Here is the second edition of post-game grades for the Rockets.
Aaron Brooks A : He was great as a scorer once again, and I feel like he has really responded well to the playoffs and Yao's injury specifically. This would be an A+, but he did have 4 turnovers. I feel like our turnovers have been a crucial aspect of each game, and no one has picked up on it yet. Overall, this was a spectacular game for Brooks.
Shane Battier B+ : Yeah, he was only 2-8, but any offense you get from him is acceptable. The important thing was his defense on Kobe (11-27). At the same time however, Kobe got to the line 10 times and has gotten in the paint more consistently in the past few games. Instead of settling for contested jumpers, he has started taking it to the hole where he is effective. Shane has done a good job, but we need him to show up big on sunday.
Ron Artest C: 3 turnovers and only 6-17 from the field (does he take 17 shots every game? I feel like he does). Ron was not that good but will need to be if we want to win this game 7.
Luis Scola A+ : He was phenomenal. I have been hard on him all series because the Lakers' length has bothered him and he has played bad, but last night he played like Round 1 Scola. If he plays well again on Sunday, we will win this series. Again, we will win this series.
Chuck Hayes A : He shot 100% (ok only 1-1), and stayed out of foul trouble. It is hard to see his value to this team in the box score, but you can see his effect in the final score. We lost Game 5 when he was in foul trouble and Cook played. We dominated Games 4 and 6 when he was on the court. An added bonus of his play is that we don't have to see Cook disgrace the game of basketball.
Carl Landry A+ : Another great performance for Landry. He was slamming down dunks and finishing all around the basket. He has been an integral part of our success this series. Just like Chuckwagon, he shot 100% (however, this was on 6 shots), and combined with Scola to score 39 points from the power forward position.
Kyle Lowry C+ : I think this is Adelman's fault, not Lowry's. He cannot play well with Aaron Brooks. They don't complement each other well, and the offense comes to a screeching halt when they play together. Alone, they are effective, but together, they suck.
Von Wafer A : His exile continues. Von did all he could during his brief 5 minutes of playing time, hitting a three and a mid-range jumper. If Adelman continues to let his grudge against Wafer get in the way of playing him, he will leave as a free agent. On a night when Shane and Ron's shots were off, we needed his sweet stroke. We got lucky that Carl, Luis, and Aaron played so well.
Rick Adelman A- : Aside from the two point guard scheme and not playing Von Wafer, I think Adelman coached well last night. He is a calming influence on the team.
Showing posts with label Game 6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game 6. Show all posts
5/15/2009
5/14/2009
Game 6 Recap: Stunned?
Not me. I'm pleasantly surprised, but not stunned. You can never be stunned with these guys. When I say stunned I'm referring to the Lakers. And the media. And the rest of the world for that matter. But especially the Lakers. That means you Kobe. He'll bitch a little about the refereeing, yell at his teammates, sulk to the media, but the reality is that he didn't think this would happen again. One more time, him and the rest of the light bulbs (they turn it on and off, it's a pun) underestimated the Rockets and ended up getting embarrassed, smacked around and most importantly, beaten. And you can bet your ass that they're stunned.
The Good
-We won. They lost. Our season continues. The beat goes on. The wheels keep turning. No matter how many different ways there are to say it, the point is simple. We get to play one more game in the playoffs. And that's a good thing.
-Luis Scola finally showed up. As happy as I am about this, I'm still wondering why it took so long to finally happen. If you get drafted because you play a certain way, become a starter on a playoff team because you play a certain way and your team wins a playoff series because you play a certain way, why would you ever, ever stop playing that way? I'm going to include that Carl Landry also played a great game in here because they are inseparable in my mind. They're like Pinky and the Brain. Rob and Big. Starsky and Hutch. Kobe and absolutely nobody.
-The Rockets defense had another amazing night. Kobe took 27 shots and made 11 of them, which means we did very, very well. Battier played his usual defense on Kobe, Artest guarded him with his usual whatever-the-hell-Artest-does-things-with and Kobe looked mad all night long. I understand that he has a natural anger to him, but it looked a little worse yesterday. Or at least that's what I'd like to think.
The Bad
-The last time we had an inspiring, unexpected win at home, we lost the next game by 40. Because at the end of the day, when both teams put in the same amount of effort for all 48 minutes, the Lakers are a whole lot better than us. So we're hoping they don't come out as ticked off as they were in Game 5. Which, for the record, I don't think they will. Game 5 is not something that happens twice in a year, let alone in a week.
-Kobe is playing much more aggressively and is having an easier time getting to the basket. Without China's most talented 90 inches in the lane to stop him, Kobe was able to get to the basket and to the free throw line. This can't happen if we want to have a shot at Game 7.
-We let the Lakers back into the game in the third quarter. Unlike in Game 4, we allowed Los Angeles to get within striking distance after building a huge lead. It didn't hurt us last night, but runs like that are killer in close games on the road. Which, by the way, is what we're going to be playing in on Sunday.
We had a few more nits I could pick on, but at the end of the day, we won the game. And for the most part, we won it in dominating fashion, so I don't see the need to harp on what we did wrong for too long.
The Ugly
Billy told me not to use the blind people jokes anymore, so I'm boycotting this section for a little while. If it means anything, I would have used this picture and the caption would have read "Apologies to Jordan Farmar for leaving him out of yesterday's 'Clash of the Cochleas' between DJ Mbenga and Brian Cook.
What Happened
-For the third game in a row, the Lakers did not have an answer for Aaron Brooks. For the second time in those three games, the Rockets found a way to use that to our advantage. Brooks had 26 points, got to any spot on the floor at will and pushed Derek Fisher one step closer to finally giving up and retiring.
-The Rockets attacked the Lakers early and the Lakers collapsed. Sure, they made a half-hearted run in the third quarter, but for most of the game the Rockets did whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. We played with more intensity and aggression, and we all know what the Lakers do when teams play them tough. They lose, in case you didn't
-Odom, Bynum and Gasol were outplayed. The rest of the the Lakers bench (besides Farmar) played poorly. Derek Fisher just played. All of these combined turned the Lakers into the Stand Around and Watch Kobe-ers, and with Kobe having an off night, that wasn't going to cut it. Not against the Rockets.
The Point
Another game, another win, another one-sided fight. And we fough. All night long. Because that's what we do. Because that's who we are. A bunch of fighters. A bunch of scrappers. A bunch of tooth and nail, never-give-an-inch players who will take every punch and throw one right back. A bunch of guys who are just too stubborn to understand that this series is supposed to be over and that the Lakers are supposed to be waiting for the next round to start. For at least one more game, a bunch of winners. It defies all logic, and that's what makes it so beautiful. Nobody understands how the Rockets can ever be better than the Lakers when then Lakers are, for lack of any other way of saying it, much, much better than the Rockets. We try to analyze the games, the reasons we keep winning, what the Lakers could possibly be doing wrong and we all arrive at the same conclusion. It just doesn't make sense. And that's when you get to the point where all you can do is look at this team, throw your hands up in confusion and smile. The point at which you sit back, enjoy the ride and hope that it never ends. The point I've reached with the Rockets.
The Good
-We won. They lost. Our season continues. The beat goes on. The wheels keep turning. No matter how many different ways there are to say it, the point is simple. We get to play one more game in the playoffs. And that's a good thing.
-Luis Scola finally showed up. As happy as I am about this, I'm still wondering why it took so long to finally happen. If you get drafted because you play a certain way, become a starter on a playoff team because you play a certain way and your team wins a playoff series because you play a certain way, why would you ever, ever stop playing that way? I'm going to include that Carl Landry also played a great game in here because they are inseparable in my mind. They're like Pinky and the Brain. Rob and Big. Starsky and Hutch. Kobe and absolutely nobody.
-The Rockets defense had another amazing night. Kobe took 27 shots and made 11 of them, which means we did very, very well. Battier played his usual defense on Kobe, Artest guarded him with his usual whatever-the-hell-Artest-does-things-with and Kobe looked mad all night long. I understand that he has a natural anger to him, but it looked a little worse yesterday. Or at least that's what I'd like to think.
The Bad
-The last time we had an inspiring, unexpected win at home, we lost the next game by 40. Because at the end of the day, when both teams put in the same amount of effort for all 48 minutes, the Lakers are a whole lot better than us. So we're hoping they don't come out as ticked off as they were in Game 5. Which, for the record, I don't think they will. Game 5 is not something that happens twice in a year, let alone in a week.
-Kobe is playing much more aggressively and is having an easier time getting to the basket. Without China's most talented 90 inches in the lane to stop him, Kobe was able to get to the basket and to the free throw line. This can't happen if we want to have a shot at Game 7.
-We let the Lakers back into the game in the third quarter. Unlike in Game 4, we allowed Los Angeles to get within striking distance after building a huge lead. It didn't hurt us last night, but runs like that are killer in close games on the road. Which, by the way, is what we're going to be playing in on Sunday.
We had a few more nits I could pick on, but at the end of the day, we won the game. And for the most part, we won it in dominating fashion, so I don't see the need to harp on what we did wrong for too long.
The Ugly
Billy told me not to use the blind people jokes anymore, so I'm boycotting this section for a little while. If it means anything, I would have used this picture and the caption would have read "Apologies to Jordan Farmar for leaving him out of yesterday's 'Clash of the Cochleas' between DJ Mbenga and Brian Cook.
What Happened
-For the third game in a row, the Lakers did not have an answer for Aaron Brooks. For the second time in those three games, the Rockets found a way to use that to our advantage. Brooks had 26 points, got to any spot on the floor at will and pushed Derek Fisher one step closer to finally giving up and retiring.
-The Rockets attacked the Lakers early and the Lakers collapsed. Sure, they made a half-hearted run in the third quarter, but for most of the game the Rockets did whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. We played with more intensity and aggression, and we all know what the Lakers do when teams play them tough. They lose, in case you didn't
-Odom, Bynum and Gasol were outplayed. The rest of the the Lakers bench (besides Farmar) played poorly. Derek Fisher just played. All of these combined turned the Lakers into the Stand Around and Watch Kobe-ers, and with Kobe having an off night, that wasn't going to cut it. Not against the Rockets.
The Point
Another game, another win, another one-sided fight. And we fough. All night long. Because that's what we do. Because that's who we are. A bunch of fighters. A bunch of scrappers. A bunch of tooth and nail, never-give-an-inch players who will take every punch and throw one right back. A bunch of guys who are just too stubborn to understand that this series is supposed to be over and that the Lakers are supposed to be waiting for the next round to start. For at least one more game, a bunch of winners. It defies all logic, and that's what makes it so beautiful. Nobody understands how the Rockets can ever be better than the Lakers when then Lakers are, for lack of any other way of saying it, much, much better than the Rockets. We try to analyze the games, the reasons we keep winning, what the Lakers could possibly be doing wrong and we all arrive at the same conclusion. It just doesn't make sense. And that's when you get to the point where all you can do is look at this team, throw your hands up in confusion and smile. The point at which you sit back, enjoy the ride and hope that it never ends. The point I've reached with the Rockets.
5/13/2009
Game 5 Recap: Floored
There are some losses that should be talked about. There are some losses that can even help a team. You analyze them, see what you did wrong, make the necessary adjustments and come out better than before. Game 5 was not one of them. Game 5 was what happens when a more talented team that has underachieved for the length of the series plays up to their potential against a team that has been exceeding expectations for the better part of a year and finally slips up. The result was a massacre. A brutal, embarrassing, ruthless slaughter of the Houston Rockets at the hands of the Lakers. And quite frankly, I don't want to talk about it. To put it simply, the Lakers played the way people have wanted them to play all year, and the Rockets played the way our talent says we should. All year we have done more with less, and Tuesday night in Los Angeles we just couldn't keep it up. This is not a knock on the Rockets. We have done more than anyone not living in Houston even dreamed we could, and I'm proud that we were able to maintain it for so long. But the fact of the matter is, if you take the best two players of any team in the NBA they are going to suffer. It may not be immediately, but at some point in time, the team is going to struggle. Take Kobe and Gasol off the Lakers, they don't make the playoffs. Remove Pierce and Garnett from the Celtics, they lose to the Bulls in the first round. Take Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups off the Nuggets and you have another lottery-bound team. Take Lebron and his chalk off the Cavaliers and they probably don't even win 20 games. The point I'm trying to make here is that as Rockets fans, we should have seen this coming. Don't let Billy or anyone else tell you otherwise. A game like this was to be expected. When you don't have a go to player on offense, there will be nights when you struggle to score. When you play a ticked off, almost-unfairly talented team on that same night, 118-78 happens.
And I know it may not seem like it, but nothing in my recent memory has hurt more than typing that score, than watching that game. Nothing is more painful than watching your team get the life sucked out of it and hardly putting up a fight, but not because they don't want to, because they just can't. The Rockets as a team were dead by the end of the second quarter on Tuesday night. The effort and energy we put into each minute of every game finally caught up to us, and it was evident from the way we played. What resulted was something that I'm going to remember for a long, long time. It takes a lot for a game to make me feel the way I did after Game 7 of the first round of the 2006 playoffs, but Game 5 was able to take me back there. Seeing my team get beaten senseless, its face shoved into the dirt repeatedly with its opponent only stopping to gloat was able to take me back to that abyss, that continuous blackness, that feeling of sickness, hopelessness and utter depression all rolled into one, and I hated every moment of it. But deep down, I knew that I should have seen this coming. Which is why I have nothing to say about Tuesday night. I've said before on this very blog that no matter what happens from now until the end of the postseason, I'm proud of the Rockets for all we've been able to do with seemingly every break (a bad pun, I know) going against us. And that's not just this year, but last year. And the year before. And not the year before that, because we admittedly choked away the Dallas series, (with the help of some poor, poor refereeing. Enjoy your prison cell Donaghy) but the year before that as well.
But the point of all of this is that I'm not going to talk about what happened last night. I'm going to focus on another game against the same team tomorrow night, when we get another shot and the golden boys (get it? it's funny beacuse they actually wear gold) of the NBA. Tthat's the beauty of the playoffs. You're down one second and given new life in the next. And that's exactly how it should be. But back on topic, the question on our hands is a simple one: what do we do now? Do we lie down, admit that the Lakers are the better team and let them finish the series at the Toyota Center on Thursday? Or do we pull together for one last run, one last, confusing, logic-defying victory over a more talented, better coached, and honestly, luckier team? Knowing these Rockets, I believe it's going to be the latter. Now, more than ever, we need to feed off the doubts. The whispers, the "I told you so's," the previews of a Lakers-Nuggets Conference Finals. I don't care what happens in Game 7 if and when it happens, all I'm asking for is another "upset" tomorrow night. If for nothing else, just because I don't want to go back to that dark place in the back of my head just yet. For at least one more night, I want to feel the pride I get when our undersized, undermanned, under-respected, (I think I just made up a word) team beats a team it should have no business even having a close game with. And I know I'm not going to be saying this once we actually get there, but right now, screw Game 7. I just want to win Game 6. And by doing so, move on past Game 5. I don't want to think about what happened last night, I want to hope for what's going to happen tomorrow night. I want to Beat LA, even if it's for the last time this year. And I know I say this a lot, but I promise that I can't remember a time when I've felt it more than I do right now. Go Rockets.
And I know it may not seem like it, but nothing in my recent memory has hurt more than typing that score, than watching that game. Nothing is more painful than watching your team get the life sucked out of it and hardly putting up a fight, but not because they don't want to, because they just can't. The Rockets as a team were dead by the end of the second quarter on Tuesday night. The effort and energy we put into each minute of every game finally caught up to us, and it was evident from the way we played. What resulted was something that I'm going to remember for a long, long time. It takes a lot for a game to make me feel the way I did after Game 7 of the first round of the 2006 playoffs, but Game 5 was able to take me back there. Seeing my team get beaten senseless, its face shoved into the dirt repeatedly with its opponent only stopping to gloat was able to take me back to that abyss, that continuous blackness, that feeling of sickness, hopelessness and utter depression all rolled into one, and I hated every moment of it. But deep down, I knew that I should have seen this coming. Which is why I have nothing to say about Tuesday night. I've said before on this very blog that no matter what happens from now until the end of the postseason, I'm proud of the Rockets for all we've been able to do with seemingly every break (a bad pun, I know) going against us. And that's not just this year, but last year. And the year before. And not the year before that, because we admittedly choked away the Dallas series, (with the help of some poor, poor refereeing. Enjoy your prison cell Donaghy) but the year before that as well.
But the point of all of this is that I'm not going to talk about what happened last night. I'm going to focus on another game against the same team tomorrow night, when we get another shot and the golden boys (get it? it's funny beacuse they actually wear gold) of the NBA. Tthat's the beauty of the playoffs. You're down one second and given new life in the next. And that's exactly how it should be. But back on topic, the question on our hands is a simple one: what do we do now? Do we lie down, admit that the Lakers are the better team and let them finish the series at the Toyota Center on Thursday? Or do we pull together for one last run, one last, confusing, logic-defying victory over a more talented, better coached, and honestly, luckier team? Knowing these Rockets, I believe it's going to be the latter. Now, more than ever, we need to feed off the doubts. The whispers, the "I told you so's," the previews of a Lakers-Nuggets Conference Finals. I don't care what happens in Game 7 if and when it happens, all I'm asking for is another "upset" tomorrow night. If for nothing else, just because I don't want to go back to that dark place in the back of my head just yet. For at least one more night, I want to feel the pride I get when our undersized, undermanned, under-respected, (I think I just made up a word) team beats a team it should have no business even having a close game with. And I know I'm not going to be saying this once we actually get there, but right now, screw Game 7. I just want to win Game 6. And by doing so, move on past Game 5. I don't want to think about what happened last night, I want to hope for what's going to happen tomorrow night. I want to Beat LA, even if it's for the last time this year. And I know I say this a lot, but I promise that I can't remember a time when I've felt it more than I do right now. Go Rockets.
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