Houston at Indiana at When- January 11th, at 7:00 pm Eastern Time Where- The Conseco Fieldhouse at Indiana Channel- Fox SW for Houston and Fox MidW for Indiana Starting Lineups- Position by Position Analysis vs PG- Bob Sura vs Jamaal Tinsley Both players here are quality point guards that can also score, so it depends on who's hot and who's not. Sura has been playing incredible as of late- putting up double doubles and penetrating to the hoop at clutch times but in the last game, has struggled defensively and offensively. He has just been putting up horrible shooting percentages and a bunch of turnovers. Meanwhile, Jamaal Tinsley has been out for the past few games with a bruised left foot so we'll see if he comes back and makes an impact tonight. If he does come back healthy and rested, Tinsley poses an athletic threat to Sura, and also if a great passer so he can get teammates involved. However, the momentum is just in Sura and Houston's favor. Even Advantage vs SG- David Wesley vs Reggie Miller This surprisingly is actually a pretty even matchup. Both are good three point shooters and when they get hot, they can change the momentum of the game. What's different though is that Miller's age is showing through these years and Wesley actually has an athletic advantage over him. He's a much quicker player and a great defender, although expect Wesley to be guarding the point guard. However, Wesley is also an inconsistent player so it all depends on if his shots are going in or not. Miller on the other hand has a developed shot and although his shooting percentage and effectiveness has gone down significantly over the years, he still can get at least around ten points a game so don't underestimate Uncle Reggie. Even Advantage vs SF- Tracy McGrady vs Stephen Jackson Battle of the offensive players here. Both of these guys can run the floor, shoot the long ball, and drive into the hole- so what's the difference? McGrady gets Houston involved. He sets up plays and mainly coordinates the offensive game of Houston. In addition to that, he is a much better one on one type player that can get past almost anyone in league. However, Stephen Jackson has been very aggressive as of late since returning from his suspension and has given Indiana a lot of drive. In addition to that, he has been contributing a lot for his team and has been hot for the last few games. McGrady on the other hand hasn't, but instead has had some pretty bad shooting nights. Nevertheless, once McGrady gets going, he takes over the game. Houston Advantage. vs PF- Juwan Howard vs Jermaine O'Neal. This is even a matchup really. O'Neal has got a lot more athleticism, shooting ability, defense, and low post offense than Howard. Hands down. However, Howard's job for this game would probably be to just contain O'Neal and not let him get any easy buckets and addition to that, hit the open jumpers that teammates set for him. Also, Howard must make sure to get the rebounds and try to not clog the lanes in order to make sure Yao doesn't pick up too many fouls. Basically, Howard needs to use his veteran experience to be smart about this game and try and contain O'Neal. Indiana Advantage vs C- Yao Ming vs Jeff Foster For the last few games, it seems like Yao Ming has finally found his rhythm with the Houston Rockets offensively and defensively as well. He has been playing great as of late and has starting learning how to avoid getting fouls. Jeff Foster on the other hand isn't a big part of Indiana's strategy. Foster does his part by getting a couple of rebounds and points per games- but other than that, is more of a role player than anything else. Not really a good matchup here. Yao towers over Foster, Yao has been finding his rhythm and shot, and Yao has a lot more rebounding skills than Foster. Houston Advantage. Keys to the Game -Spread the ball around and not clogging the lanes. Yao and McGrady won't be able to do much with too many players in the lane, so they just need to make sure everyone's spread out to try and find easy jumpers. -Play well defensively and rebounding the ball. Houston needs to make sure no one on Indiana gets an uncontested shot. In addition, Houston needs to rebound the ball much more than they have done. Their defensive aspect is declining so they have to make sure its back up to notch. -Finding the open man on the perimeter. With shooters like Barry and Wesley now, Houston has become a much better perimeter team. That's why if one of them or any other good shooter is sitting on the perimeter- their teammates need to get them the ball. -Get Yao and McGrady hot early on in the game. They can quickly pick up the momentum in Houston's favor, so if they starting knocking down shots with ease early on, Houston should be able to take this game. -Play the offense through O'Neal and Jackson. Not much players on Indiana have that much of an offense game, so they have to make sure these two get their game on early going so the momentum is in their favor. -Play tough defense and not let up any open shots. Houston has improved their offensive game so Indiana should try and counter it with defense. Basically not letting up any jumpers and putting a hand in their face should do the job. -Draw fouls on Yao. He is very foul trouble prone so Indiana should be aggressive to the hoop to try and draw a couple of fouls on him. And when that happens, he will become a non factor in this game and it will be much easier for Indiana. -Control the tempo of the game and try to limit the bench/role players' points and effectiveness. Houston doesn't have the best bench in the league, so Indiana should try and grind them out with their role players and decent bench. Prediction- Houston win, 102-93.
Good preview. One thing I'd like to note is that Foster is much more than just a role player who gives you a couple rebounds. He does much more. Foster is a top offensive rebounder and can get 15 in a game if he plays 35 minutes. He is also an underrated post defender who could cause Yao's production to drop. If Yao does have problems with Foster on him, Houston will have to count on McGrady to make up for it. Cover the three-point line as Jackson has been hot from 3 the past few games and Reggie Miller is always a threat. They also have some other players like Tinsley, Fred Jones, Johnson and James Jones who could all make the trey. Make sure the Pacers don't get their momentum from three and stretch the defense for O'Neal to dominate inside. However, the Rockets are a top defensive team and has a good record against Eastern Conference teams. Besides, the Pacers are free-falling in the standings and don't have enough to beat a team like Houston. Rockets by 5.
We won! 6 straight! Not a good shooting night by a lot of our players and yao got in foul trouble...but we still WON!! I'm guessing we did well defensively. I was shocked the pacers got back and tied us when we were winning by double digits. But i think we defended well and caused them to miss shots. Wow yao was the only guy who had a good shooting night
The Rockets won by 8, extending the streak to 6 wins! All five starters reached double-digits, led by Sura with 17. McGrady had another bad shooting night going 5-16, but it was enough for us to win 91-83. Howard had yet another great rebounding night, but Yao only had four to go with 16 points on 7-10 shooting. He played just 21 minutes though, due to foul trouble. Sura had yet another great game, with 17, 9 and 8.
What a great game by the Rockets...after Pacer's 8-0 start in the beginning of the first quarter i began to worry that we sunk back into slow offense and stuff like that. But the Rockets pulled out a tough win...can't believe we only scored 11 points in the 4 quarter and still won. Anyways what's with the traffic here....we have a nice game thread set up with nice analysis and we only got less than 5 posts. I guess we can't do anything about that but since the T-Mac trade I thought more people would start posting... On another note our record is now 30-21...which is pretty good. Hope we extend our winning streak to at least 10 if not possible...then we'd get some more recognition. Pretty much where we were last season.
6 in a row. This is great. We have such great chemistry at the moment, and with all the rumours going around, maybe a trade would not be in our best interest, although getting rid of Mo's contract is important. That being said, great game statistically for us. The player's have shared the points equally.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Anyways what's with the traffic here....we have a nice game thread set up with nice analysis and we only got less than 5 posts. I guess we can't do anything about that but since the T-Mac trade I thought more people would start posting...</div>Today, there are many other threads in this forum and were active, so this game thread got pushed down. A normal preview in the Rockets forum now actually guarantees at least 15 replies. Not today though...
Great defensive stop by the Rockets in the last 6 mins. I thought the momentum would shift to the Pacers after they tied the ball game. But unfortunately that's the best they could do. We should give a lot of credit to Mutumbo's defense on Jermaine O'Neal. I think he only scored 3 points in the second half and same goes to S.Jackson who had only 2 after scoring burst in the 1st quarter. It seems that Juwan Howard has been contributing more rebounds recently. Wesley also is making 15 out of 20 three's in the last 5 games. It's nice to see that all of the starters are averaging double figures in their winning streak. It shows that there's someone that we can depend on when Yao and TMac are having a rough night. We're still undefeated in the month of february. I hope the Rockets will continue their streak with a couple of winnable games(against Blazers and Wizards) before the All Star break.
GREAT! 6 in a row now, I see 10 coming . all starters got double digits, yao got 16 for playing in only 21 min, JuHo is rebounding well...... keep ot going rockets!
Great win for us, I was really worried when the 4th quarter started and the Pacers went on a 8-0 run, Juwan Howard is becoming the PF we really need, he's getting us alot of those second chance points which is a huge reason why we've been winning all these games, hopefully everyone keeps it up!
We can definitely remain undefeated before the All-Star break. However, we must if we want to lock down the sixth spot in the standings. Right now, we're neck-to-neck with Memphis.
