Miami (0-6) at Houston (4-1) 7:30 pm CST Tonights game between the Miami Heat and the Houston Rockets is more than just over a record. This game is over blood. Tonight you will see two teams go at it, looking to help their coach out, in the ultimate game of family bragging rights. Tonight's key match up wont be between players but instead coaches. Stan Van Gundy, the coach of the Heat, will have to face his younger brother Jeff Van Gundy tonight. This is the first time these two have ever met on an NBA court. Stan will try to get his first win tonight as a head coach while Jeff will be seaking win 253. Lets break down the game. The Rockets are coming into this game, playing great basketball. They knocked off the Orlando Magic on Saturday by a score of 96-86. The Heat however lost to the Mineesota Timberwolves 88-79 on Saturday. The Heat are off to their worst start since their ignagural season where they lost their first 17 games. Season Stats Heat Season Statistics Rockets Season Statistics PPG: 79.2 Opp PPG: 91.8 PPG: 90.6 Opp PPG: 78.2 FG%: .383 Opp FG%: .449 FG%: .471 Opp FG%: .357 RPG: 42.2 Opp RPG: 41.3 RPG: 44.4 Opp RPG:38.0 Starting Lineups Dwyane Wade vs. Steve Francis Eddie Jones vs. Cuttino Mobley Caron Butler vs. Jim Jackson Lamar Odom vs. Kelvin Cato Brian Grant vs. Yao Ming Match-Up Outlook The obvious advantage for the Houston Rockets is down low. Lamar Odom is a small forward who is playing the powerforward slot. Cato has both the height and weight on him so look for the Rockets to dump it down to Cato quite a bit tonight. The same goes for Brian Grant. Grant doesnt have the physical build to hang with Yao in the post tonight. I'm expecting Yao have a huge night both scoring and on the boards. Cuttino Mobley will have his hands full tonight as he tries to battle with Eddie Jones. Jones is the Heat's leading scorer averaging 20.8 points a game. Mobley is coming off a very good defensive night against McGrady, however the question is will he be able to stop Eddie? Another key match-up is Caron Butler against Jim Jackson. This will only be Caron's second game back after knee surgery in the offseason. We all know Caron has a nack for scoring the ball, as he proved to us last year. He played 31 minutes his first game back, so it appears the knee is close to 100%. The Rockets must keep both Caron and Eddie in check tonight if they want to win. Dwayne Wade is a good young player for the Heat however tonight he will be eaten up by The Franchise. I predict the game will end in Houston's favor just for the simple fact that the Heat cant stop the Rockets on the inside.
yah right .. it's like Grant will stop Ming .. !! .. despite to all the hype that media created for this game .. look for the Rockets to get an easy one ... !
The last time a pair of brothers coached against each other in the NBA was when current Detroit coach Larry Brown led the Denver Nuggets against his brother Herb's Pistons on six times between 1976-78. Herb is now an assistant with Detroit. Larry and Herb Brown met six times in the mid-'70s when Larry led the Denver Nuggets and Herb was at the helm of the Detroit Pistons. The former was victorious four times. Here's a closer look at how they did head-to-head. Going to be interesting to see a brother v brother showdown again.. http://www.nba.com/features/riley_influence_031111.html
Houston should win this, by all means. I mean, they have Yao, who will, or should, be able to dominate against Brain Grant. Steve Francis is there along with Mobley, each of whom have played pretty good ball this season. And, to top it off, the Heat, as always, aren't scoring, and they're not playing good defense. Rockets, on the other hand, playing descent offense and yea, the 78 pts allowed per game says it all about their defense. It's been good.
Its 43-36 at halftime with the Rockets up. Both teams started out really slow only scoring 16 points each in the first half. With 3 minutes to go till the end of the first quarter the score was 11-7 Miami over Houston. Houston went 1-8 at the start of the game. Dwyane Wade is leading Miami with 10 points. Mobley leads the Rockets with 13. Francis has 10, and Yao has 6. Only Kelvin Cato is in foul trouble and he has 3. We need to come out of halftime and get Yao the ball. We didn't get him the ball enough in the 1st half.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting dexter:</div><div class="quote_post">Its 43-36 at halftime with the Rockets up. Both teams started out really slow only scoring 16 points each in the first half. With 3 minutes to go till the end of the first quarter the score was 11-7 Miami over Houston. Houston went 1-8 at the start of the game. Dwyane Wade is leading Miami with 10 points. Mobley leads the Rockets with 13. Francis has 10, and Yao has 6. Only Kelvin Cato is in foul trouble and he has 3. We need to come out of halftime and get Yao the ball. We didn't get him the ball enough in the 1st half.</div> oh how i wish to see yao get more than 2 whole shots
Rockets won the game 90-70. They were finally able to break out in the third quarter. Cuttino Mobley has played excellent basketball this year and he dropped 30 last night. Francis had 14 points, 7 boards and 7 assists. Scott Padgett led the bench production for the Rockets scoring 13 points. Just like allnet said, Yao had 7 blocks which is a career high for him. Most teams are starting to double team Yao in the post. If the Rockets can continue to hit the open shots then that will draw the defense out, which allows Yao to get active down low. Most of Yao's production happened late in the game because by that time Houston had spread the defense of Miami Heat out. Look for most teams to play Houston the same way Miami did tonight. The Rockets are on a role, they are 5-1 with no signs of letting down. This is without Piatkowski and Taylor too. Imagine when we get both of them healthy... :mrgreen:
You forgot Adrian Griffin one of the top Perimeter defenders in the NBA.When does he return? The big test for the Rockets will be on thursday when they face the Dallas Mavericks. That will really show how much have improved from last season.
Adrian Griffin is day-to-day at the moment. He participated in Monday's workout with the team. He is still on the injured list though and is not completly ready to play. There is no need to rush him back. We are doing just fine without him at the moment.
