Yao Ming goes up for a dunk over the New York Knicks’ David Lee on Saturday night. Yao was dominant, finishing with 30 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 blocks in a 103-91 win. Aaron Brooks was also incredible, scoring 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting and amazing everyone with his speed and three-point shooting. Click here for more photos from the game.

Saturday night’s game between Houston and New York represents the reason why I love NBA basketball. Not just because the Rockets beat a team they were expected to beat — a Knick team that has been trashed in the media because of their 8-23 record, underachieving roster, and embattled head coach.

I loved this game for a variety of reasons other than the 103-91 final score might indicate. I loved this game because a player who many people questioned being worthy of a first round draft pick showed everyone — except for the die-hards that believed in him early on — that he not only deserved to be a first round pick, but that he should be playing significant minutes in this league. Not only that, but he could also be the surprise of the NBA draft, and perhaps (hopefully) become a member of the league’s elite point guard fraternity (Tony Parker, Steve Nash, Chris Paul, Baron Davis, just to name a few) that the Rockets have been seeking for years. Wow.

Of course, we’re talking about Aaron Brooks, drafted 26th in last year’s draft. Brooks has been showing everyone lately, including Rick Adelman, that he is a force who is extremely difficult for anyone to defend. Many of us knew that for weeks as it took Adelman way too long to figure out. But better late than never.

Adelman gave Brooks the most number of minutes (24) he has played all season Saturday night, and AB delivered again. Hopefully it wasn’t just because there happened to be a just-as-small point guard on the Knicks in Nate Robinson who probably made Adelman feel that it was “safe” to put AB in there from a matchup perspective.

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Yao Ming throws down a dunk over Orlando center Dwight Howard Friday night. Yao finished with 26 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Rockets to a victory. He had plenty of help though, including Rafer Alston, Aaron Brooks, Luther Head and Luis Scola. Click here for more photos from the game.

The Rockets came up with one of their most impressive games of the season, beating the Orlando Magic 96-94 at their “Amway Arena” after losing a heartbreaker against Boston just a couple of nights before.

Man, it feels good to write about a win after 2 disappointing losses to Golden State and Boston. I really liked the effort that most of the Rockets gave. You have to give them a lot of credit for their resilience. Orlando is a good team, having a 22-12 record before the game, although they had only won 7-of-14 games at home this season (15-5 on the road).

It wasn’t easy, though. The Rockets seemingly had the game well in hand with a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter, but they blew that lead and Orlando tied the game up on a Rashard Lewis 3-pointer with 19.9 seconds remaining.

That’s when Rafer Alston probably had his biggest play in ages, penetrating into the lane and scoring on a tough left-handed layup for a two-point lead. The Magic almost tied it up when Adonal Foyle tipped the ball in at the buzzer after a Rashard Lewis miss, but the replay showed that the ball left Foyle’s hand about a millisecond too late. It was the correct call by the officials. Congrats to the refs! (You don’t hear me say that phrase too often).

It was a team effort for the Rockets, with players like Big Yao scoring 26 points and grabbing 10 boards in playing well against his new rival, Dwight Howard, who only scored 16 points and grabbed 8 boards before fouling out.

Alston probably had his best game offensively, scoring 20 points on 7-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-4 three-pointers, and had 8 assists. He had lots of problems defensively, which I’ll get into later.

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