duncan228
04-30-2009, 01:36 PM
Past playoff failures haunting Rockets (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ys-rocketspast043009&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)
By Fran Blinebury
HOUSTON – Just go ahead and call them Tina Turner’s team.
The Houston Rockets never, ever do anything niiiiice and easy.
So instead of rollin’ on the river into a nothing-to-lose second-round matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Rockets return home to continue their whitewater-and-white-knuckle ride with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Officially, it’s Game 6 on Thursday night at the Toyota Center, but to the Rockets it might as well be the last roundup.
Again.
Because while April to the rest of us merely means unpleasant greetings from the IRS, to the Rockets of recent vintage it brings fear and loathing far beyond a rap at the front door from the tax man.
Excuse me, Yao Ming; is that an anvil in your pocket or are you just weighed down by the ghosts of first-round flameouts past?
• In 2004, Stevie Francis slipped and lost the ball out of bounds in Yao’s first playoff appearance, and the Rockets lost their chance of evening their opening-round series with the superstar-powered Lakers of Shaq, Kobe, Karl Malone and Gary Payton.
• In 2005, the debut incarnation of Tracy McGrady and Yao helped the Rockets win the first two games on the road in Dallas. But Houston lost the series in seven games, including a 40-point thumping in the clincher.
• In 2007, the Rockets won the first two games in their backyard against the Utah Jazz, and held a 3-2 series lead before losing thanks in part to a fourth-quarter collapse in Game 7 on their home floor.
• In 2008, the Rockets had home-court advantage once more over Utah, but the Jazz waltzed right in and did everything except rearrange the furniture in taking a 2-0 lead that made the outcome a foregone conclusion.
Four trips to the playoffs for Yao’s teams (he had a broken foot and missed the ’08 playoffs) and four early exits. Now this. It’s the recurrence of a trend in which, for much of the season, the Rockets have had a hard time holding leads, closing games, finishing the job.
Though the Rockets still lead the series 3-2, throughout Houston there is a civic dread that the Rockets are standing at the edge of oblivion, since a return trip to Portland might be only a tad less appealing than a weekend party cruise with Somali pirates.
“Get the ball inside. Get the ball inside. Get the ball inside.”
That was the sum total of Yao’s fancy X-and-O scheming for Game 6.
It has been a most curious series for Yao already. He shot 9-for-9 from the field, 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and scored all 24 of his points in the first half of Game 1 as the Rockets ran away for a 108-81 victory. In Games 2 and 5, Yao could not even get off a single shot in the first quarter against the Blazers’ 7-foot tandem of Joel Przybilla and Greg Oden.
Yet on Tuesday night, for all of the tentativeness they displayed at the start, for all of the sloppy things they did in falling behind by double digits in each of the first three quarters, the Rockets suddenly found themselves with a 68-64 lead early in the fourth period.
And then fell like a piano off a roof.
Never mind the stat sheet that showed the Rockets being whistled for 24 fouls to only 12 for the Blazers or the 23-10 free-throw disparity in Portland’s favor.
The Rockets’ front office and coaching staff could send film longer than the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy to the league office and it wouldn’t excuse their own woeful performance down the stretch.
Dumb foul after dumb foul killed the Rockets’ own rally and fueled the Blazers’ last run. Instead of showing all the poise and composure necessary to close out a talented opponent, the Rockets were numbingly inefficient and stupid. In other words, hauntingly familiar in the playoffs.
Aaron Brooks had another of his deer-in-the-headlights finishes, unwilling or unable to pull the trigger on open shots, and often either blindly or stubbornly not giving the ball to a wide-open Yao in the low post. Ron Artest, whose level of play in the series has run the gamut from A to B – absent to bizarre – overdribbled into a turnover and launched a horrid 3-pointer. Von Wafer clanked an ill-advised jumper and even Yao missed one of those midrange shots that he’s been burying with regularity. It all enabled the Blazers to go on a 15-0 run and collect their free plane ticket back to Texas.
This was a team that finished the last two months of the regular season with no T-Mac and supposedly no problems until they had a 3-1 lead and suddenly no poise and no composure.
It happens all the time, the Rockets are telling themselves. Not everybody with a big lead closes out a series in five games. But not everybody is these Rockets, with 12 years of baggage since this once-proud franchise last advanced to the second round. And not everybody stands out in a crowd for criticism like a 7-6 center.
Will the ball feel heavier? Will the air feel thicker? Will their throats feel narrower?
“It’s not going to be different just because we’re at home,” said Rockets power forward Luis Scola. “Now it’s a fight.”
Against their own past as much as the Blazers.
By Fran Blinebury
HOUSTON – Just go ahead and call them Tina Turner’s team.
The Houston Rockets never, ever do anything niiiiice and easy.
So instead of rollin’ on the river into a nothing-to-lose second-round matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers, the Rockets return home to continue their whitewater-and-white-knuckle ride with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Officially, it’s Game 6 on Thursday night at the Toyota Center, but to the Rockets it might as well be the last roundup.
Again.
Because while April to the rest of us merely means unpleasant greetings from the IRS, to the Rockets of recent vintage it brings fear and loathing far beyond a rap at the front door from the tax man.
Excuse me, Yao Ming; is that an anvil in your pocket or are you just weighed down by the ghosts of first-round flameouts past?
• In 2004, Stevie Francis slipped and lost the ball out of bounds in Yao’s first playoff appearance, and the Rockets lost their chance of evening their opening-round series with the superstar-powered Lakers of Shaq, Kobe, Karl Malone and Gary Payton.
• In 2005, the debut incarnation of Tracy McGrady and Yao helped the Rockets win the first two games on the road in Dallas. But Houston lost the series in seven games, including a 40-point thumping in the clincher.
• In 2007, the Rockets won the first two games in their backyard against the Utah Jazz, and held a 3-2 series lead before losing thanks in part to a fourth-quarter collapse in Game 7 on their home floor.
• In 2008, the Rockets had home-court advantage once more over Utah, but the Jazz waltzed right in and did everything except rearrange the furniture in taking a 2-0 lead that made the outcome a foregone conclusion.
Four trips to the playoffs for Yao’s teams (he had a broken foot and missed the ’08 playoffs) and four early exits. Now this. It’s the recurrence of a trend in which, for much of the season, the Rockets have had a hard time holding leads, closing games, finishing the job.
Though the Rockets still lead the series 3-2, throughout Houston there is a civic dread that the Rockets are standing at the edge of oblivion, since a return trip to Portland might be only a tad less appealing than a weekend party cruise with Somali pirates.
“Get the ball inside. Get the ball inside. Get the ball inside.”
That was the sum total of Yao’s fancy X-and-O scheming for Game 6.
It has been a most curious series for Yao already. He shot 9-for-9 from the field, 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and scored all 24 of his points in the first half of Game 1 as the Rockets ran away for a 108-81 victory. In Games 2 and 5, Yao could not even get off a single shot in the first quarter against the Blazers’ 7-foot tandem of Joel Przybilla and Greg Oden.
Yet on Tuesday night, for all of the tentativeness they displayed at the start, for all of the sloppy things they did in falling behind by double digits in each of the first three quarters, the Rockets suddenly found themselves with a 68-64 lead early in the fourth period.
And then fell like a piano off a roof.
Never mind the stat sheet that showed the Rockets being whistled for 24 fouls to only 12 for the Blazers or the 23-10 free-throw disparity in Portland’s favor.
The Rockets’ front office and coaching staff could send film longer than the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy to the league office and it wouldn’t excuse their own woeful performance down the stretch.
Dumb foul after dumb foul killed the Rockets’ own rally and fueled the Blazers’ last run. Instead of showing all the poise and composure necessary to close out a talented opponent, the Rockets were numbingly inefficient and stupid. In other words, hauntingly familiar in the playoffs.
Aaron Brooks had another of his deer-in-the-headlights finishes, unwilling or unable to pull the trigger on open shots, and often either blindly or stubbornly not giving the ball to a wide-open Yao in the low post. Ron Artest, whose level of play in the series has run the gamut from A to B – absent to bizarre – overdribbled into a turnover and launched a horrid 3-pointer. Von Wafer clanked an ill-advised jumper and even Yao missed one of those midrange shots that he’s been burying with regularity. It all enabled the Blazers to go on a 15-0 run and collect their free plane ticket back to Texas.
This was a team that finished the last two months of the regular season with no T-Mac and supposedly no problems until they had a 3-1 lead and suddenly no poise and no composure.
It happens all the time, the Rockets are telling themselves. Not everybody with a big lead closes out a series in five games. But not everybody is these Rockets, with 12 years of baggage since this once-proud franchise last advanced to the second round. And not everybody stands out in a crowd for criticism like a 7-6 center.
Will the ball feel heavier? Will the air feel thicker? Will their throats feel narrower?
“It’s not going to be different just because we’re at home,” said Rockets power forward Luis Scola. “Now it’s a fight.”
Against their own past as much as the Blazers.