Houston Rockets: 23-19 New Orleans Hornets: 7-33 Coach (Byron Scott) C ? PJ Brown PF ? Rodney Rogers SF ? Lee Nailon SG ? J.R. Smith PG ? Dan Dickau Coach (Jeff Van Gundy) C - Yao Ming PF - Juwan Howard SF ? Tracy Mcgrady SG - David Wesley PG - Bob Sura ---- 3 game winning streak, 7 wins out of the last 10 games, beat the Spurs, beat the Orlando Magic twice, any person who knows about basketball would be stupid not to bet for the Houston Rockets right? Well, the Rockets are known for underestimating lower record teams, but I think we all know that by now... This SHOULD be a one sided match, David Wesley will return to New Orleans and we'll get to see Bostjan Nachbar again, sort of like a semi version of the T-Mac & Francis tension...maybe not, either way I hope Wesley plays extra hard and can give some help to Yao and Mcgrady. Speaking of Yao, he has been playing excellently as of late, scoring over 20 points in the last 3 games, as for Mcgrady he should get his normal numbers but I hope that family emergency wasn't too serious and doesn't affect his gameplay. Jon Barry, Scott Padgett, both these players have stepped up in the last few games, Padgett scoring a game winner against New York and Jon Barry with his 19 points for out Mcgrady-less Rockets against Orlando. Again like every game preview I write, Yao will have to step up, Mcgrady will have to attack the ring, then benches support will always help, you know the rest. As for New Orleans, same thing, Lee Nailon needs to have a good shooting night and they have to stop Yao and stop Mcgrady from getting easy buckets. I won't post a prediction as whenever I do, our team loses.
No one on the Hornets can effectively guard Yao and McGrady, so those two will easily get 50-60 points combined. We cannot underestimate the Hornets however. Dan Dickau is phemonenal of late and we should never let him get the ball in crunch situations. Nailon can put points on the board in a hurry, so however guarding him should make his points hard to get. As long as the other three starters can combine for 20-30 points, we have this game in out pockets.
Well, we've been known to underestimate teams like Charlotte or Atlanta and that has resulted in a bunch of losses for us. Just to be safe, I think Houston should be careful for this one. Be on the lookout for Nailon, Brown, and Dickau. Brown can pound his way inside to get buckets and may even draw a couple a fouls on Yao so Yao needs to be careful not to get into foul trouble. McGrady should have no trouble offensively against Nailon, but he does need to guard him, since he has been known to put points onto the board for New Orleans. Hopefully, Sura will do a good defensive job on Dan Dickau, who is starting to develop into a nice guard that can rack up a bunch of points. All I'm saying is, Houston just needs to watch out. Never underestimate teams.
wow what a scary starting 5..........LOL..........but the rockets still need to come out and play hard (or at least act like it) and take care of business against these 3rd string players
Horrible, horrible game for Houston. Didn't I tell you guys to not underestimate these kinds of teams? Dickau, Brown, and Nailon all had great nights- hustling, hitting shots down, rebounding, blocking, basically anything you can think of. McGrady basically carried the team on his back tonight and gave us the win. You can't expect the guy to be doing this. This is supposed to be a team, yet everyone else besides Yao and McGrady are in single digits. Yao wasn't all that great either. Aside from getting thirteen rebounds, which isn't bad I must say, Yao was limited to twelve points with six for thirteen shooting. In my opinion, the big man should be getting at least fifty percent of his shots down. Tonight, everyone had a horrible shooting night going 38.2% from the field and just 26.1% from beyond the arc. This can't be happening. On a side note, Strickland was played a bunch of minutes this game. And, he didn't exactly impress me. I actually think we should play Barrett more than him- Barrett is actually developing to be quite the playmaker, passes, takes smart shots, is aggressive, and he hustles. What more can you want from a player? Oh yeah and he plays great defense. Lets just say Strickland's stats don't impress me- Points- 5 Assists- 4 FGM-A- 1-4 3PM-A- 1-1 MIN- 21
A win's a win no matter how boring the game itself may be I guess. I thought we would at least get 100 points against New Orleans but we came out short in the scoring department. Still good enough to get us the important win. TMac was one of the main reasons we got this win, the other being Yao's rebounding. Tracy went and scored 33 points to drag the team to the win and Yao got a double double. I was expecting more from the other guys but unfortunately, they didn't step up to the occasion as only Yao and McGrady were in double digits. We should be knocking down shots consistently on a nightly basis instead of being hot every 3 games or so. As AnzxBaller said, we only got a measly 38.2% from the field and just 26.1% from downtown. We should be getting more than that for us to be contenders. A win's a win though and at the end of the day, it's the only result that matters.
I'd rather take an ugly fluke win rather than a loss where we played our hearts out. On the standings, the way you play doesn't factor into the wins/losses column, so I'm happy that we got a win anyways. McGrady was once again phenomenal, but Yao's offense was dissapointing. The 13 rebounds is something rarely seen now, though. Can this streak keep going?
