To Paraphrase Sam I Am

After winning his second NBA championship in 2 years, Sam Cassell yelled to the cameras "Two years, two rings, and we might get another one!" to which I steal:

7 Wins, 7 Games, and we are going to win 10!

With Dave and I in attendance the Rockets tried to blow it for us. They trailed by 6 at the end of one and I still have no idea how, but led by one at the half, despite being outscored in the paint roughly 3 or 4 to 1 and were being outrebounded, out blocked and out stolen(??) for the half. We weren't moving the ball, moving without the ball or going hard after rebounds. Well, let me clarify, no one but Luis Scola was. Scola was everywhere as usual. He does not seem prone to energy slumps like most NBA players or for that matter every other Rocket. Even with his energy the Rockets played terribly in the first half, if the Trailblazers had not contributed spurts of poor shot selection it could have been a 10 point Portland lead at half.

At halftime Dave looked up and said "How are we leading?"

My response? "We're leading?"

I had apparently missed this fact in my utter disgust at how poorly we played, we had spend so much of the first half yelling about poor decision making, the team not calling out the double or triple team coming to Yao, Tracy doing nothing but shooting dumb jump shots and playing absolutely no defense, that I had lost track of the fact that Portland had let us back in the game and the Rockets had ended the half on a 13-6 run. The Rockets would never look back from there.

Dave and I came out of halftime relieved we weren't down, the Rockets apparently did too. They outscored Portland 25-19 keyed by Rafer Alston's, yes, that Rafer Alston, 13 point quarter on 5-7 shooting. He was on fire, and was really helping to get the ball moved around. Yao also came alive at the end of the third, contributing 6 straight free throws in the last minute and a half, finally wearing down his defenders.

The team defense was spectacular as the Traiblazers were able to pull off a grand total of 3 uncontested shots that I counted up until the last 2 minutes of the game. We were rotating, playing excellent help defense and got a hand up effectively for anything Portland tried to throw up. There were 6 or 7 occasions after a Portland make that Dave and I both talked about how if they can make those kind of shots, good for them, because nothing was coming easy. This was one of the few times this season that we have seen the offense and the defense run in an entire quarter like they can.

The fourth started off where the third ended, the Rockets went on a 10-1 run and the game was effectively over. That led to an eventual 18 point lead with 2:10 left. Adelman emptied the bench and in a flurry of unorganized shenanigan the game was ended.

Overall the second half was great and the first half basically ended in a do over.

That's 7 wins out of ten in a row!!

Next up, the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday, February 13th at 7:30PM CST

Go Rockets!