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For 6 consecutive games the Rockets had found a way to evolve from their charitable ways—meaning they stopped giving away games in the 4th quarter. That streak is no more with a souring 105-102 defeat to the Chicago Bulls.

For 43 minutes the Rockets played dominant basketball and built as much as a 17 point lead with less than 6:00 minutes left in the game. But they never actually kept the Bulls from doing what they wanted to on offense; the Rockets were just somehow able to keep outscoring Chicago. It seemed like every time the Bulls made a run, the Rockets would follow up with a better one. Until that is, they stopped scoring the ball altogether.

Yao Ming scored 17 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, and had 3 blocks
in Chicago. But it wouldn’t be enough in a heartbreaking loss.
Click here for more photos from the game.

The last 5:00 minutes of this game should be a reminder to all of us fans that Houston is not that good. Artest was hot from the perimeter all game but he let it negatively alter his game in the long run by eschewing his Bogart ability on the drive and in the low post. He forgot he needed to get it done from the free throw line—the exact thing Houston had used to their advantage in their crunch time wins.

After the Bulls whittled the Rockets lead down to 12 late in the game, Houston put Yao back in the game only to not give him a single touch in the low post in the final 5:00 minutes. Traditionally, with a lead down the stretch, you win the game at the line but you can’t get there if you can’t get the ball in the low post. Yes, the Bulls did a great job of fronting Yao and playing a man behind him to discourage the lob but Houston gave up on Yao way to early in the possession, which is where Aaron Brooks comes in.

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You knew it was going to be a good night for Yao and the Rockets when Yao started off his game against Chicago by blocking 2 shots in the Bulls’ first two possessions. Then 2 minutes into the game, Yao was able to send Joakim Noah to the bench with his 2nd foul.

But Yao would get into foul trouble himself by picking up his second foul with 7:06 in the first quarter, and went to the bench because of a gash he suffered on his arm during that play.

Saddled with foul trouble, Yao had 11 points in the first half, and really got it going in the fourth quarter with 11 more points, scoring 9 points during a 4 1/2 minute stretch that gave the Rockets the cushion they needed to squeeze out a 107-100 win.

Yao would finish with 28 points on an outstanding 9-of-12 shooting from the field and 10-of-10 from the line. He would also grab 8 boards and 4 blocks. And he fouled out Noah in just 18 minutes, leaving the pony-tailed one with only 2 points and 1 rebound. Yao pretty much dominated.

Yao Ming shoots a hook shot over Tyrus Thomas on his way to 28 points.
Click here for more photos from the game.

After the game, Yao’s words were reminiscent of Dream’s from yesteryear…

“They don’t have any guy that really matches up against us inside. They always come with those double teams. They always come with those smalls. I just work on my game. I have the confidence. It’s very simple. When I came back into the game, it’s the fourth quarter. We know how important it is. We did this a lot before, early in this game, early in this season. I just want to have the ball deep and draw the defense, the double team and see if I can do something in there or kick it out.

“It’s working. It’s always working.”

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Yao Ming shoots a jump hook over Chicago rookie Joakim Noah on Sunday night to help the Rockets win their 12th game in a row, beating the Bulls 110-97. Yao’s firepower wasn’t needed as much since 6 other Rocket players scored in double figures. Yao would finish with 12 points and 6 boards. Click here for more photos from the game. Click here for photos from the team practice, press conference with Bobby Jackson and Gerald Green, and the pre-game shootaround.

When the Rockets were only leading 49-46 at halftime against a Chicago team that had young players in the starting lineup like Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas, and Thabo Sefolosha, and brand new veterans like Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes, the thought of the Rockets finally running out of gas after 11 straight wins had to enter one’s mind.

The Bulls were intent to make the Rockets run, and it was an effective strategy. The Rockets were playing well on the offensive end of the court, shooting 50% and scoring 49 points. But their defense gave up 53% shooting in the first half, 13 fast break points, and it didn’t help that the Rockets missed 7-of-14 free throws.

In the third quarter when the Rockets got close to putting the game away, the Bulls continued to fight and only trailed by 9 points entering the fourth quarter. Was this going to be another Philadelphia game debacle where the Rockets blow a fourth quarter lead to a young team that didn’t have much to lose?

Maybe the team from a couple of months ago might implode, but not this Rockets team that seems like a completely different crew playing with a new mindset. In the fourth quarter, the Rockets hit a barrage of 3-pointers that was “vintage Spurs” to blow the Bulls out in the final few minutes.

In that pivotal fourth quarter, new backup point guard Bobby Jackson quickly made his presence felt to make those fans who miss Bonzi Wells not feel as bad about his departure. Jackson hit a tough, leaning jumper (when’s the last time Mike James did that?) to make it 81-72, then on the next possession he took it all the way to the rack from the 3-point line for a twisting layup, and was fouled! After BJ hit the penalty free throw, the Rockets led 84-74 with 9:36 remaining.

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Yao Ming shoots a jump hook over Chicago’ Ben Wallace in a game the Rockets won handily, 116-98. Yao scored 18 points and grabbed 8 boards in a game where he sprained his thumb, but x-rays were negative, and Yao would come back into the after the injury to play for a few minutes with a bandage on his thumb. Click here for more photos from the game.

You’ve got to give credit to the Rockets for bouncing back from that heart-breaking 2OT loss against the Denver Nuggets Thursday night, and playing better offense Saturday night in a big 116-98 win over the Bulls. It was the most points scored by the Rockets all season, and had to be one of their best shooting games (48.4%) while also shooting 10-of-22 from three-point land (46%).

It looks like Rick Idle-man has finally learned — a couple of weeks later than what many of us have been saying — that he’s had a stud point guard on the bench in Aaron Brooks who can likely solve some of the offensive problems that have plagued them all season. At least Idle-man is learning, folks. Better late than never.

Brooks continued to show his speed is extremely tough to defend, as seen when he went coast-to-coast on a highlight-reel layup in the second quarter that reminded you of a Tony Parker. Even though it doesn’t surprise me, IT LOOKS LIKE THE ROCKETS CHRISTMAS WISH OF GETTING A POINT GUARD THAT CAN SCARE THE DEFENSE HAS COME TRUE!!

Kudos go out to Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey and the rest of the staff who wanted Brooks, when just about everyone was saying they should have drafted a power forward with their first pick in the draft. Their selection is starting to pay off in a big way.

Brooks pushed the ball most of the time he got the ball, which encouraged his teammates to hustle to get into position so he could deliver the rock to them for some easy buckets. And that he did. In a little over 17 minutes, Brooks dished 6 dimes and only had 1 turnover.

He also made 2-of-5 shots, but that’s not as important as the decision-making he showed in not trying to wow us with his 3-point shooting acumen (which he has), and just played good solid PG play, unlike some other guards have been doing this season, tempted by the glory of hitting the three when they have no business shooting them.

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It was another pathetic game on Monday night with the Rockets. They were stinking up the place with poor shooting. Rafer Alston missed his first 10 shots, the Rockets had made only 13-of-43 shots (30%) in the first half, missed 14 three-pointers in a row, and had only 30 points to show for it, a season-low.

Luckily Chicago wasn’t shooting much better, scoring only 40 points by halftime. But with 50% team shooting in the third quarter, Tracy McGrady bounced back from a 3-of-10 first half, put the team on his back and scored 25 points in the second half to pull out an improbable win, 84-77.

Ben Gordon was schooling the Rockets in the fourth, and if it hadn’t been for Van Gundy putting Shane Battier on Gprdon defensively instead of Alston, the Bulls would have won this game. The Rockets couldn’t stop Gordon. But after Battier was assigned to him late in the fourth, Shane came up big with two stops late in the game.

Battier is like Kevin Garnett or Bruce Bowen in that he can defend almost anyone of any size. When the Rockets made the trade for him before the draft instead of picking Rudy Gay, everyone said he was being acquired in part because of defensive ability. We all knew that, but it just didn’t sound very exciting at the time, and it’s hard to point to a tangible play where defense wins a game. But in this case, Battier’s defense on Gordon resulted in a true ‘W.’

T-Mac’s performance was nothing short of remarkable. It’s like when the game gets serious in the second half, and especially the fourth quarter, he rises to the occasion, keeps you in the game, and gives you a great chance to win it. He almost was able to do that on Sunday against Minnesota. On Monday, his hitting two three-pointers in a row to make it 63-55 was the separation the Rockets were looking for, and down the stretch he made big shots to win it.

On the flipside, Alston’s 2-of-14 shooting is astounding. I’ve never seen a guy miss so many layups and shots around the basket as this guy. Before the game, Van Gundy was adamant that for the time being, Alston is their guy and nothing is going to happen to replace him. But I’ve got to think that stance can only last so long as Alston continues to miss easy shots. The Rockets won Monday night in spite of him.

Ben Wallace goes after one of Yao’s shots Thursday night. Yao scored 20 points on 7-of-19 shooting and grabbed 12 boards in a 101-100 win over the Chicago Bulls.” Click here for the game story. For more photos from the game, click here.

Okay, so the Rockets lost another big lead last night to the Bulls. I’m not too concerned. They still won. Before they lost their 21-point third quarter lead, the Rockets were probably playing a little above their heads. For example, the Rockets came out shooting extremely hot in the third quarter, hitting 9 of their first 10 shots. For them to keep up that kind of shooting percentage is not realistic.

Furthermore, the Bulls are no slouch of a team, and they were probably playing below their capability when they fell behind so much. In the long run, the hot and cold streaks tend to even out for both teams, and the better team will usually win, which I believe the Rockets were. And the final score of 101-100 made the game look closer than what it really was, with Andres Nocioni hitting a three-pointer with no time left.

Sure, the Rockets made some mistakes, but they will learn from them, even if the same mistakes and turnovers have been a common occurrence lately. But I would rather have those mistakes happen now than later in the season or the playoffs. They need something to work on over the next 73 games, right? If they didn’t, the games would be kind of boring to watch, don’t you think?

And I kind of like it when the Rocket players are mad and want to fix problems, as evidenced by Tracy McGrady’s quote after the game:

“I’m not happy at all. You’ve got to be happy about the win, but the overall picture is not good. We can’t throw away games like this.”

Surprisingly, even Jeff Van Gundy is not being as doom-and-gloom as he normally is, even after wins.

“We’re doing some good things to get ahead. If you had looked at our schedule coming into the year knowing we were down a couple of guys and had played our last three games against Miami, San Antonio and Chicago and won two of the three, regardless of how the game ended, you would say (our team) is doing some good things. (But) I’m not happy at all with not playing up to our capabilities.”

One of those good things was the Rockets hitting their free throws down the stretch, hitting 9 of 10 free throws to finish the game. That was pretty clutch and is something the Rockets are not known to do well as a team.

Yao had a rough first half, hitting only 3-of-10 shots, but still had scored 10 points and grabbed 9 boards at the half. Ben Wallace got props from Bulls coach Scott Skiles for playing the best defense he had seen played against Yao. Yao made 4-of-9 shots in the second half and finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds. He also finished with only two turnovers.

After the game, Yao described what he thinks the Rockets need to close out games better:

“Intelligence. More intelligence, I think. Know the time, know the score, know the penalties, know the number of timeouts. We need every player to know that and to know those situations.”

The Rockets showed some resilience in the first half, turning an 8-point deficit in the first quarter into an 11-point halftime lead, thanks to Scott Padgett scoring 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting. I had mentioned the other day the Rockets were smart in signing Padgett again since he was their best 3-point shooter two seasons ago before letting him go. The Rockets extended the lead to 21 points in the third quarter before Ben Gordon got hot and got the Bulls back into the game.

I like the intelligence Padgett showed after the game in analyzing the Rockets second half collapses.

“When you miss 2 or 3 (baskets) in a row, then the next time, you need to get the ball into Yao (Ming)or get the ball into the paint to get a higher-quality shot. Sometimes, I think, when you get hot, like when we were hot for awhile, sometimes you fall in love with it (perimeter game). Sometimes when you’re wide open, it’s better to force-feed the big guy than to shoot up another 3.”

T-Mac had a sensational boxscore and showed signs that he may be breaking out of his slump, hitting 8-of-17 shots, scoring 21 points, grabbing 11 boards and doling out 7 assists.

Before closing, I had to mention one note about the TNT coverage. Analyst Doug Collins was surprised the Rockets were pushing the ball on fast breaks, saying the Rockets are not a running team. Well, if he did his homework, he’ll see that Van Gundy has emphasized running when the opportunity is there since he has the horses, like McGrady and Luther Head. They also have added Kirk Snyder (who was running on one of those breaks Thursday night), who is much quicker than the recently departed David Wesley and Jon Barry. Do your homework, Doug.

Tracy McGrady reacts vigorously after hitting a big 3-pointer in double-overtime that was the game winner in Chicago Friday night.

by John

SATURDAY, 1/21/06 - I just got through watching a recording of last night’s game of the Rockets’ win over the Chicago Bulls in double overtime. It’s amazing to me how T-Mac can come off the inactive list from his back spasm problem, play the number of minutes he played (40) and rack up the numbers he did: 35 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists.

He was originally scheduled to only play 28 minutes so he could ease himself and his back into action, but that strategy flew out the window once the Rockets had a chance to win it.

The Rockets were down 86-80 with 3:56 remaining in the fourth quarter, but for once, they were able to come back in the clutch. They went on an 8-2 run and tied it at 88-88, capped by Juwan Howard scoring his 29th and 30th points of the game. Without Juwan kicking in his 30 points on 15-of-29 shooting (20 in the second half), the Rockets would not have had a chance in this game.

The Bulls went up 90-88 when Luol Deng hit a jump shot with 46 seconds remaining. But then an unlikely Rocket hero came up big. Chuck Hayes, playing only his second game in the NBA, got a huge block of Kirk Hinrich near the basket. Hayes secured the ball, called time-out, which set the Rockets up for a huge chance to tie the game and put it in overtime.

On the ensuing Rocket possession, T-Mac missed a long two-pointer, but grabbed the rebound and sank a cold-blooded, fadeaway baseline jumper to tie it up 90-90 with 2.1 seconds remaining. The game went into overtime where T-Mac scored six points, then into a second overtime where T-Mac scored 7 more points.

In that second OT, T-Mac missed a shot with 1:05 remaining that could have put the Rockets up 108-106, but Hayes came up big again with another rebound, setting up a play were T-Mac hit a 3-pointer with 42 seconds remaining to give the Rockets a 109-106 lead. Playing some good defense down the stretch, the Rockets held on for the 109-108 win.

More about Hayes, though. Just two games out of the NBA Development League, the dude scored 12 points, grabbed 13 boards and had two blocks in 32 minutes of play. The Rockets were high on Hayes back in the pre-season, but he just missed making the final roster. But since the Rockets have been decimated by injury, they brought him back and signed him on Wednesday to a 10-day contract.

Hayes was racking up good stats in the D-League, averaging 11.6 points per game for the Albuquerque Thunderbirds, and leading that league with 12.2 rebounds per game. Hayes played at Kentucky and had a pretty good career there, tying a school record by starting 110 consecutive games. In his senior year, he was named consensus First-Team All-SEC and the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. So the guy is no slouch.

The knock against Hayes’ prospects in the NBA is his relatively short 6′-6″ height to play power forward, and his limited ball-handling skills to play small forward. But on Friday night against the Bulls, he showed that his height was not a detriment in coming up with big rebounds, blocks and points in the paint. If he continues to play like this, he’s going to find himself a permanent roster spot on the Rockets and give Stromile Swift some competition at power forward.

But I don’t want to get excited too early. One game does not make a career, and the Bulls (16-23) haven’t been much better than the Rockets (now 13-25).

However, with 44 games remaining in the season, the Rockets are only 6.5 games out of the last playoff spot. It’s a long shot, but it was encouraging to hear T-Mac not giving up and saying after the game, “In a week or so, we’ll get my big fella (Yao Ming) back and we’ll see what we can do with this thing.”

Unfortunately, Houston has to play a juggernaut Detroit Pistons team (league-leading 32-5 record) on Sunday afternoon. No matter how well T-Mac, Howard and Hayes play, that game will definintely be a loss for the Rockets.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

FRIDAY, 1/20/06 - I was pretty tired last night and had to go to bed before the Rockets game ended. Wouldn’t you know it…they ended up winning for once! T-Mac returned to score 35 points in a double-overtime win against Chicago, 109-108. And Juwan Howard scored a season-high 30 points! Yippee! The Rockets 7-game losing streak is over!

I’m definitely going to watch my recording of this game, and will provide a report later on Saturday.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article of the game, click here.

Yao falls to the floor in pain after Chicago’s Malik Allen stepped on his ankle. Yao shook off the injury to score a season-high 30 points, 14 coming in the fourth quarter to lead a Rocket comeback. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough as the Rockets lost their 7th straight, 94-89 to the Chicago Bulls. For more photos from the game, click here.

by John

SATURDAY, 11/26/05 - If you watched the Rockets game on Saturday night against Chicago, you actually missed a pretty entertaining game. It reminded me of an expansion team playing in front of their home crowd that knows their team is not going to make the playoffs, are playing for pride instead, and everyone is okay with that.

It’s gotten that low, folks, when I’m comparing the Rockets to an expansion team.

You’ve got to give credit to the Houston fans for cheering on their team as they made one of their biggest comebacks of the season. They got very loud as the Rockets crept back into the game. Down 75-60, the Rockets went on a 25-10 run, powered by Yao hitting 6-of-6 shots in the fourth quarter (14 points) on his way to scoring a season-high 30 points. Before he got hot, Yao had only made 3-of-12 shots, and had only hit 1 of his last 9 shot attempts.

I could go into lots of details on how it all panned out, but since they lost it doesn’t really matter. I’ll just say the Rockets had plenty of chances to snap their 6-game losing streak. But when the game was tied 85-85 with 1:37 remaining, the Rockets’ defense (second-best in the NBA, which is shocking) let Kirk Hinrich (forcing Yao to foul him and foul out of the game) and Chris Duhon score on easy drives to the hole without any resistance, and that was just about it.

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Yao shoots one of his eight shots against the Bulls on Tuesday night in Chicago. Limited to only 11 minutes of action because of foul trouble, Yao scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting and grabbed only 3 rebounds. Luckily, the Rockets didn’t need Yao during a blowout win against the Bulls, 119-89. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

3/1/05, TUESDAY - What happens if you remove one valuable guard like Luol Deng from the Bulls lineup? Probably the same result as when you remove a veteran guard like Bob Sura from the Rockets line-up: a huge collapse.

In the first minute of play between the Bulls and Houston at Chicago’s United Center, Deng injured his ankle and did not return the rest of the game. Houston took advantage of his absence, went on an offensive tear and never looked back, winning 119-89.

You wouldn’t have thought this kind of victory could have happened considering the Bulls had won 6 of their last 7 games, 11 of its last 12 games at home, and had a very respectable record of 29-24, the same record as Houston’s record less three wins.

Because of Deng’s injury, T-Mac exploited the mismatch by taking his replacement on the defensive end, Kirk Hinrich, to the hoop and scoring 10 points in the first quarter, including a sweet alley-oop on a fast break to T-Mac for a beautiful layup. Yao had 8 points in the quarter, scoring on 3-of-3 shooting from the field. The Rockets also made 9 of their last 11 shots in the quarter to finish with 70% shooting in the quarter and lead 36-24.

In the second quarter, the Rockets opened up a 20-point lead, 48-28, after Mike James hit a jumper. After Dikembe Mutombo picked up his third foul of the game, Yao entered the game and immediately picked up his third foul by fouling Eddy Curry with 6:12 remaining until halftime.

As an indicator of how things were going for Chicago, Curry stepped to the line and missed the two ensuing free throws. That made it four missed free throws in a row by Curry. The Rockets took advantage, hitting more shots to bump the lead to 52-28. Curry was fouled again, and missed his first free throw, making it 5 misses in a row. But he hit his second, bringing them to 52-29.

The Rockets kept pouring it on. Jon Barry then hit a jumper, and after a T-Mac steal, Barry pulled up for another one of his three-pointers on a fast break to put the Rockets up 57-33. By halftime, the Rockets led 66-39, the most amount of points they have scored in a first half all season long.

By the intermission, Mike James had been sensational, having scored 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting. T-Mac’s mismatch against Hinrich led to 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting. The Rockets shot an amazing 61% from the field compared to Chicago’s 39%.

Houston also hit 5-of-8 from three-point territory, and had an 18-0 advantage in points off turnovers, only turned the ball over three times, and had a 9-0 lead in fast break points.

After halftime, the Rockets scored 5 straight points after James hit a three-pointer, pushing the lead to 71-39. Yao, who started the second half, picked up his fourth foul only one minute into the third quarter, forcing him to check out.

You had to be really upset if you were a Yao fan. He just can’t keep himself from committing silly fouls, but at least his team was winning despite him. Not a good sign if you’re trying to keep yourself an essential component of the offense.

The Rockets run since the start of the first half was extended to 9-1 before Bulls’ coach Scott Skiles decided to overhaul his lineup and replace every player on the floor since the Rockets lead was 75-40.

Having played only 7 minutes in the game because of foul trouble, Yao came into the game at the start of the fourth quarter, surprising since the Rockets led 97-65. He proceeded to hit a fallaway jumper to draw oohs from the crowd to push the Rockets lead to 99-67.

Yao continued to redeem himself from his early foul troubles by drawinig more oohs from the Chicago contingent, pump faking on Othella Harrington, then doing a quick 360 spin move that no other 7’6” guy has ever done and faking Harrington out even more, then took two steps toward the hoop and threw it down one-handed, pushing the lead to 101-67!

That was the highlight of the quarter as the Rockets cruised to their huge 119-89 victory. The Rockets finished shooting 55.5% from the floor, a slight decrease from their incredible 59.4% after three quarters. That was an amazing stat, considering the Bulls lead the league in opponents field goal percentage, limiting opponents to 41.9% shooting.

T-Mac finished with 32 points and 7 assists after only three quarters of play, not needing to play a minute in the fourth. The surprising star of the game was new point guard Mike James, who scored 26 points on 11-of-15 shooting and 4-of-5 three-pointers. He also did what point guards should do, dishing out 5 dimes.

And although Yao only played 12 minutes, he finished with a respectable 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting, but he only grabbed three rebounds. Fortunately for Yao, he got plenty of rest leading up to Wednesday night’s game in Washington against the Wizards.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To read the Houston Chronicle’s post-game analysis, click here.