Game 7 Preview: Give 'Em Hell

That's all I'm ask of the Rockets tomorrow afternoon. Expecting a win might be pushing it and I am not going to risk tempting fate, so I'll settle for one simple request: give them a fight. A drawn out, exhausting, grind-it-out fight. Make them understand that we're not going to just go away. Let them know that we haven't gone through all kinds of bullshit, because that's the only way to describe what we've been through this year, so that we could fall flat on our faces against them. Show them that not everyone is going to politely step out of their way and watch while the NBA hands them the championship. Hit them first, hit them hard, and hit them again. And again. And again and again and again. And if they're able to take our best shot and move on, they deserve. If not, and we've seen that they can't, well have something special to talk about come Monday. With that out of the way, the most important Rockets game of the century is Sunday afternoon.

The Good

-The Rockets are confident. After a game like Game 5, that is huge. You can't let the memory something like that linger, and winning Game 6 took care of that for us. Now, we know that we can beat the Lakers, and we know that we can beat them at home. And we know that if Derek Fisher had played in Game 3 there's a good chance that this series would already be over.

-The Lakers are finally starting to doubt themselves. Even after blowing out the Rockets by 40 they found a way to lose by double digits two nights later. They're starting to understand that the Rockets are beating them because we are a good team, not because they are choosing not to try on certain nights, and it's starting to show. During a timeout in Game 6 Kobe grabbed Gasol's head and ruffled his hair while pushing his head down at the same time. I know what you're thinking: "That would never happen! I just watched 'Kobe Doin' Work' and he seems like a wonderful teammate. A real quality human being. He would never do something like that!" No. Not at all. Spike Lee just wants Kobe to Spike his Lee.

-We have nothing to lose. If we lose the game, we still won more games than anyone thought we would. We still already got out of the first round of the playoffs. We still showed the world how much of a little girl Kobe Bryant is. We can play freely, and that's always a good thing. The Lakers, on the other hand, are on the verge of crumbling under the weight of their own expectations, the expectations of the rest of the world and the fear the Kobe is going to put a brown bag over his head, go on a killing spree throught downtown Los Angeles and then kidnap Sasha Vujacic, leading to a King-Kong like showdown in which Kobe dangles Sasha off the roof of Staples Center while screaming at police to "Do it. Just do it." When you're playing a team that nobody expects you to lose to but that has already beaten you three times in the past two weeks, you're setting yourself up for trouble.

The Bad

-Joey Crawford is the head referee for game 7. Yes, the same Joey Crawford who asked Tim Duncan, Tim "I love everyone in the whole wide world" Duncan, if he wanted to fight. In other words, the NBA just told the entire greater Houston area to light itself on fire.

-The last time we played the Lakers in Los Angeles, we lost by 40. And even though it's not going to happen in Game 7, the point is that they were able to do it once, which means that they have the potential to do it again.

-Kobe Bryant is going to be mad. Which is bad for us, his teammates, and any unsuspecting girl within 3 miles of Los Angeles. This doesn't need any further explanation, we all know what Kobe can do. Let's just hope he doesn't do it.

The Ugly







Any game that has the possibility of making Yao this sad is a game I don't want to see




What Has To Happen

-Scola and Landry need to show up. Not just one of them, not just the other. Both of them need to play like they did in Game 6 for the Rockets to win. In a related sidenote, a nickname for Landry and Scola is in order. I tried to think of a few but I kept going back to "Two Forwards One Trophy," and that was disgusting.

-Ron Artest needs to realize that the Rockets are a better team when he's actually, you know, being a part of the team. And that means not dribbling the ball for 11 seconds and then taking a shot that actually could only be harder if he was trying to make the face that Yao is making above while shooting the ball.

-Aaron Brooks has to be aggressive. Like it or not, he's the best offensive player on our team when he's going. Yes, the best scorer on the Rockets is a 5-11, 160 pound, second year player who wears red suits and bowties to postgame press conferences. Things like this are why even playing in a Game 7 against the Lakers is an accomplishment.

The Point

This is it. A season's worth of injuries, trials, and unexpected wins comes down to one final game in Los Angeles. I know I said I don't care about whether or not we win another game after Game 4, but I lied. I want to win this game. Not just because I love the Rockets, not just because I never want to see Kobe Bryant win another NBA Championship, but because of how special it would be if the Rockets won Game 7. The Rockets and Lakers are mirror images of each other. For everything that's wrong with them, something is right with us. We suffer through injuries and losses every year while they get Pau Gasol handed to them halfway through the season. We play hard every single night in order to have a chance at winning, they coast through half of their games and take their talent for granted. Our fans actually know who's on our team, the fans at Staples Center wonder why stuff like this keeps happening. Our point guards are real NBA players, they have Derek Fisher and Frodo. What I'm trying to say is that I want to win Game 7 because we deserve it. Because if there's one team that should beat the Lakers, it's us. Because after going through the usual injuries and surgeries, we decided not to just let our season die. Because we kept fighting when, in all honesty, we should have stopped. Which is why, before the usual two, I've got three words for you. Give them hell. And of course, right now more than ever before: Go Rockets.

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.

Game 6 Preview: Nothing

Nothing needs to be said about this game. We all know the implications. We all know what's on the line. We all know how much this means to the Lakers, and we know how much more it means to us. We all understand what winning this game, and, unfortunately, what losing it would mean. We all understand what everyone thinks our chances are, we also understand that our actual chances are much better than that. We all want to win tonight. We all want to play one more game. We all want this miraculous, odds-defying, counterintuitive, sometimes even confusing and undeniably special run to continue. And that alone is saying enough about Game 6. But we have a few hours until 8:30, so I'm going to say more. A lot more. A hell of a lot more. Because we have a game tonight. Which also means we have a game to preview. To rephrase. We have an elimination game to preview.

The Good

-It can't get much worse than it did on Tuesday night. It might come close. In fact, it might get pretty damn close, but it won't be worse. And that's always something to take solace in. Because if things aren't getting worse, that usually means they're getting better. We will not have another performance like that on the defensive end. Our defense on Tueday night had more holes than Magic Johnson has white blood cells. Which isn't really saying much, but still. And yes, that was another HIV joke. Our offense, as problematic as it is, will improve. Even though we have our fair share of struggles scoring the ball, we'll shoot better than 5-29 from three, which should automatically improve our scoring.

-We're at home. Which, despite what you say about the Staples Center crowd, (they're dead, it's like there's nobody even at the game, I don't think they actually want to be here but it's an easy way to get on TV, Jack Nicholson has looked over at that 25 year old woman for the third time in 2 minutes and it's starting to make me uncomfortable, things like that) playing at home is always better than playing on the road. Playing at home means it's easier to work up that frantic energy that we are going to need to beat the Lakers, and that's a plus.

-The Lakers still have no answer for Aaron Brooks. He had a tougher time on Tuesday because of Gasol and Bynum clogging the lane, but in the second half he looked more like his usual, speedy, wind-up car self. The Lakers, and every other NBA team for that matter, have nobody quick enough to stay in front of him. When the other team has nobody that can guard you, that's usually a good thing for your team. What's not good for your team is when you decide to tell the oher team that they can't guard you again and again and again and again. I'm talking to you here Kobe. Enough with the "You can't stop me" stuff with Shane. We know you're good, but you also have the most unfairly talented team in the NBA behind you and are still struggling to beat a depleted, significantly less-gifted Rockets team.

-The worst, worst, worst case scenario is that we lose tonight. Which, like anything else, has a good side to it. Losing means less of Odom's nose, less of Vujacic's hair, less of the massive Pubic-Hair Beard/Fungus known as Pau Gasol (which I've actually come to enjoy), less of Andrew Bynum's towel waving (I can still make fun of him all I want. All he did in Game 5 was realize that since he is an NBA player who also happens to be taller than everyone else on the court, he should actually have a positive impact on the game) and less of Sasha and Shannon's Fellowship of Female Athletes, also known as the Lakers' bench. And no more Lakers means no more Kobe. Which means the female population of Houston can stop holding their collective breath. In case this needs clarifying, that was a reference to his sexual assualt case. As you can see, I'm pulling out all the stops tonight. It might be another five months before I can make these jokes again.

Side note: This has nothing to do with anything, but that new Jack in the Box commercial just came on. It's the commercial in which the guy asks for 99 tacos for two cents, and I have one question: is there any way this guy isn't a stoner? He sees a little pixie-version of Jack who he talks to, laughs like he's been hit in the head with an elbow from Kobe, and can't read the damn sign in the drive-through line. Which makes you wonder if Jack in the Box really had no other good ideas for a commercial besides a clip of a man in a car pretending to be under the influence that probably took 15 minutes to write, direct, film, produce and whatever the hell else they do to movies. But that's neither here nor there, so I'll stop now.

The Bad

-In case anyone needs to review, we lost by 40 the last time we played these guys. Which means that on some nights, they can be a lot better than us. A whole lot better than us. They dismantled us once, which means there's the chance they can do it again. In other words, the Lakers are still a very, very dangerous basketball team.

-Who knows what kind of psychological effects Game 5 had on the Rockets. I'm mentally scarred myself and all I did was watch the game, so I don't even want to think about how the players feel. Losing like that can be deflating. It can be will-breaking. In can be spirit-crushing. It can be a lot other things that involve some combination of a synonym for hope, a dash, and synonym for destroying.

-Ron Artest has had two "Hey, Yao, Mcgrady and I are the three best players on this team. Mcgrady is out, and now Yao is out. Which means...I'm the best player we have left?" games in a row, which is a bad sign. He needs to understand that we need him to play within the offense and maintain the flow of the game for us to have a chance.

-There's a small chance that Brian Cook might actually touch the floor. Which should never be possible in an NBA basketball game. Unless DJ Mbenga is also playing.

The Ugly

A battle between DJ Mbenga's (L) and Brian Cook's (R) ears would be a treat for NBA fans all over the world, but punishment for anyone with vision. Things just keep getting better and better for those damn blind people.

What Has to Happen

-This may seem like I'm taking the easy way out, but the Rockets' offense needs to show up. As I've said on multiple occasions before, our offense is our "go-to-guy" in the attempt at pregnancy that is a basketball game. So the Little Rocket (I like this one) needs to come up big.

-Aaron Brooks needs to be on fire from the beginning. And Luis Scola needs to play like he played from November-April, not like he has in the playoffs. Brooks needs to continue to get in the paint and run circles around the Lakers' big men and Scola needs to start shooting his midrange jumper before I start to shoot it for him. I'm not sure what that threat exactly meant, but it sounded manly and I just went with it. But for us to have a shot tonight, both Scola and Brooks need to have big games.

-The energy that has become as much a part of the Rockets' game as anything has to be present from the very beginning. Somehow, some way, the Rockets need to get motivated for Game 6, and that means forgetting about Game 5. In order for us to play our best tonight, we are going to have to move past Tuesday night. Once we get it out of our heads, we should be able to play the hustling, disrupting, frustrating defense that we're used to playing, and that effort should carry over to the offensive end.


The Point

We win tonight, we get another chance. We lose, our offseason begins. It doesn't get any simpler than that. And if nothing else, I want the Rockets to win so that I don't have to sit around for another month watching other teams play basketball. But there's plenty else. For starters, I really don't like the Lakers. If they're going to win, I want us to make sure we make it as hard as we can on them. And of course, I really, really like the Rockets. More than I dislike the Lakers. And even though it happens for 29 out of the NBA's 30 teams, watching your season end on a loss is always painful. You dwell on it, wonder what could have changed, and in our case, wonder why injuries always strike us at the worst possible time. And I would like to postpone that feeling for as long as I possibly can. On a lighter note, nothing is more exciting than an underdog beating a heavy favorite multiple times. If it happens once, it's a wake up call for the favorite. If it happens twice, the favorite has some concentration issues. If it happens three times, maybe the underdog isn't as much of an underdog as we all thought. I want nothing more than for us to push the Lakers one more time, to make them question their team, coaching, and heart once again. To leave the rest of the world asking each other what the hell just happened. To make me proud to love this team, even if it's for the last time this year. Now that that's all out of the way, I'll leave you with this. It's not much. It's actually just two words. But those two words can be oh-so powerful when you realize how much thought, emotion, influence, and meaning they have. When you realize that 18,000 people are going to be saying those words with you tonight. When you realize that deep down, there's no better, simpler way to explain how you feel. You probably already know what those two words are, which means you probably already know that I'm going to say them anyway. Go Rockets

Game 5 Preview: Still Punching

And swinging. And hitting. And kicking and scratching and scrapping and and any other verb you can think of that means putting up one hell of a fight. Except elbowing. We don't elbow. We leave that to number 24. But the point is, the reason we've won two games in this series is because we have put in more effort in both of those games, and that's exactly what we're going to have to do tonight. The Lakers aren't going to play another game like they did in Game 4. Call it overconfidence, call it being poorly prepared, call it a bunch of overpaid athletes with a strong sense of self-entitlement coming out and playing like the game would just be given to them getting their asses kicked by a harder working team, but the Lakers are not going to play worse than they did on Sunday. Which most likely means we're going to have to play even better. With that in mind, we've got a big game to preview. A huge game really. Maybe even Yao-sized.

The Good

-Andrew Bynum does not look anywhere near fully healthy. When Yao went down I was worried that the Lakers would just pound the ball inside to Bynum and let him go to work. The good news is that Bynum's knee is in worse shape than Magic Johnson's immune system (yes, that was an AIDS joke). What does that mean? It means that we're not going to lose this series by the Lakers out-sizing us in the paint.

-Lamar Odom should miss Game 5. He hasn't really dominated in this series, but he's a big part of the Lakers' offense and can be very dangerous when he's at his versatile, involved best. When he's not interested he's deader than Derek Fisher, but he's still always a threat. Not having him should help our chances. On the other hand, this will probably lead to more shots of him and his massive nose on the bench. That's 3-0 in favor of those damn blind people.

-Ron Artest will not have another 4-19 night. It's as simple as that. Sure, he might go 6-19 or 7-19, but not 4-19. Call it confidence, call it blind faith, call it stupidity as a Rockets fan, but I refuse to believe that he will shoot that poorly again in this series.

The Bad

-The Lakers have Kobe Bryant. And in case anyone needs reminding, that is bad. Very, very bad. The only thing worse than Kobe Bryant is an angry Kobe Bryant, and that's what we're going to see tonight.

-There's always the chance that Phil Jackson decides to play someone with an actual heartbeat at point guard and give minutes to Shannon Brown. He was great in Game 4, and even though he mostly played in garbage time, having him running the offense is one hell of an upgrade over Dead Fish. That's Derek Fisher by the way. As for the movie, I've never seen it. I googled Dead Fish and that was the first result that came up.

-Once Pau Gasol realized that he is actually 6 inches taller than Chuck Hayes, he started to play him face up a little more. This could hurt the Rockets in Game 5 because if the Lakers start to use their size to their advantage, there's nothing we can really do about it. I know what you're about to ask: If the Lakers actually start using one of their obvious advantages that also happens to be one of our biggest weaknesses, it would help them? Really? I know, it's a novel idea. Someone call Phil Jackson.

-The Lakers are going to come out focused and aggressive. As Boston and Cleveland both know after losing both of of their meetings with the Lakers, when this team is playing hard they are very, very difficult to beat. The Rockets most likely aren't going to be able to open up another big lead early, so execution will be critical down the stretch.

The Ugly




Lamar Odom (M), and his nose that only a plane landing on it could love.





What Has To Happen

-The Rockets have to show up. For us to have a shot at this series, every single player on the team has to come to play every night. That means Ron Artest needs to play like he did in Games 1-3, which means operating within the offense and taking smart shots. Scola needs to step up and start taking his 20 foot jumper. Brooks has to have another game of zipping around, nailing shots and creating general confusion in the Lakers' defense. Rick Adelman needs to actually call a play once in a while. Aside from that last part, which was mainly just wishful thinking, all of these things can and have to happen for us to win Game 5.

-Battier has to defend Kobe. Not that this needs to be said, but I'll say it anyways. Kobe Bryant looked pissed off after Game 4. And I don't mean reglular, "I'm going to be a jerk to everyone because I'm Kobe Bryant" pissed off. I mean "I am going to put up 48 shots and take out that midget with an elbow to the head the next time we play these guys" pissed off. And that's bad. Which is why Battier has to come out ready to defend on every single possession. Not that he doesn't already. He'll come out feet shuffling, hands moving, and manual manualing. Not that manualing is a verb. I just wanted a way to bring up that book of his again.

-The Rockets need to come out with the same energy and attitude they played with in Game 4. The Rockets started Game 4 as the clear underdogs and that turned out to be a good thing for us. We played free, loose basketball and acted as though we had nothing to lose. Which was true. We also came out and played confidently, like we knew we could beat the Lakers. Which also was true. Now that there is a little more attention being paid to the other 11, non-Asian, non 7'6" members of the Rockets that carefree mindset might be a little harder to find in Game 5, but it's still vital if the Rockets want to get another win at Staples Center.

-I hate to repeat myself, but the Rockets' offense needs to work. When it works, we win (see Games 1 and 2). When it doesn't we don't. It's as simple as that. So don't stop whatever got Mr. Magic Marker up in Game 4. It seemed to work well.

-The Rockets bench needs to outperform the Lakers bench. If the Sasha-Shannon All-Girl Extravaganza outplays Landry, Lowry, Wafer and the rest of the lot, the Rockets could be facing some problems. The bench needs to bring the energy and up-tempo game it always does. On a related note, doesn't Sasha Vujacic seem like the type of guy who would name his "Big Man in the Paint?" If he actually did, I think its name would be one of these three gems: The Little Machine, The Slovenian Sharpshooter, Kobe, or my personal favorite, Sasha's Vujacic.

The Point

The Rockets have outplayed the Lakers through heart and determination in their two series wins, and that's what it's going to take to get another one. We cannot beat them on talent alone, and if the effort isn't there for a full 48 minutes, we are going to lose. Hopefully we can continue to do what we've done all year long, which is play hard and prove the doubters wrong. And no matter what happens in the next 2-3 games, I'm proud of these guys. If I ever have kids, when I take them to their first Rockets game, I'm going to have some stories to tell. First, I'll tell them about Hakeem and the championship runs that I was born just too late to understand. But right after that, I'm going to bring up this team. This team that lost it's best player last year and it's two best players this year, yet keeps on going. This team that makes me understand why people watch sports. Because despite all of the steriods, poor officiating, controversies and other problems (in other words, the bullshit we deal with daily as sports fans), something happens to make it all worthwhile. And that something is the Rockets. Last year, we lost our best player and went on to have the second-longest winning streak in NBA history. This year, we lost our best player once again in the playoffs after losing our second-best player earlier on in nthe year, and what did we do? We went out and won. And that's why, no matter what happens tonight, Thursday, and possibly Saturday night, I'm proud of this team. That being said, let's not stop the punching after it's gotten this far. Go Rockets.