Houston Rockets vs. Portland Trailblazers

[Baller 24]

Houston Rockets (23-19) vs. Portland (25-17) @ 9PM

Starting Lineup for the Rockets:


PG:
Rafer Alston

SG:
Bonzi Wells

SF:
Shane Battier

PF:
Chuck Hayes

C:
Yao Ming


Key Bench:
Tracy McGrady

Luis Scola

Aaron Brooks


Carl Landry

Luther Head



Starting Lineup for the Blazers:


PG:
Steve Blake
SG:
Brandon Roy
SF:
Martell Webster
PF:
LaMarcus Aldrige
C:
Joel Przybilla

[Shabi__5]

A must win , we really need to win all 3 games we got coming up , if we go worse than 2-1 , we got no buisness in the playoffs.
I hope to see Bonzi and Scola bounce back in this game , they weren't good enough lately , Brooks as well.

[bubba]

i can see us sneaking up on portland. you gotta play all 3 rooks more in this game. i guess battier will be guarding roy. should be good if rockets can stay consistent, make open outside shots, watch turnovers, and feed yao the ball!!

[BaYBaller]

A must win , we really need to win all 3 games we got coming up , if we go worse than 2-1 , we got no buisness in the playoffs.
I hope to see Bonzi and Scola bounce back in this game , they weren't good enough lately , Brooks as well.

IMO the Golden State game is almost an automatic loss it's just a bad matchup for us, and I'm more afraid of Portland on the road than Utah at home. I just hope we have a good showing these next 3 games, regardless of record, and would be very satisfied going 2-1.

I think Bonzi will be the x-factor (maybe he'll get up vs his old team?) because he's really disappeared lately. Adelman really needs to set some plays for him and people have to look for him more on offense.

[Eralp]

We should make a good defense. Because they are a good runing team and they have got young talents. And in offense , we should see more from the other guys -besides yao and mac- .

It will be a hard game for us .But anyway i believe we will beat them!

Go Rockets Go

[McTracy]

Well gotta be tough game, but also a great game. Blazers have been playin' a lot better since that 13 winnin' streak. But you know what? I belive we can even EASILY beat them. But you know, we need to play DEFENSE. Our defense past 2 games was just horrible, we cannot give up those shoots to Portland that we gave up for Seattle. And again, I hope refs will do a good job, not like they did against Sonics yesterday cause it doesn't help...

We need to quard those 3, as I saw Portland is very good against zone defense, good that we do not use zone, not against Portland cause it's stupid idea. Only if we control the glass + play some real defense we can win.

They have no answer for Yao and McGrady - should take adventage especially after game like they had against Sonics. Tracy got it goin', really. Yao has been really good.

So just a win for Rockets !

[King Roosk]

If Portland is smart then they'll take a page out of Seattle's book and run the high pick and roll with Aldridge and Jack, and they'll use every fast break opportunity they get.

Portland has some guys who can shoot, but we're much stronger and more physical team than they are.

The difference, I think, will be that while Portland is a much better version of Seattle, they don't have 3-4 tough post guys to keep throwing in the game against Yao. I think if we take advantage of Yao down low then we should be able to handle this one, because for some reason I don't think Portland matches up too well with us.

[Jack wore plaid]

I belive we can even EASILY beat them.

Wow, bold statement. As long as Portland shoots better than they did on our 7 game leastern road trip we should be ok.


Good luck the rest of the way.

[Eralp]

McTracy@ Bro , i wrote a message to you in another topic . but it locked. i add everybody in my messenger list who is there.

if you got a messenger , add me . lol .

eralpdemirkul@nbatr.com

---

before ı forget , ı disagree with your thoughts about tracy. they have answer for him.maybe outlaw or webster can guard him.Both outlaw and webster has got much more speed.they are very young.maybe it will be hard for tmac. but anyway if he can find easy shots and easy baskets, he will continue to make scores and he will on fire.. at this point they cant find a solution for him.but tmac should play like seattle game.

[King Roosk]

Man, the Cavs are 23-18 but they're still 4th place in the EC. We're 23-19 and we're 10th place in the WC. The EC has 6 teams with winning records, while the WC has 10 teams with winning records.

Absolutely pathetic.

[RaoulDuke79]

Man, the Cavs are 23-18 but they're still 4th place in the EC. We're 23-19 and we're 10th place in the WC. The EC has 6 teams with winning records, while the WC has 10 teams with winning records.

Absolutely pathetic.

I've already petitioned Stern to have us moved to the EC but for some reason he hasn't responded. I don't know why.

I guess he's just too damn busy trying to figure out ways to get the refs to screw Yao over, or coming up with more terrible rules to "make the game more exciting".

Also, on a serious note I think we win this game by a grand total of 3-pts and Yao has a monster game. Of course if we play defense like we did last night we lose by alot.

[McTracy]

McTracy@ Bro , i wrote a message to you in another topic . but it locked. i add everybody in my messenger list who is there.

if you got a messenger , add me . lol .

eralpdemirkul@nbatr.com

---

before ı forget , ı disagree with your thoughts about tracy. they have answer for him.maybe outlaw or webster can guard him.Both outlaw and webster has got much more speed.they are very young.maybe it will be hard for tmac. but anyway if he can find easy shots and easy baskets, he will continue to make scores and he will on fire.. at this point they cant find a solution for him.but tmac should play like seattle game.

I didn't notice that. Well i do not have 'messenger'

[Young_Star11]

Portland don't have an answer for Yao. As someone pointed out, whilst Seattle aren't a good team (yet) they did have Kurt Thomas, Collison, Wilcox, Petro to throw at Yao.

Portland have Godzilla and Channing Frye...

We can't afford to fall down by 10+ in the fourth - there'll be no coming back against Portland.

[A.J.]

This is a huge, game for us. If we're going to make a playoff run, we need to beat the teams directly ahead of us head-to-head.

[TMACFORMVP]

Big game, they're are a team that's ahead of us and reasonably a team that we can catch. All of those games are a must win, especially on our home floor.

[dontel]

i dunno bout this game, but i have a gut feeling that we'll sneak out victorious on this one

[compucomp]

We can win this game. I still believe Portland is a fluke and that they will start showing it soon. I think we will see Battier contain Brandon Roy. They have no answer for McGrady. The Vanilla Gorilla (Przybilla) is no match for Yao and has no offensive skill to make Yao work on defense. Yao needs to be consistently fed the ball in the low post. Adelman needs to get his head out of his ass and stop putting Yao at the elbow.

[jzmagik]

Our defense needs to step up, Roys gonna get his, we gotta not let their scrubs have season highs against us.

[TMU]

We can win this game. I still believe Portland is a fluke and that they will start showing it soon. I think we will see Battier contain Brandon Roy. They have no answer for McGrady. The Vanilla Gorilla (Przybilla) is no match for Yao and has no offensive skill to make Yao work on defense. Yao needs to be consistently fed the ball in the low post. Adelman needs to get his head out of his ass and stop putting Yao at the elbow.

Watch out for Travis Outlaw. He's long, he's athletic, and will give trouble for McGrady.

[A.J.]

a guy we need to keep our eye on is james jones, we cant leave him open