“Play Hard. Stay Humble” said Tracy McGrady, ” that’s what’s up in the locker room right now.” And the Rockets did just that. They played hard indeed as they convincingly beat the Dallas Mavericks Thursday night 113-98. Once again the Houston Rockets defeated their opponent with a mixture of tremendous defense and unselfish offense. McGrady led all scorers with 31 points and 9 assists followed once again by Rafer Alston who added 24 points of his own! The two rookies playing their roles at almost perfection got a recent bump in the Rookie Rankings over at NBA.com and tonight you can see why. Luis Scola had 12 points, 9 boards, and 2 blocked shots and Carl Landry sprinkled in 17 points.
A tough loss for the Mavericks but a great win none the less. There will be those haters out there that will say “Dallas didn’t have Dirk, Rockets still suck” to which I would reply “Yao Ming’s foot is healing nicely, but he didn’t clobber another player to miss his game”. Something you need to know is that I’m a Texas fan, if you’re from Texas you probably know what I mean. This applies to sports as well. I will always root for the Houston team followed by other Texas teams. What this means is that I like the Dallas Mavericks and was cheering for them against Miami in the 2006 Finals but Dirk deserved this suspension. I’ll go one step further and even say that I despise the Utah Jazz so the fact that ‘AK Crybaby’ got thrown to the floor doesn’t really bother me.
Bottom line is that the Houston Rockets continue to be the hottest team in the NBA. If the Rockets can beat their next opponent (New Orleans Saturday night) then this 17 game streak could reach the low 20’s due to Houston’s upcoming schedule. After New Orleans it’s the Nets, Hawks, and Bobcats before facing the Lakers March 16th. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, like T-Mac said play hard, stay humble.
