200 Million Viewers Can't Be Wrong

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p>

You think the audience in China doesn't matter. This is Houston. The NBA doesn't play in China. Whether 200 million of Yao's friends and neighbors are watching the Rockets or Sabado Gigante really doesn't have an impact on the games.</p>

But then you watch Yao handle everything, watch him take on the pressure and face the scrutiny and walk casually through the circus.</p>

How he handles all that absolutely matters.</p>

He handled it so confidently on Friday in the Rockets 104-88 win over the Bucks, it was not difficult to imagine him being as cool and polished the next time he finds himself in the playoffs and the pressure changes from playing in the most watched NBA game ever to dealing with the stigma of the Rockets' inability to escape the first round.</p>

That's pressure, too, but increasingly, he has seemed more accustomed to that, more ready to defeat it.</p>

The Rockets will face a team far more developed than the Bucks, though they really have done a nice job rebuilding. And it is a very long way until the playoffs.</p>

But there will be many other tests along the way, from next week's Spurs-and-Suns back-to-back to the meetings with Shaquille O'Neal. There will be long trips and slumps. There will be times the Rockets get pressured as they were by the Bucks on Friday and there won't be the lift that Bonzi Wells provided or the timely 3 that Tracy McGrady mixed in.</p>

Yao, however, seems more ready than ever to handle all that.</p>

It is wrong to read too much into any one game, good or bad. But this was not just another game. It was an occasion that Yao rose to meet. That was a very good sign. It probably even kept China from turning the channel.</div></p>

Source: Houston Chronicle Blog</p>