Saturday night the Rockets lost their 7th of seven games when Yao and T-Mac aren’t in the lineup, losing to the Memphis Grizzlies 93-81 at Toyota Center.

Houston trailed 29-17 the first minute into the second quarter, but then outscored the Grizzlies by 10 points in the second quarter to get a 46-46 tie at halftime. I thought maybe the Rockets were in position to upset the 46-33 Grizzlies, currently the 5th seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Stromile Swift was looking great, hitting 4-of-5 field goals in the second quarter alone, and leading all Houston scorers with 10 points at halftime.

But that’s all Stromile would score, attempting only 2 shots (and missing them both) in just five minutes of action in the second half. Not sure why Stro’ didn’t get more playing time after such a great first half.

The Griz’ pulled away as you would expect in the second half, opening up an 18-point lead early in the fourth quarter. It was clear sailing from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yao had surgery on his foot yesterday (Friday).

Here’s a report from the Houston Chronicle:

Rockets center Yao Ming underwent successful surgery on Friday to repair a clean break of the fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot.

“When I spoke with the doctors, I was told that’s how long it takes for a bone to regain its full density,” Dawson said. “I’ll say this. Yao has shown us in the past that he’s a quick healer.”

The Chronicle also had some quotes from Jeff Van Gundy about Yao’s foot:

“I think the bigger concern is he’s had a lot of problems with his left foot, and (big players) with foot problems are a concern,” he said. “He had the ankle surgery on his left foot, the toe surgery on his left foot, now he’s broken it. He broke it earlier when he was 19. So to me that’s the bigger concern and that’s why it’s imperative that he stays in great shape and keeps his weight down throughout his career, to lessen the opportunities to place undue stress on his feet.

“I’m not saying any one (injury) has anything to do with the other. But foot problems on big guys are especially — looking at the history of the NBA — are problematic. You don’t want to turn around one day and be looking at a Bill Walton.”

Speaking of Van Gundy, it looks like Rockets’ owner Les Alexander wants him to return next season. That’s no surprise. However, I do like how Alexander isn’t going to be patting anyone on the back this off-season for a job well done.

“You want me to say to the fans (that) Jeff did a great job this season when we won less than .500? I didn’t do a good job. He didn’t do a good job. We didn’t do a good job. Nobody did a good job. That’s impossible. Last year we won 51. I thought that was a great job. Nobody did a good job this year. That’s my theory.”

Bone-headed moves like trading away Mike James for Rafer Alston and letting go Scott Padgett, one of Houston’s best 3-point shooters, were some of the reasons for the Rockets’ demise this year. The jury is still out on Stromile Swift, but if you remember, he was the most sought-after power forward during the off-season last year, and they got him. So you can’t fault them for that move…yet.

To see the entire article about Alexander’s comments, as well as Van Gundy’s, click here.

I love Ric Bucher’s article about Yao that posted a couple of days ago. You may remember that Ric co-wrote Yao’s book, “A Life in Two Worlds.”

Since the Rockets are out of the playoffs and Yao is hurt, my reports for the remaining four games are probably going to be very short…especially since I’m working some late hours at work, and I haven’t even started my tax return yet!

No surprise that Houston lost its third in a row Wednesday night. What’s sad is that they blew an 18-point lead (their largest blown lead of the season), and lost 82-79 to a Minnesota team that had lost 14 road games in a row.

To read more about the debacle, click here for the Houston Chronicle article on the game.

john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

Worse news than I thought from when Yao broke his foot yesterday. Yao is going to have surgery, and it could take 4-6 months to heal. Click here for more of the story.

The good news is that Yao will get plenty of rest this off-season and not get too worn down from too much training with the Chinese National Team.

The bad news is 4-6 months can be way too much time to not be able to run and keep up one’s conditioning. Hopefully it will only be four months, which means he could start putting more pressure on that foot around August.

Man, who would have thought an injury like this one with such little trauma could sideline somebody that long? I know it has happened to other players before, but it’s amazing this kind of injury doesn’t occur more often with NBA players each season.

by John

MONDAY, 4/10/06 – As shown above, Yao broke his foot in the Rockets game against Utah. He suffered a “Jones fracture,” and is obviously out for the rest of the season. He hurt it on a seemingly innocent play. “I was just fighting for position,” Yao said. “I think (Mehmet) Okur kicked my foot. That happens on the court. I believe he kicked it on the side of my foot.”

I looked it up, and here’s a definition of the injury:

A Jones fracture is a fracture of the fifth metatarsal of the foot. The fifth metatarsal is at the base of the small toe, and the proximal end, where the Jones fracture occurs, is in the midportion of the foot. Patients who sustain a Jones fracture have pain over this middle/outside area of their foot, swelling, and difficulty walking.

Jones fractures can become chronic conditions if the fracture fails to unite. If this is the case, surgery will likely be recommended to secure the fracture in place with a screw.

So Yao is out for the season, which only has four games remaining in it. Not a big deal. We all know he’s great, he doesn’t have much more to prove this season, and this injury should heal nicely during the off-season. In fact, it may not be all that bad since it might keep him from being overworked by the Chinese National Team and let him be more rested for next season.

His stats before exiting early in the game was 5 points, 2 rebounds and 1 block in eight minutes. As depressing as it was to see him leave the game early, the Rockets surprisingly hung in there the rest of the game and almost pulled off a major upset, but they couldn’t execute down the stretch. When the pressure got tough and the game was on the line in the last two minutes, they blew several chances and went scoreless to lose it 85-83.

Although Rafer Alston had a much better game (22 points on 8-of-19 shooting, 4 assists, one turnover) compared to the previous night’s game when he shot 0-for-11 and committed six turnovers, he bungled a golden opportunity that could have given the Rockets the lead with 1:11 remaining. After the Rockets forced a Utah turnover and had a 4-on-2 fast break, Alston was leading the break, but then decided NOT to push it to the basket and instead dished it off to Juwan Howard for a baseline jumper that missed. No guts, no glory!

Deron Williams rebounded the miss, and Chuck Hayes fouled him in frustration, which was a bad move considering the Jazz were in the penalty. Williams went to the line and made 1-of-2 free throws to make it 84-83 Jazz.

Alston came back and put up a tough, running jumper in the lane that missed. Utah missed on the ensuing possession, and the Rockets responded with a Keith Bogans shot in the lane that was blocked by Andrei Kirilenko, but Hayes grabbed the rebound and was fouled. Unfortunately, Hayes, who had a big game and was responsible for helping the Rockets come back in this game, missed both free throws.

Carlos Boozer grabbed Hayes’ second free throw miss and was fouled, sending him to the line. Boozer made the first one and missed the second, which the Rockets rebounded and called timeout with 3.7 seconds remaining trailing 85-83.

The good thing is that the Rockets were going to be able to inbound the ball on their end of the court. With 3.7 seconds remaining, you think that would be enough time to get off a shot in time. So what did Alston do? He took way too much time dribbling the ball and passed off to Howard for another jumper. Howard launched the shot and swished it, but it was obvious that he got the ball too late from Alston, as Howard released it after the game clock expired. Nice going, point guard.

When it was said and done, the Rockets missed four shots and two free throws in the final two minutes and didn’t score a point. That’s not going to cut it.

You have to give a little credit to the Rockets playing hard while Yao was out. They were down 70-61 at the end of the third quarter (it would have been only 67-61 if they hadn’t let Williams dribble the length of the court with 3 seconds remaining in the third quarter and hit a three-pointer at the buzzer).

Hayes really made a name for himself and probably secured an invitation back to training camp next season with the effort he put forth. Although he missed both of those late free throws, he had a great game, scoring 9 points, stealing the ball 3 times, and grabbing 10 boards, many in the heart of the Jazz interior, in only 22 minutes of action! He had one sweet move on defensive extraordinaire Kirilenko that I’ll never forget — posting him up, he did one of those quick spin moves like Yao does toward the baseline, leaving AK47 in his wake shocked, as Hayes laid it in for the easy score.

So I’ll forgive Hayes for the missed free throws with an effort like this one. He isn’t accustomed to pressure situations like that, and he needs to work on his free throw shooting form anyway. Because of this unfortunate experience at the end, and his obviously strong work ethic, you know he’s going to work hard on correcting it.

Now with Yao out, it will be good to see Hayes get more playing time for the final four games of the season.

Although Juwan missed that jumper after getting the late pass from Alston, Juwan had an outstanding game, scoring 25 points on 12-of-20 shooting. As old as Howard is, he’s still valuable enough to keep around if he keeps putting up numbers like those.

Finally, the Rockets’ chances of winning any of their next four games (Minnesota, Memphis, Denver and San Antonio) without Yao and T-Mac are extremely low. According to my estimates, barring any miracles with the ping-pong balls, if they lose these next four games, they could be selecting as high as 8th in the NBA draft, or as low as 13th. That’s a big difference in a draft that’s not all that deep.

john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article about the game, click here.

Yao goes up against Sacramento’s Brad Miller Sunday night. Yao scored 19 points and grabbed 12 boards, but Miller scored 30 and grabbed 11 to help put away the Rockets 86-77.

by John

SUNDAY, 4/9/06 – If there was ever a game that showed how far away the Rockets are from being playoff contenders, this was it. The Sacramento Kings are fighting hard to keep the 7th and final seed of the playoffs, and they toyed with the Rockets like a cat with a ball of string, putting the Rockets away easily in the fourth quarter to win 86-77.

Like many games this year, the Rockets looked like they were on a yo-yo diet in this one. They went long stretches without any food, then went on an eating binge to finally score bunches of points, then went anorexic again.

The Rockets fell behind at the start of the game 16-2, but started playing defense and came back to trail within one point to trail 23-22 with 10:04 remaining in the second quarter after Stromile Swift hit a bank shot and a jump hook from the left baseline. But then Sacramento turned on the jets and went on a 26-9 run to take an 18-point lead, 49-31, with 57 seconds remaining before halftime.

But Houston would rally again and close within 67-65 after a sweet spin move by Yao on the baseline for a dunk, bringing the Rockets bench to their feet with hopes of an upset. Howeer, Sacramento then slapped the Rockets back into their non-playoff place by easily getting offensive rebounds when they needed it, and hitting big shots to hold the Rockets at bay. Mike Bibby was the main assassin, hitting two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter that were daggers.

The Rockets also had too many turnovers, especially in the fourth quarter, which kept their scoring production way too low to overcome a good offensive team like the Kings.

On top of that, the Rockets had to contend with some very poor officiating by the refs. Yao was called for lots of questionable calls, creating so much frustration that he was called for a technical foul after a bogus call for a flopping Bonzi Wells caused Yao to slap the ball down hard on the court.

And of course, the refs were not calling fouls for the Rockets. Yao, an inside player, only went to the line 3 times with the Rockets totaling 11 for the game. On the other hand, the Kings went to the line 30 times! And Brad Miller, mainly a perimeter player, went 10 times to the line by his lonesome!

All around, Miller’s stats were better than Yao’s. Yao got off to a slow start, only hitting 2-of-6 from the field in the first half for 7 points. But he did hit all six of his shots in the second half – including a rare face-to-the-basket 18-footer — to finish with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting. He also grabbed 12 rebounds, but turned the ball over six times.

On the other hand, Miller finished with 30 points on 10-of-18 shooting, including two three-pointers, grabbed 11 rebounds and only had two turnovers. I can’t remember the last time an opposing center outplayed Yao statistically.

Okay, here are the Rocket players who failed to deliver in this game: Keith Bogans made 4-of-9 from the field, but he missed all four of his free throw attempts, including an air ball! And that’s not the first time Bogans has missed lots of free throws recently.

David Wesley was 1-for-4, and his only turnover was a big one with 4:31 remaining that the Kings converted on the other end for a dunk that basically put the game away, 76-67. But since Wesley is still gutting it out with a hurt, painful rib with the Rockets out of the playoff hunt, you’ve got to give the 35-year old some credit.

Okay, here’s the one that hurts. Rafer Alston was 0-for-11. Yes, that’s right. Zero, nada, zilch. Well, he actually scored one point on a free throw, but he missed the other free throw attempt. Sure, he had 9 assists, but he also had six turnovers! With inconsistency like that, the Rockets are going to have to think long and hard if Alston is the long-term answer at point guard. Mike Bibby outclassed him with 23 points on 7-of-15 shooting (5-of-10 treys), 6 assists and only two turnovers.

Meanwhile, the player the Rockets gave up for Alston, Mike James, continued on Sunday to show how badly the Rockets messed up last October by trading him. James scored 32 points on 10-of-17 shooting, hit 5-of-8 three-pointers, had 10 assists, and four turnovers. Ouch! Hmmm….31 extra points from your point guard or shooting guard, and I think the Rockets win this game.

On the bright side, Juwan Howard did fairly well scoring 22 points on 10-of-19 shooting and grabbing 8 boards. And Luther Head was solid again, hitting 5-of-10 shots, including 3 treys, and dishing four assists with no turnovers.

The Rockets play the second half of a back-to-back against Utah Monday night. You can guess how that game is going to turn out in Utah. And since Monday night is my wedding anniversary, I probably won’t be able to watch or report on it, a rarity considering I think I’ve covered over 98% of the Rockets’ games the past four years. Probably not a big loss considering how the Rockets really have nothing to play for except pride and a higher lottery pick.

john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article about the game, click here.

The Houston Chronicle has a breakdown of the talent coming into the NBA draft this season and how it fits with the Rockets’ needs. Click here for the story.

Yao grabs one of 14 rebounds Friday night at Golden State. He also scored 30 points in leading the Rockets to a 100-93 victory, thanks to help from his teammates’ outside shooting. Click here for more photos from the game from sina.com.

by John

FRIDAY, 4/7/06 – Despite a disappointing season that had so much promise at the beginning, the Golden State Warriors drew to their game Friday night against the Rockets over 19,000 fans, many who came to see Yao make his second visit to one of the most highly anticipated NBA games of the season for the large Asian-American coningent in the Bay Area.

Yao didn’t disappoint, showing he is almost unstoppable on his way to 30 points on 12-of-22 shooting, 14 rebounds and 2 blocks. The Rockets also managed to finally make some clutch plays down the stretch – something they couldn’t do against pathetic Portland on Wednesday night – and pull out a 100-93 victory in Oakland to break a 3-game losing streak.

It didn’t matter, though, in the Rockets’ miniscule playoff chances. They were eliminated from the race after Sacramento also won on Friday night. Too little, too late.

But it was nice to see a glimpse of how the Rockets’ offense is supposed to work when Yao gets support from his outside shooters.

Late in the fourth quarter with the Rockets down 96-91, Yao got the ball down low in the paint, but then kicked it out to a wide-open Rafer Alston behind the three-point line, and Alston nailed it for the lead. Then the next time down the court, Yao got the ball deep in the paint again, threw another perfect strike to Luther Head standing behind the arc, and bingo! Luther drilled it to put the Rockets up 96-91 with 1:49 remaining, and that was basically the ballgame.

It wasn’t all peachy about 45 minutes earlier when Jeff Van Gundy pulled all five of his starters in the third quarter after they had blown a 10-point halftime lead. When asked about it after the game, JVG replied, “It was pathetic effort by all five of them (the starters). We played three very good quarters. It was unfortunate that it was marred by an irresponsible third quarter.”

That move must have been a wake-up call for the starters, who ended up outscoring the Warriors 27-17 in the fourth quarter, thanks to 8 points by Yao and 11 points by Alston. Even though Alston finished strong and scored 16 points and dished 9 assists for the game, the big star of this game (if you look past Yao, who you now expect to have a big game all the time) was Luther Head.

Luther showed once again that he could be a very good starting shooting guard for the Rockets next season, scoring 26 points on an incredible 8-of-9 from the field, and get this: 6-of-7 from three-point land! On top of that, he grabbed 8 boards and had 3 rebounds.

So although the Rockets lost the scoring punch of Mike James this season, they MAY have made up a lot of that void with Luther in the long run. Talk about lucky – I don’t think anyone thought he would show this kind of potential so early in his career.

Honorable mention goes out to Juwan Howard, who scored 12 points on 6-of-12 shooting, and Stromile Swift, who scored 8 points, including two dunks that were jaw-dropping. His second dunk was a reverse dunk from underneath the basket after a quick spin move around Troy Murphy on the baseline. I had to replay it on my Tivo about 8 times.

Chuck Hayes made the most of his 9 minutes when he was one of the reserves inserted in the third quarter. In that very short amount of time, he scored two points, grabbed four rebounds and had a block, drawing props from Van Gundy after the game.

Forgettable performances were turned in by Keith Bogans, 0-for-4 with no points, and David Wesley, 1-for-6 with 4 points. He did have six assists, though. As a team, the Rockets out-assisted Golden State 27-23, out-rebounded them 46-39, and out-shot them 46.8% to 40.2%. If they could play every game like this one nexxt season, I’ll take it.

john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article about the game, click here.

Yao posts up Portland’s Joel Pryzbilla Wednesday night. Yao had an off night, scoring only 13 points and grabbing 7 rebounds in an embarrassing 76-75 Rockets loss to one of the league’s worst teams. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

WEDNESDAY, 4/5/06 – The Rockets suffered one of their most embarrassing losses of the season Wednesday night, losing to Portland, the second-worst team in the league, losers of their last 11 in a row, and 21 of their last 23 games!! Not only that, but the Blazers’ last 6 losses were by an average of 18 points!

The Rockets showed absolutely no poise, and did just about everything to give the game away by blowing layups and committing 9 turnovers in the fourth quarter alone. Every one of those lost possessions was crucial in this close, 76-75 loss. It was like the Keystone Cops out there. When Yao is not on, the Rockets can be a very bad team.

So who were the culprits in this loss? Just about everyone, except maybe Luther Head.

Luther scored 13 points on 6-of-11 shooting, and went one-on-one against Theo Ratliff on a fast break to hit a sweet reverse layup with 1:17 remaining to give the Rockets a 75-74 lead.

But then the Rockets let Sebastian Telfair drive across the lane, stop, and pop a wide open jumper to give the Blazers a 76-75 lead. The Rockets had over 27 seconds remaining to win it, though.

On that last possession, Luther took the first shot, a three-pointer, with 7 seconds remaining that missed. Yao fought very hard to get the rebound with four seconds remaining, and then made a strong move in the lane with two guys on him to get off a tough shot. But it clanged off the back iron, and that was the ballgame.

The Rockets should have never been put into the position where they had to hit a last second shot to win it. After all, this was the freakin’ 20-53 Portland TrailBlazers. You had a feeling when the Rockets committed 3 turnovers in the first quarter on simple outlet passes alone, it was going to be a long night. It didn’t get much better from there, with the Rockets tying the Blazers at the end of the first quarter for an atrocious 17-17 tie.

If it wasn’t for Keith Bogans scoring 8 points in the second quarter, the game could have been out-of-hand by halftime. Instead, Portland only led 43-39 at the half.

But things went south in the third as the Rockets fell behind 51-41. Luckily Bogans and Luther Head kept them in the game, with Luther hitting all 4 of his shots to score 9 points, and the Rockets going on a 21-8 run to lead at the end of three quarters, 62-59. With Yao only having scored 8 points at that point, you had a feeling the Rockets were going to stop fooling around and let Yao take over.

Even though the Rockets’ defense was superb in the fourth quarter holding the Blazers to 6-of-17 shooting, Houston’s offense stunk it up, hitting only 5-of-13 shots. Yao scored 5 points in the fourth quarter, but missed two free throws late that really hurt. However, those 9 team turnovers in the fourth quarter (17 overall) were the killer.

For the game, Yao had 5 turnovers, and Luther, Juwan Howard, and Bogans all had three TOs each. In addition, Bogans blew an easy layup that could have given the Rockets a 3-point lead in the final minute.

When you couple those turnovers with lousy shooting from Rafer Alston (2-of-12) and Stromile Swift (1-of-5), you now know why Jeff Van Gundy called this team “undertalented” after the Rockets loss to Seattle Tuesday night. The problem is…he’s the guy who brought in most of these players. Does that make him an undertalented evaluator of talent?

You know what else hurts? On a night Alston scored 5 points on his 17% shooting, 10 assists and 3 rebounds, Toronto’s Mike James scored 34 points on 13-of-26 shooting, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished 8 assists. Daryl Morey (future Rockets GM), we can’t wait for you to make your impact!

john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article about the game, click here.