For the second straight game, Yao stepped up after a lackluster game by the Rockets. Here’s what he said after the Philly debacle last night.

“When you are soft yourself, everything will feel tough. It’s not because they are so tough. It’s because of how soft we are.

“It’s weird that we changed that quick. I never had that feeling. I feel like they traded me to another team, a new team I’ve never been on before.”

Yao has called out his Chinese national teammates before, but this is really the first time he has done it with his American teammates. I really think that Yao can be a leader, but it takes a disaster like this one to get him there.

Yao Ming misses a dunk against Philadelphia in a game that was a disaster for the Rockets. Yao only made 3-of-11 shots and scored 12 points in 33 minutes before all the starters were pulled after having fallen behind by 20+ points in the second half.

I was going to write a long post about all the things the Rockets did wrong as they fell behind by double-digits in Philadelphia Monday night. But then it just kept getting worse and worse, and I couldn’t keep up with documenting their poor play as the Rockets fell behind by 31 points.

When it became garbage time, Rick “Idle-man” (as aptly named by reader “Shawn”) finally put his subs in the game for good because he had no choice since his starters sucked so bad.

And lo and behold, the unit of Luis Scola, Luther Head, Bonzi Wells, Kirk Snyder and Mike James actually made it interesting by pulling to within 12 points with a few minutes left, but they couldn’t get a miracle win. But at least they showed they have some players who can score in a 100-88 loss.

I am not going to cite any statistics for any player because those numbers don’t mean anything in a game like this one. The starters don’t deserve to have their numbers mentioned, and the subs got moist of their points in garbage time when the game was out-of-hand and there was really nothing to lose.

If there is anything to be learned from this game, it’s that Rick Idle-man needs to show some balls and START this same bench unit against Detroit on Wednesday night — at least for that game — and sit Tracy McGrady, Yao, Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier and Steve Francis. That will send a signal that their poor play is not going to cut it. The reserve unit deserves a chance to show what they can do when they start a game. If they implode, so be it. At least Idle-man would have rewarded “giving a damn” with playing time.

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