12-26-08: Rockets vs Hornets Game Thread

[A.J.]

vs

Where: New Orleans Arena
Time: 7:00 PM Central
Channel: FSN Houston

Probable Starting Lineups

PG Rafer Alston
SG Tracy McGrady
SF Shane Battier
PF Luis Scola
C Yao Ming

Key Bench Players: Aaron Brooks, Carl Landry, and Ron Artest


PG Chris Paul
SG Devin Brown
SF Rasual Butler
PF David West
C Tyson Chandler

Key bench players: Morris Peterson, James Posey, Julian Wright and Hilton Armstrong

AJ's key's to the game

1. Crash the boards, and don't let West and Chandler get the rebounds on the offensive and defensive ends.
2. Stop the penetration of Paul and close the lanes inside
3. Don't let the Hornet's up tempo foul you. Play your own game.

[hackle]

we need this win, and they just lost one.

[jzmagik]

Keys to winning this:
Do not let Paul penetrate the paint
Our pick and roll defense has gotten progressively worse, and Paul is the master at running this
Get Yao involved early
Play tight perimeter defense

[MaxRider]

uh...did you purposely left off Alston picture?

[hackle]

uh...did you purposely left off Alston picture?

dude, he put rater on the top....

[BaYBaller]

I was not too disapointed in the CLE loss esp cuz of T-Mac's no show, but this is a winnable game as NO is coming off a back-to-back. Key to winning the game: whipping T-Mac's @$$ into shape.

[ShaY]

This should be a steatment game for us , they are coming off a bad loss and want to win , we need to show that we are better than them.

If we play well and somehow lose it would bother me but |I will get over it , if we lose badly I will be really disappointed even though we should never take a regular season loss so bad this early.

Lets see what happens I hope we come ready.

[bballmaniac27]

This is going to be a tough game. They got their sh*t kicked in by Orlando yesterday on national TV so expect them to come out pissed. We better match their energy and intensity or we lose the game.

[abcdef]

No Artest tonight, and Dorsey was sent to the D-League.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spo ... 82421.html

[TMACFORMVP]

Damn, these injuries never stop..

[A.J.]

Crap, I wanted our whole team to play together. Well I guess Shane is going to have double duty tonight.

[skbucks1985]

I was not too disapointed in the CLE loss esp cuz of T-Mac's no show, but this is a winnable game as NO is coming off a back-to-back. Key to winning the game: whipping T-Mac's @$$ into shape.

Winning the CLE game would've been a minor miracle as we were playing our 4th in 5 nights against the 2nd best team in the league who's undefeated at home. The fact that we had a chance to win down the stretch is an accomplishment in my book.

But this game, is the type of game that could have ramifications down the stretch of the season and would really give us a mental edge over NO

[Baller 24]

IMO Brooks did a better job on CP3 last time, and I'd rather like to see him start over Rafer; but since Artest isn't playing, I guess we need some kind of offense off the bench, hopefully Rafer keeps up the stellar performance from the Cavs' game. Also, lol CP3 doesn't like Rafer...this should be entertaining

[TMU]

Hopefully, the refs won't screw us over like they did in Cleveland. If Homo Midget gets Queen Jaymes treatment, I will stop watching the NBA.

[T-Wack]

As of right now, when we have all of our players suited up, even without being 100% healthy, we're the second best team in the West. We haven't even seen the best from our big three, and we're already doing really well. We should not be competing with NO or any other team for that second spot. It really is ours to lose, and this is an excellent opportunity to create some space between the other teams, and start to solidify our seeding.

That being said, they got spanked pretty bad yesterday, and they're at home, so this won't be a picnic by any means.

[DynastySS]

Anyone having a problem with the feed?

I have NBA League Pass and it seems laggy? I am not watching it on the internet either lol.

[Baller 24]

Anyone have a problem with Rafer Alston right now? I do..

[TMACFORMVP]

McGrady's body language looks better, but he's passing off too much when he gets to the rim, go up there hard, and finish...

And this is why Alston is so frustrating, bad shots, nothing close, horrible.

[DreamShook34]

luther head is the only rocket that passes to chuck hayes.. they must be best friends off the court

[A.J.]

For some reason we can't stop David West. The guy has been sick this game.