Did I just see that right?

The Rockets just beat the Kings on a last few seconds 3 pointer by Steve Novak. Sounds like a close game right? Nope, they led by 17 in the 4th at one point and were outscored 26-10 in the quarter. What happened? Carl Landry nor Luis Scola played in the 4th, that's what happened. Early in the game the two were going crazy getting rebounds and steals and every loose ball, the Rockets built a 19 point lead on their backs. Then inexplicably Adelman decided to go with Steve Novak for the majority of the 4th. That meant there was no one to rebound but Yao. No one with any energy left to go after loose balls.

The lead change happened slowly; Adelman had the entire 4th quarter to make a change, but never did. He let the same guys that blew the lead stay in. Tracy McGrady was playing like a complete and utter wuss. He only played defense okay, the rest of his game was terrible. He was torched by Crazy Pills in the fourth and the only reason I can assume he was guarding him is that for some reason even though we had huge leads, we never really let Shane Battier get any rest and he had to have been exhausted. Shane shut Artest down to the tune of 0 points in the 3d and it seemed he only scored when someone else guarded him. But Tracy was the one trying to play D on him at the end.

I had this column all planned out too. I thought I'd be talking about one of the best games of the season. A game that we led by 15 after 1. A game we were playing like a complete team, running and passing, hitting open layups and dunks. I thought eventually we'd slow it down and pound it with Yao to save legs. Instead we took out our energy guys and never let Yao, Tracy, Rafer or Shane rest. All of them should have seen extended bench stints, only Yao played less than 41 minutes of that crew. There is absolutely no excuse for Carl Landry to only play 13 minutes. He had SIX offensive rebounds and 1 defense one and he had 2 steals to go with those rebounds. Yes he shot 1-6, but he's not in the game to shoot, he's in the game to actually catch passes and help run the offense, and to get the rebound when Tracy launches a stupid shot.

And yes, I know Novak hit the game winner. But if he and Chuck didn't play in the fourth I truly believe we would have won by 12.

We won though, so I guess in the end that's what is important. I'm worried though, this kind of ending can still have detrimental effects on the team, especially with the break coming up. Let's hope the Rockets realize how lucky they were and come out next week and pound the shit out of LeBron and the Cavs.

That's win 8 in a row of 10. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that we almost lost to a so so team, every team blows an occasional lead, I just thought we had turned the corner in that aspect.

Alright, I'm going to sleep, I thought this would be cathartic, but it wasn't as much as I would like it to be.