<font color="Red">Houston Rockets </font> (34-26) @ <font color="DarkGreen">Minnesota Timberwolves</font> (44-17) Friday, 5 March, 8:00 PM EST Local TV: UPN29,Ch.51 Nat TV: NBALP Target Center, Minneapolis, MN <font color="Red">Houston</font> Last 10 games: 5-5 Previous games: 3 Wednesday vs Los Angeles L 96-93 29 Sunday vs Seattle L 97-80 27 Friday vs Portland W 89-85 At Home: 21 - 10 On Road: 13 - 16 <font color="DarkGreen">Minnesota</font> Last 10 games: 8-2 Previous games: 3 Wednesday vs Dallas W 121-97 29 Sunday vs Philadelphia L 81-74 27 Friday vs Golden State W 91-81 At Home: 24 - 7 On Road: 20 - 10 Head Coaches Jeff Van Gundy / Flip Saunders Probable Starters <u>Backcourt</u> PG: Steve Francis / Sam Cassell SG: Cuttino Mobley / Latrell Sprewel <u>Frontcourt</u> SF: Jim Jackson / Trenton Hassell PF: Kelvin Cato / Kevin Garnett C: Yao Ming / Michael Olowokandi 6th Man Maurice Taylor / Troy Hudson Injuries <u><font color="Red">Houston</font></u> Mike Wilks <font color="DarkGreen"><u>Minnesota</u></font> Ndudi Ebi Players to watch Keys to game <font color="Red"><u>Houston</u></font> * Contain atleast one of the Big Three.Don't let them all get hot from the field. *Yao gets hot.When Yao plays great, the Rockets usualy win the game. *Steve needs to produce.He will need to help the team at the offense end.He will need to shot better. *Don't let anyone from the Wolves get hot from the 3pt line.Spree might do the same thing as he did against Dallas. *Play great defense and get key rebounds. <font color="DarkGreen"><u>Minnesota</u></font> *Prevent Yao From Getting Post Position-The Rockets have a great player in Yao Ming whose strong post play has gotten the rockets a lot of wins.Don't let him get hot and Olowokandi and Garnett will need to contain him. *Get the Ball to KG's hands and let him do his thing.Don't let the same thing ,that happened at Philly, happen in this game. *Get everyone involved and everyone will need to play well. *Play great defense and get key rebounds. <font color="DarkGreen">My Prediction</font> Min: 91 Hou:87
The Wolves are coming off a win against Dallas, and it's a home game. I see the Wolves have no trouble winning this one. The Wolves need to prevent Yao from gitting into a grove, and keep everyone active. If they can keep everyone active the Rockets will have to guard everyone, and won't be able to focus on shuting down one player. Wolves by 11
To me, the big thing is ball movement on the T'Wolves behalf. If they're consistently running things through KG, then we're good to go. The T'Wolf bench will be a huge factor one way or the other. If T-Hud, Wally & Mad Dog play well, then we'll roll by 10-13 points. Kandi's work on Yao will be crucial, too. If Kandi makes him work for his points & makes him defend Kandi in the post, we'll get things going pretty good. Hassell will stop Jimmy Jackson tonight & Spree will limit Cuttino.
The Wolves need to move the ball like they did against the Mavs against this tough Houston defense. We need to get them back after that nationally televised loss where we looked like the Wolves of old (early years). Wolves by 5 if they do, if they don't Rockets by 3.
Hit open jumpers, last time against the Rockets the t-wolves couldnt hit their open jumpers, so they ended up over penetrating the lanes.And Yao blocked & changed alot of shots. Even tho the Rockets are a good defensive team, they still have hole were you can get open shots, you just have to make them.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Trip:</div><div class="quote_post">This preview this early? It's tomorrow. Nice one but Mo Taylor is the Rockets sixth man.</div> I wasn't sure who the 6th Man was.Thanks for the info.
The T-Wolves got some confident off Dallas Mavs, but Houston Rockets lost to L.A. Lakers. This might give Houston Rockets some spark to win, but I doubt it so I would say wolves by 3. KG and Sam Cassell 20+ Nice preview by the way.
The T-Wolves are a very consistent team, but it'll be interesting to see which Rockets squad shows up here: the one that can D up and execute its offense to the point where they can beat any given team on that night, or the one that's essentially guaranteed to get owned by Dallas of all teams. That said, T-Wolves by 11.
KG and Cassell are doing ever thing they can to keep the Wolves in this one. The rest of the team needs to start stepping things up if they want to win. The Wolves need to find a way to stop Yao and Francis, because the're tearing things up on the offensive end.
ebis injured..... didnt even see him play at all this year.... but i liek the matchup of yao and kg..... it's a finnese game and i dont think yao can keep up with it...
The Wolves couldn't pull this one out, with a disipointing 112/109 loss to the rockets. KG and Cassell both had an awesome game, but the rest of the team looked weak. They didn't have the deffence needed to stop the rampage by Yao and Francis. The Wolves still had an ok game, and still are looking like a very stong team.
Very close game, but the Wolves fell in crunch time. Rockets outscored the Wolves 28-20 in the 4th quarter. Wow!
Final Score: Houston 112 Minnesota 109 Point Leader Yao Ming 27pts Kevin Garnett 32pts Rebounds Leader Yao and Steve 6rebs KG 18rebs Assist Leader Steve Francis 6ast Sam Cassell 13ast Good game for both.Congrats to the Rockets for winning. The wolves couldn't stop Yao and Steve.
Yao played big tonight, he has had two really big games this year against the t-wolves. He is going to be problems in the playoffs if the t-wolves have to face him in the 1st round. But all & alll the t-wolves had alot of good looks down the stretch of the 4th they just couldnt make them. And Yao kept the the timberwolves over the limit all night, thats why they attempted a good amount of few throws. And the t-wolves usually shoot better from the line than they did tonight. Good game tho, very entertaining.
