<div align="center"> Game Thread: <font color="red">Houston Rockets</font> @ <font color="red">Miami Heat</font> </div> TV: ABC (national) Radio: Sports Radio 610 (local) Game Time: 12:00 (local time) The Big Dance, Yao vs. Shaq. <div align="center">Probable Line-ups:</div> <div align="center"> <font color="red"> Rockets <font size="1">Bob Sura, David Wesley, Tracy McGrady, Juwan Howard, Yao Ming </font></font></div> <div align="center"><font color="red"> Heat <font size="1">Dwyane Wade, Damon Jones, Eddie Jones, Udonis Haslem, Shaquille O'neal</font></font></div> <div align="center">Position-By-Position:</div> Point Guard: Wade will win this battle, the key is, to guard him hard. Damon Jones and Eddie Jones can sink the outside Jumper all night, so we have to limit the double-teams on Wade. Sura, can do his part by rebounding and scoring atleast 15. Advantage: Heat Shooting Guard: Damon Jones is a monster at hitting the three, Wesley has his hands full. If Wesley can negate him scoring wise, this could be even. But Wesley still has to find perfect rythm, and Jones is hitting the right notes. Advantage: Heat Small Forward: This should be an exciting contest. If McGrady can take it to the hole, and outscore Jones, it puts many things in our favour. Jones can get hot quickly though, but McGrady is just the better player. Advantage: Rockets (edited) Power Forward: Haslem thrives on hitting the open Jumper, when teams switch off him to guard Shaq. It should be no different today. This matchup will be even, BECAUSE, I am counting Padgett in this match-up (playing-time). Padgett has been on fire as of late, and if he can drop close to 15, we win the Power Forward battle with ease. Advantage: Even Center: Yao vs. Shaq. Always a fun contest, and expect the commentators at ABC to blow it up to something it's not. Shaq is the better player, but Yao has more weapons to his advantage. Yao always plays well against Shaq, and let's hope the refs like Yao tommorow. Advantage: Whatever the Refs Want <div align="center"><u>KEYS TO THE GAME</u></div> <ul>Team Defense. Every starter on the Heat can nail the open Jumper (with the exception of O'neal). We must play team defense if we think we have a chance.[/list] <ul>Rebound!Whenever we Rebound, we win. We have to control tempo and ball flow, and you can only do that with rebounds. If we don't rebound, we're gonna lose.[/list] <ul>Yao + McGrady = Shaq + Wade. If this doesn't happen, we better hope Padgett and Barry pull some more 20 point games. When Yao and Tracy play TOGETHER, they do so well. They put up 75 points by themselves. We used to talk about Tracy asserting himself in the offense. Now it's Yao's turn.[/list] Prediction: The Rockets are on the road, and the Heat are doing well. A hard fought contest, decided in the Fourth. Rockets: 103 Heat: 98
Nice preview but if Mcgrady is the better player why'd you give heat advantage? maybe it was a mistake or i'm reading incorrectly, anyway...It should be a good match, I hope Yao does well this match so I can stop hearing the Yao sucks comments on other boards. Mcgrady is gonna really have to play well for us to come close, I hope Padgett plays well too I really wanna see what we've been missing out on since the beginning of the season. I feel bad because I seem to be the only one on this forum that ever predicts Rocket losses, I guess I should have more faith...
No, I'm guilty as a cynic as well. Anyways, both teams here are pretty nice teams and it should be a great matchup between the two big men. However, a lot of the players on Houston needs to step up, since the tide is definitely not in their favor. Hopefully, McGrady will get fired up for the game as should Yao, to keep it a close game. Maybe we might see some more of Padgett's shooting touch, Sura's triple doubles, or Mutumbo's rebounding cause we need everyone to step it up this game. My prediction for this will probably be for a Heat win, but with the constant inconsistency- its hard to tell who's going to win the game.
I think Dwayne Wade will kill us in this game. We don't have anyone who can defend him, and Yao will likely get into foul trouble trying to guard Shaq and picking up fouls on Wade. Basically, McGrady needs to have an amazing game, and we need to hit our threes to win this game. I'll predict Heat over Rockets: 90 to 79.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Nice preview but if Mcgrady is the better player why'd you give heat advantage? maybe it was a mistake or i'm reading incorrectly</div> Haha, I was praising McGrady, and gave the Heat advantage.. My bad. I'm never going to say the Rockets don't have a chance. But honestly, this game is winnable.
DAMN GEORGE BUSH...............First he screws up the country and now he's screwing up the game.............arrggggghhhhh!!!!
If the Rockets want to win this, they are going to need Yao to step up. What really hurts the Rockets is, Yao has a big tendacy to pick up early fouls; most of them being unnecessary. As a write Yao is on the bench with 2 fouls in the 1rst quarter. In that case T-Mac and the other Rockets are going to have to attack the basket, hoping to get good looks and maybe get Shaq to comit fouls as well.
well it's 46 to 48 at the half with miami leading..........yao needs to stay out of foul trouble and we can't let guys like Haslem beat us...........go rockets!!!
Too bad we lost, we played well, can't deny that, they just played better. Yao Ming, his outside shooting his been great as of late! he hit about 4 17 ft shots and overall he played alot better then Shaq! if it wasn't for all his fouls I think we could of taken this one, also what is with us turning the ball over when there is only a few seconds left!? it always seems to happen. I also have noticed this seasons T-Mac has been to the line for many 3pt shots, I don't think he's made all three this season. For anyone that was following Mcgrady in Orlando, was it the same? i'm just curious. I'll leave you with this... Yaos Ming 22 pts - Shaquille O'Neal 15 pts Yaos 8-14 - Shaquille O'Neal 6-11 Yaos 6-6 FT - Shaquille O'Neal 3- 5FT Yao Ming 9 Rebounds - Shaquille O'Neal 5 Rebounds - Just added this because i'm happy Yao played so well and I can stop hearing people on other forums say Yao can't play against top Centers.
Surprised to see that nobody is concerned with Sura's possibly broken ring finger. If he's out for an extended time, we're going to miss the playoffs in my opinion.
I never think there's a problem with Yao; and this game proved it. Comparing Yao with Shaq and comparing sura,wesley with Wade and two jones, we will see very clearly what kind of problems we have currently. Offensively, our outside shooters cant make wide open shots. I can't remember how many good chances they have missed. Defensely, our outside players can't guard anybody. Sura is always chasing wade, but never goona catch up with him. Not because Wade is too good; I mean sura is chasing everybody. I am not suprised that Yao has a lot of fouls because everybody can go through our outside defense easily and attack Yao directly. I believe We gonna miss Cato, Cat and our NO.3 sooner or later.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Surprised to see that nobody is concerned with Sura's possibly broken ring finger. If he's out for an extended time, we're going to miss the playoffs in my opinion</div> Barret will do a much better job. Give him some chance.
well I hope bobby won't be out for too long, cause we need him.........but more importantly we need some shooters who can knock down the open 3 with consistency...........I can't count how many open looks that we missed today.........and I'd like to see T Mac drive a little more, instead of settling for the jumpshot..........and WHY WAS ROD STRICKLAND PLAYING?!?!?!?!?!?!?
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Fairplay:</div><div class="quote_post">Barret will do a much better job. Give him some chance.</div> I don't know about Barrett playing better than Sura. True he will give us a nice backup PG (better than the rest of our PGs anyways), but imo, as a starter, Sura is more effective.
Barrett will get killed on defense if he starts. I see Van Gundy going with Rod Strickland at starting point if Sura has to be out for a few games. Btw, anyone has any info on Charlie Ward? It seems like he's been gone forever. We can sure use his ability to knock down open threes now.
It was a pretty nice game. We played hard, but they just played better. You have to admit, they have better shooters on their team and they just play more aggressively than Houston. McGrady should be driving to the hole more instead of just jacking up jumpers- in fact, he should be playing like how Dwayne Wade plays. Basically just drawing fouls, getting three point plays, that kind of stuff. Instead, he's attempting more jumpers than he should be. Yao had a pretty nice game and had a pretty nice handling of his fouls in the first half, but I think he lost sight of it in the middle of the half. They just plagued him in the second half and that was another aspect that contributed to Houston's loss. As for Barrett and Strickland replacing Sura, we will be losing a big piece of our team, which is never a good thing. I know they will try their best to do a good job replacing him, but I don't think they have his effectiveness. Barrett still needs to find his shot and practice jumpers more while Strickland can't handle too many minutes and can't run up and down the court for too long. You have to admit, our point situation is probably almost as bad as the beginning of the season with Lue and Ward.
yeah barrett is a good backup but not a starter and rod?????????.........I'd rather not comment D. Jones torched us today and we had a shot at gettin him........damn coaches and managers
Wade killed in this game getting 23 of his 30 points in the second half. I thought the Rockets had a shot going into the 4th only being down three, and I was looking forward to seeing a good finish. Good move by JVG though to keep Yao in with 2 fouls in the late first into the second, he didn't pick up his third until the second half. The Rockets should have also took advantage of Dwyane Wade and Shaq both going to the bench with 2 fouls early in the game and possibly getting out to an early lead. They didn't do that though...
