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.

Game 4 Preview: Hoping Against Hope

By now, any Rockets fan has seen the news. Our talented, hard-working, oft-injured, 7'6" center from Shanghai will be out for the rest of the postseason. In other words, goodbye 2008-2009. I believe we will win tomorrow, but I do not believe we can win this series without Yao Ming. He is the best player on our team, and you don't beat a team that might have beat you healthy without the best player on your team. Yeah it sucks, but then again so does losing in the Finals, and you don' t see the Lakers bitching about not having their starting center last year. Wait..scratch that. Let the bitching begin. But like it or not, we have a game to play tomorrow. And that means we have a game to preview.

The Good

-For the second time in three games, Kobe Bryant had a poor shooting night against the Rockets. I have to attribute this to Battier and his pesky, relentless, Kobe-manual-reading defense. I don't see why this won't continue.

-We actually match up better against the Lakers without Yao. I am not saying we are better without him, far from it, I'm just saying that Pau has been playing Yao very well during the series, doing a much better job of poking the ball away from him and fronting him than I've seen from him before. On defense we also might end up putting Scola on Pau, which is a much better matchup for him than Odom or Ariza. Also, they could end up treating us to the greatest Spanish trash-talking matchup ever. How Scola's hair does against Pau's Pubic-Beard is key for us tomorrow.

-Derek Fisher is back. If we are to have a chance tomorrow, Aaron Brooks has to use his quickness to score, get in the paint, and wreak general havoc on the Lakers defense. That'll be a lot easier if Derek Fisher's Repuation As A Good Player is guarding him.

The Bad

-Yao Ming isn't playing. There's nothing to really say here, we know what he does for our team. Losing his 20-10 is going to hurt. Losing our 9,000 fans who watch basketball just for him is probably going to hurt just as much. So will losing his agonized facial expressions that I've grown to love. Nobody can make sitting on a bench look as painful as Yao can. Not only does losing Yao ruin this series for us, it ruins it for the rest of the league, the fans, and the Lakers. Beating us without our best player is not the same as beating us when we're at healthy, and you can bet your subscription to O, The Oprah Magazine that they wanted to beat us with our full team.

-The Lakers are still the best offensive team in the NBA. They actually played a pretty sub-par game against us Friday, with their two best players shooting a combined 15-39. Stopping them is going to be even harder without 7 and a half feet of China's hopes and dreams in the paint to contest their shots.

-Our offense has a tendency to stagnate, and without Yao we are going to be more prone to that. We can't let it turn into the Ron Artest show, and ball movement and smart decisions are going to be more important than ever tomorrow.

The Ugly

Vanessa Bryant. Not that she's ugly. She's actually far from it. I just want to remind everyone that Kobe cheated on this woman. Look at her, read that last sentence again, smile.









What Has To Happen

For the Rockets to win Game 4 we are going to have to do what we have done all year long, except we're going to have to do it better and without our best player.

First and foremost, the Rockets need to defend with intensity and hustle. No letting players get open looks like in Game 3, every shot needs to be contested for us to have a chance. Despite their best efforts to convince themselves otherwise in Game 3, Ariza, Farmar, Walton, and Odom are not three point shooters and we can't allow them to look like they are. A simple hand in their face will help with that.

We have to continue to out-rebound the Lakers. This is obviously easier said than done after losing Yao, but we still have to find a way to do it. Rebounding is going to have to be a more of a team effort. Every time a shot goes up, all five players on the floor for the Rockets have to box a man out. Landry, Scola, and Hayes are going to have to work especially hard tomorrow afternoon. Not that bringing the effort is ever a problem for these guys.

The bench has to step up. With Landry most likely becoming a starter, Lowry, Wafer, and Hayes are going to have to out-produce the Lakers' bench. Say what you want about their names, but Sasha, Shannon, and the rest of the girls can actually play some pretty good basketball. This seems like a good time to bring up that when asked about the craziest thing that ever happened to him as a basketball player, Sasha Vujacic recalled a time when a girl asked him to sign her panties. I don't really know how that affects Game 4 at all, I just think it's something you should hear. Anyways, the Rockets' bench has to outperform the Lakers', which is only made tougher by Jordan Farmar remembering that he is, in fact, and NBA player sometime during Game 3.

The offense has to work. Think of this game as a married couple's desperate attempt at having a child, with the Rockets' offense being the male's go-to guy. It doesn't have to work well, it just needs to function long enough to get the job done. I don't care how ugly and unsatisfactory it might be, the Rockets offense has to perform. Artest has to stay within the offense and take smart shots, which he has done a decent job of all series long. Battier needs to get more shots, and Wafer simply cannot go 2-10 again.

The Point

So here we are, punching just to have a puncher's chance. The Rockets have played through injuries all year, and we're going to have to do it again tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be hard, but so is everything else worth having right? Rudy Tomjonavich once told us to "never underestimate the heart of a champion," and the Rockets have proven his words time and again this year. We have played with heart and determination all season long and I expect us to play every second like it's our last tomorrow. Of course, I'd have a 7'6" heart with phenomenal basketball skills and footwork, but we have to work with what we have. We are going to have to play as a team tomorrow to win as a team, and luckily for us, that's what we do best. We can't control that the basketball gods seem to have a passion for kicking us in the shins, but we can control how much effort we put in tomorrow. Tomorrow, we play for pride, we play for the fans, we play for the chance to let Kobe know that the NBA Championship isn't just going to be handed to him. Just like that girl in Colorado wasn't handed to him. Uncalled for, I know, but I'm bitter and it made me feel better. Sexual assualt cases aside, tomorrow, more than anything else, we play for our franchise player, the man who led us out of the first round for the first time since 1998, the best center to put on a Rockets jersey since that guy we called The Dream. He fought through a knee collision that would have ended T-Mac's career in Game 1 and through a hairline fracture in Game 3 for us. I hate to sound sentimental, but tomorrow afternoon we're fighting for him. Go Rockets.