Houston Rockets at Orlando Magic (20-19) @(21-16) January 20th- 7:00 pm at the TD Waterhouse Centre in Orlando on TNT. -This will be the first regular season meeting between these two teams since the blockbluster trade involving Steve Francis and Tracy McGrady. Since then, the two teams have both been prospering with their new lineups, so it will be a nice and exciting game tonight. Starting Lineup- Position by Position Analysis vs PG- Bob Sura vs Steve Francis- Both players have plenty of energy to bring to the court, but Steve Francis brings oh so much more. Francis' shot is much more consistent and can change the tide of the game with his great plays and inside driving game. Meanwhile, Bob Sura is suffering from an injury, his shooting has not been consistent as of late, and he has lost some momentum after his dismal playing in the Spurs game. Magic Advantage. vs SG- David Wesley vs Doug Christie- Standing at 6' 6" over David Wesley who is 6' 1", Doug Christie would be trying to take advantage of David Wesley's height in this game. However, as of late, Christie's shooting as not been all that consistent while Wesley is wanting to show his team that he can hit the threes. Watch Wesley in this game to hit the open jumpers and try to get an edge on Christie. Meanwhile, Christie would be playing a superb defensive game on Wesley- he is a great defender and look for him to try and shut Wesley down. Even Advantage. vs SF- Tracy McGrady vs Grant Hill- Former teammates, these two will have faceoff with athleticism against veteranship in this match. McGrady brings a powerful offense will great one on one offensive game. He can drive, he can hit jumpers and three pointers when he's hot, he can do just about everything. Meanwhile, Hill has successfully recovered from his long frustrating ankle problems and now has a great consistent jump shot and plus, he's a great defender. However, you have to give it to McGrady for this one. He can single handedly change the momentum of the game in Houston favor and may do so this game. Rocket Advantage. vs PF- Juwan Howard vs Dwight Howard- Battle of veteranship and atheleticism again. Dwight Howard brings energetic play and runs the court much faster than Juwan Howard. He can beat him on the fast break anytime and has some nice low post skills. Meanwhile, Juwan Howard will be trying to exploit the kid with his jumper and to try and pound it down low. However, there is some inconsistency to Juwan's offensive skills and theres nothing to write home about his defense. Magic Advantage. vs C- Yao Ming vs Kelvin Cato- Here, it all depends on whether or not Yao is hot. If he is, then he should be dominating the paint and more importantly, grabbing a ton of rebounds. Not to mention, he should get some much needed points for Rockets since they don't have much advantages in this game. Kelvin Cato on the other hand will be doing his defensive shutdown job on Yao. He is a terrific hustle player and grabs boards incredibly- a true player of aggressiveness. Hopefully, Yao will try to exploit him with their height differences and make it in favor of Houston. However, I think Yao just brings a better offensive game than Cato and on some nights, knows how to dominated the paint. Rocket Advantage. Keys to the Game -Try to take advantage of the low post and get Yao to dominate inside. He has an advantage over Cato with his height, so he should try and beat Cato's tough defense and get some post up shots. But more importantly, grab rebounds! Don't let Orlando get second chance buckets. -Hit the open shots. Wesley, Barry, and Sura need to do their jobs, and that is to take and make the open shot. McGrady and Yao will probably be drawing plenty of double teams, so these are the players that need to step it up and make them think twice before they do that. -McGrady needs some consistent shooting. Some nights, he's cold, some nights, he's hot. And when those shots don't fall in, he should start driving in more. There's no reason why he can't get past Grant Hill and try to draw some fouls on the low post players like Howard or Cato. So the key here would be for McGrady to draw fouls and get himself to the line to make some easy buckets. -Get fast break points. They need to take advantage of their own athleticism and burn them out with some fast breaks. Those are some easy layups right there so it would obviously help them get easy points onto the board. -Try and shutdown the role players. McGrady and Yao can't score them all so they should focus on taking down players like Sura, Wesley, Howard, and Taylor. Some easy things they can do here are not let up any open shots and pressure them with the ball. -Get Yao into foul trouble. Although now his role is smaller with Van Gundy's new system, its still important that they try and draw some fouls on this guy. He's just way to big of a threat to even try leaving him there. An ideal situation for Orlando in this aspect would be to get Francis or Christie to drive into the lane and penetrate. Prediction- Houston win, 102-98
Wow what a game we got here tonight. If T-Mac and Francis have to go 1on1 get the cameras ready. Hopefully T-Mac and Francis can both have good games but have it be a Rockets win. This is the 1st full game i get to see of Francis and im excited. I was hoping to see Cuttino there tho but he playing game 2 on TNT so thats good. I hope T-Mac doesnt get booed so bad because it is his Hometown and no one would like to get booed in their hometown.
Hopefully all the booing won't faze McGrady. To win, we have to get TMac focused on the game. Very excited about this game. Francis and McGrady playing against their old team and teammates. This will be a high scoring game if we can get the same up tempo attacking game we had against Dallas. I'm predicting that we win by 6.
I think Francis has more to prove than T-Mac, and naturally has more competitive fire in him, so expect the Franchise to go for a career night. Although McGrady will also have a great game, Yao's performance will be key. He has never gone against Kelvin Cato on defense before, so the strength and athlectism that Cato has over Yao might seriously limit Yao's production. Hopefully, Yao will overcome all that for a 20/10 night. If he does, Rockets win. If not, we would lose.
McGrady is playing with heart tonight. All the Rockets are attacking the basket today instead of shooting long shots. Yao already has 2 fouls with 4:30 left. Houston has to defend against Orlando's transition offense. The Magic are already hurting the Rockets in transition. Luckily they are answering back.
at halftime the score is 56-48 our lead, at one stage we were winning by 14 pts Everyone is playing great, Yao has made some 10-15ft jumpers, he hasn't missed a shot from the field, Mcgrady playing quite well, Both Bob Sura and Steve Francis look like they could get a triple double!
What T-Mac said proves that players love it when fans boo them. They asked him how he liked the fans booing when he was going into the locker room and he says " I love it, I wish they would do it every possession." Forgot to make a prediction so I say Rockets by at least 10.
Who ended up winning? I started watching Tilt midway through the fourth. The Rockets did a good job of shutting down the Magic transition game.
We Won! Hip Hip Hooray! Great Game, Sura was only 1 assist from a triple double!, Yao scored 20 points, Juwan 13 and Wesley 18. Tracy Mcgrady didn't do as well as I hoped, but still 27 points!
Good game. It featured the best and the worst of fastbreak teams. Coming into the game the Rockets were the 30th and the last in terms of fastbreak points while the Magic are the first in fastbreak points. Francis and TMac played pretty well though there could only be one winner. Offensive rebounding was the big factor that won us the game not to mention the near triple double performance of Sura, who should be given credit for the Rockets' nice game. Had Juwan Howard made the easy shot under the basket, Sura would have clinched the tripleD.
Great game overall, a good one to watch. We did great to play an attacking game and it showed with our scoring. This will be a boost for the team since we broke the 2 game losing slump. The starters did great to get double digits in scoring while our bench still is questionable. Great performances from Yao, Tracy and Sura. Such a pity Sura didnt get the triple double but we got the win in the bag and that's what's important. For Yao to get 20+ points 2 games in a row will get him his confidence back while Tmac was just Tmac. He wasn't fazed by the booing and seemed to feed off it. Now on to the next game.
I'll write the comment that rocketthruster should of posted before and after the pictures... "Here are some pictures from the game... Picture here Picture here Picture here Picture here Picture here Credit to ESPN for the pictures"
Great game, great finish. The Rockets were firing on all cylinders last night and were able to pull it out with a win. Yao Ming did an admirable job against the Magic's physical big men, but his rebounding was still lacklustre. Turnovers and offensive rebounds won the game for us. We had 17 second chances compared the the Magic's 6, and we only had 10 turnovers. Even Yao was able to get a grip of the ball, turning it over only once. Let's hope we can ride this momentum and get on a big winning streak.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Trip:</div><div class="quote_post">Great game, great finish. The Rockets were firing on all cylinders last night and were able to pull it out with a win. Yao Ming did an admirable job against the Magic's physical big men, but his rebounding was still lacklustre. Turnovers and offensive rebounds won the game for us. We had 17 second chances compared the the Magic's 6, and we only had 10 turnovers. Even Yao was able to get a grip of the ball, turning it over only once. Let's hope we can ride this momentum and get on a big winning streak.</div> Yeah, so Trip how was it watching the game for you? I know you're a big Steve Francis fan so were you happy when he scored? or was it like another normal match for you?
didn't watch the game, but heard it on the radio..........Bill and Gene kept saying the magic didn't play good defense.........but I did see that disgusting dunk T Mac put on Cato.....LOL that was great..........I hope steve doesn't get booed when he returns to H Town
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting THE DREAM:</div><div class="quote_post">didn't watch the game, but heard it on the radio..........Bill and Gene kept saying the magic didn't play good defense.........but I did see that disgusting dunk T Mac put on Cato.....LOL that was great..........I hope steve doesn't get booed when he returns to H Town</div> I don't see us Houston Rockets fans booing him, I mean who here on this forum would boo him? if anything he'd get a massive ovation!, and I didn't watch it either but i'm in Australia so I just followed those Play by Plays...
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Dan Le:</div><div class="quote_post"> Yeah, so Trip how was it watching the game for you? I know you're a big Steve Francis fan so were you happy when he scored? or was it like another normal match for you?</div>It was a pain man. On one hand I was hoping that my favorite player would have a career night and lead his team to a win against the team that traded him and essentially betrayed him. On the other hand, I was hoping that my favorite team would win and snap their losing streak. It felt like I was pulling on both sides. Oh well, now that we've got a win on them, I'm cheering for Orlando next game.
Great game for Houston. The basic reason why they won this game was because of hustle, energy, and aggressiveness. I watched the game on TV, and I definitely saw alot of things that I've liked- after missing a couple of jumpers, McGrady started to drive into the lane more, everyone were hungry on the offensive end kept having offensive rebounds, and Yao was showing some signs of nice low post skills. I mean, Yao even hit a twenty two foot jumper at the key- he should definitely be doing that more, not just foul down low. The only negative aspect of the game was probably McGrady's inconsistent shooting. What's up with this guy? I saw him take jumpers after jumpers when he continually missed. Although he did drive into the lane, he should be doing it more often to try and draw some fouls- kind of like what Steve Francis does. Overall, great game for Houston and I hope this win will put some confident in these players and let it carry over into other wins.
