The Houston Rockets Thread

[kevC]

Beat the Hawks to go 2-2. Right on pace to go 33-33 and get the 9th seed and the 14th pick three years in a row! Yay!

[Stress Fracture]

You don't want the Rockets to enter the playoffs?

[Andrew]

I'd suggest there was a hint of sarcasm in that post.

[Stress Fracture]

I'd guess so.

[Andrew]

On a more upbeat note, a career high 18 assists for Kyle Lowry and a rather nice block:

phpBB [video]

Not too shabby.

[Axel The Great]

Had to give up all of his scoring to get those 18 assists though, he only had 2 points. But hey, a win is a win, and it's a good one especially since my man K-Mart seems to have shaken off that terrible start at Orlando.

[shadowgrin]

Fuck you Kyle Lowry.

Houston Rockets guard Kyle Lowry is facing a misdemeanor battery charge amid accusations that he threw a basketball at a referee and threatened her during a game at a Las Vegas training gym.

Police say that when the game ended, he threw a ball at her torso and cursed at her for calls he didn't agree with.

Robinson later was hit in the shoulder by another basketball in an area designated for officials. She said the ball hit her with such force that it pushed her body back in the chair where she was sitting, and said it likely would have broken her nose had she not been bent over changing her shoe.

The report says Corey Maggette of the Charlotte Bobcats approached her afterward and apologized on behalf of Lowry. She told police Lowry also approached her, saying "I truly apologize for what I did. I let my emotions get the best of me."

[Andrew]

So that's what Violet Palmer's doing now.

In all seriousness, not cool. You just don't do that, no matter whether the referee is a man or a woman.

[Axel The Great]

Excellent OT win against Portland yesterday. Good game from Martin but even better from Kyle Lowry, he had a near triple-double.

[kibaxx7]

Lowry is my candidate for MIP right now. Only 3 more minutes than last season and better in almost every stat.

[Stress Fracture]

Rockets won their 5th straight game.

[rise]

Lowry is my candidate for MIP right now. Only 3 more minutes than last season and better in almost every stat.

Absolutely, the guy has been a nightly triple-double threat this season.

[Axel The Great]

Avatar justified. Lowry has easily been the Rockets' best player this year. Great all-around numbers so far, only thing I think should be fixed is the turnover numbers, but it's not like they're completely terrible. If he keeps up those all-around numbers, it wouldn't surprise me to see him become the franchise player sooner or later. We really need one.

I am also liking how Dalembert has played so far. Shooting 60% from the field to this point.

[Stress Fracture]

Lowry for All-Star!

[Axel The Great]

Great win against the Thunder, definitely a must have seeing as that's probably the only time we'll beat 'em this season. It's good to see Kevin Martin pick things up again after having two-point games recently.

Anyways, I got tickets to see the Rockets tonight against the T-Wolves. Very excited.

[Stress Fracture]

You must be a jinx. The T'Wolves won. JK

[Axel The Great]

They lost by double-digits at that, but that score doesn't give justice to how the Rockets played. They went down by as many as 17 in the third, but in the fourth they chipped it down to one because they got hot from three. If it weren't for back-to-back threes from Kevin Love (oh yeah, and Nikola Pekovic's 30-12 game ), we would have easily taken the lead, but those threes were the daggers cause Minnesota just cruised to victory there. I thought I would never have to admit this, but Minnesota just seems to be a better team than the Rockets this year, easily winning the season series 3-1.

But still, it was a positive experience, and we had pretty good seats; 14th row from the bottom.

[rise]

K-Mart's struggling and is unhappy with his playing time. What's next?

[deihatein]

Trade him to the Mavs for Lamar Odom

[Axel The Great]

No.

I've only watched two whole Rockets games this year (thanks to a busy schedule and lack of league pass), and from what I've seen, Kevin McHale doesn't have a set rotation. He favors players who have the hot hand, and those are the ones who see playing time in the fourth quarter, which is why the bench sees a ton of minutes. So logically, Kevin Martin's playing time suffers because he's been streaky this year.

In the game against Portland a couple of weeks ago, the bench was on fire, and they even led Portland by about 19 at one point. All was going well, but the problem is that the Rockets bench is young (Patterson, Hill, Lee, Dragic), and so if they cool off, like they did in the second half of that game, we have a problem. The fourth quarter had me restless as Portland even came back to tie the game if I remember correctly. And there's your problem. Young players don't know how to close out games and that's where McHale's hot hand rotation can fail. If he played veterans like Scola and Martin in tight game situations like that, despite not having the hot hand, the team would have better control of the lead since they know what it's like to close out games. Either way, what matters is the Rockets won that game, and you're not gonna hold on to every big lead all the time, that's for sure.

Things are working pretty well for the Rockets so far; I think most people here predicted them out of the playoffs and yet here they are battling amongst the best in the West and in sixth place. The addition of Dalembert has been big thus far, and the emergence of Lowry was definitely necessary. It also helps to have one of the best benches in the league.

[Lamrock]

I still think Houston will finish ninth. They lose that close Portland game, and they're in a 4-way tie for 6th-9th. That tiebreaker against Portland will prove extremely useful, but I don't see the Blazers missing the post-season altogether given their talent level and point differential this season.

Luis Scola hasn't been very good this season, and I think they're likely to Amnesty him if they miss the playoffs. They have a logjam at the 4 anyway from drafting so many of them. Martin, Lowry and Dalembert are the only veterans worth keeping imo.

[Axel The Great]

You're probably right, but as a true Rockets fan and with the way they've been playing (especially at home), I just can't picture it happening at this point in time. A major injury has to happen (*knock on wood*) to a key player, and Portland, Memphis, and Denver would have to build good win streaks throughout the rest of the season for that to happen. If anything, Memphis is the team that's most likely to miss the playoffs out of those three, thanks to Z-Bo being out.

[rise]

The West really is a free-for-all. The Blazers, Rockets, Grizzlies, Nuggets, Lakers, Wolves, Jazz, even the Warriors will try to fight for the 5-8 playoff seeds. Of these, I'd say the Blazers, Nuggets, Lakers, and Grizzlies (Z-Bo might return soon) make those four seeds, with the Rockets missing out again, but anything could happen. There's only a 3-win difference between the 5th seed Lakers (20-14) and the 10th seed Wolves (17-17), and I wouldn't completely count out any team in the West, except for the Hornets and the Kings.

[benji]

So PHX is my top bottom team along with HOU.

Was that what you wanted to talk about here? Because you didn't make full predictions like everyone else did.

[NovU]

I wanted to discuss more on this tho.

Western Conference
HOU +19