17 points), Pau Gasol (26 points on 6-of-11 from the field, 14-of-17 from the line), Darko Milicic (20 points on 9-of-14 shooting), and Rudy Gay (6-of-11 for 15 points). Memphis was 1-4 team before Tuesday night. They looked like an All-Star squad considering how easy it was for them to make baskets.

I had hoped the Rockets could have made a run at signing Milicic this off-season, but the price tag was way too high. Alot of people like to think that Milicic is a stiff because he never got off the bench at Detroit and people made fun of him since he was such a high draft pick, but that was mainly because the Pistons were a championship team his rookie year, and also because Larry Brown was being too JVG-like and not giving the rookie some playing time. Now he’s proving alot of people were wrong about him. I digress. At least the Rockets got Luis Scola, but Scola’s transition to the NBA game doesn’t appear it’s going to happen overnight. He needs more time, just like Milicic needed.

Sorry to say it, but a couple of times Yao Ming got caught napping on defense, like when he allowed Milicic to make a strong move into the lane for a hook shot without much resistance, and then in the fourth quarter Yao easily could have pinned Stromile Swift under the basket after Swift had grabbed an offensive rebound underneath the boards. But Yao let Swift off the hook by jumping up into the air on a pump fake, thus giving Swift the little room he needed to go up and put a shot off the glass for a very important basket in a tight game.

Not that I want to harp on Yao for this loss. He made 7-of-12 shots and hit all 8 of his free throws to score 22 points. He was the least of the Rockets’ worries. Instead, let’s focus on a bigger problem that was also evident in most of Sunday night’s game: the offense.

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No surprise here after Yao racked up the numbers he did this past week. Check it out here at NBA.com. Considering the way Yao is playing, I think there will be several more of these to come.

Yao Ming blocks a shot by Charlotte’s Raymond Felton Sunday night where Yao recorded 3 rejections on the night. But Yao did even more damage on the offensive end, hitting 13-of-15 shots and making 8-of-8 free throws to score a season-high 34 points. He also grabbed 8 rebounds and dished 4 assists in the 85-82 victory. Click here to see more photos from the game.

The Rockets had no business winning Sunday night in Charlotte. Except for Yao Ming, who was absolutely fantastic, the Rockets shot poorly, had no production from their bench, and turned the ball over way too many times. But thanks to Tracy McGrady finally taking it to the basket in the fourth quarter (rather than settle for jumpers), and Yao’s consistency throughout the game, the Rockets pulled out an impressive 85-82 come-from-behind victory.

Yao put together a game that makes you think, at this rate, that the league MVP could be a real possibility, just like it was last season before he got hurt. Yao made an incredible 13-of-15 shots to score 34 points, making all 8 of his free throws along the way, including two FTs that put the Rockets up 83-82 with 20.4 seconds left. He also had 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks.

It was fun to watch this game because there seemed to be a large contingent of Yao fans in Charlotte, of all places, cheering Yao when he scored, more than most small market arenas that Yao visits.

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