Not really a pretty win for the Rockets, but I suspect they'll take it. Defense was not "Best in the NBA" quality, but Artest was in Tru Warier form, instead of Crazy Pills form. However, he was called on a COMPLETELY BULLSHIT technical foul. He runs into the crowd of players forming around the site of a controversial call, attempting to pull Yao to the free-throw line. But first he touches Howard on the arm, sending the Dallas shittards into a frenzy. So he gets called with a technical for no fuckin reason but the fact that he's Ron Artest.
Everyone shot incredibly well from the line. Artest is actually fairly good at capitalizing on free-throws, so that's not entirely surprising, but T-Mac was 10-11. Yao has yet to miss a free throw shot thus far. Pretty cool.
What this game really highlited was how ridiculously deep this team is. During the fourth-quarter Rockets surge, neither Tracy nor Yao played. It was Artest and and the rest. And even whilst being matched up against the Dallas starters, they pushed Houston ahead. This team is so chock-full of great role-players, it's heart-warming.
As has been noted elsewhere (rather humorously in Free Darko's season "preview":
While watching Golden State struggle to get rebounds, Joey Dorsey wonders aloud why the team that already has Luis Scola, Carl Landry, and Chuck Hayes was the one that drafted him.
and in Basketball Prospectus' season preview for the Southwest Divison), we've got a lot of highly-skilled power forwards that we acquired for cheap. And while it's cool to be able to have Scola, Hayes, Landry, and now Dorsey at the position, one wonders what Morey could turn Hayes or Landry or Dorsey into. A truly solid point guard? A new knee for McGrady?
Still, it really illustrates how awesome Morey has been. He's drafted incredibly well out of the second round. And he's used those picks to either solidify an already awesome bench or add to the team's other weapons. I mean, he can't turn Joey Dorsey into Chris Paul, but he might be able to get something better than what we have.
On the other hand, Alston and Brooks are doing alright. In that same BP preview, you can take a look at the expected WARP values for all the Rockets. What's intriguing is that none of them project to be anything less than average. That's incredible, especially given the reputations of Alston and Head.
Anyways, an exciting win that showcases the Rockets' new scoring threats. This is going to be a great season.
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