Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Rockets take Game 1 from the Lakers. The media line on this seems to be that, basically, Houston overperformed while the Lakers were just rusty.

Couple of problems with this:

1) This ignores the problems the Rockets had. Von Wafer was awful in the few minutes he played. Luis Scola didn't shoot well, and neither did Battier, Lowry, or Landry. They made sloppy turnovers and.... well, Dave goes through this a lot better.

2) This ignores the impact of the Rockets' defense. It's fine to say that some of the Lakers' struggles have to do with "rust" or just being off. But how much of the Lakers' inefficiency and - frankly - gutless play had to do with those excuses, and how much had to do with coming into contact with the best defense in the Western conference? And, given the next point, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority have more to do with the Rockets' ability to follow the Celtics' prescription from last year: pack the paint, stop Kobe from getting to the basket, and force his teammates to take the important shots in the first half. And when it becomes clear that Ariza and Vujacic and Fisher simply aren't going to get the job done, Kobe will get frustrated and try to take the game over himself.

And maybe he'll get hot and do it. But he probably won't, and that's a recipe for failure for LA.

3) This is excatly what was said about Game 1 of the Portland series: the Rockets got hot, the Blazers crumpled under pressure, and they surely won't be able to do that again.

When are the pundits going to realize that this is what the Rockets do in big games? They catch the other team with their pants down - the Lakers underestimated the Rockets, as did the Blazers, and so did the Cavaliers. And what happened? The Rockets showed up ready to play, armed with information about their opponents' tendencies, and they exploited those tendencies over and over again.

We'll see what happens tomorrow night, but the Rockets have sent a very clear message to the Lakers: you aren't going to win anything if you think the title will be handed to you. The Rockets aren't the Jazz: they won't roll over just because everyone thinks they're outmatched. And neither will the Nuggets, and nor will the Cavaliers, Celtics, or Magic. Even if the Lakers make it past the Rockets, they won't win if they keep playing like this.

Correction: THAT was Christmas in April

Even though I missed the first half (fuck you, TNT), it was awesome seeing the Rockets blow out the Blazers in Houston last night (though I really didn't believe it - didn't trust the Rockets to hold a lead - until there were about 45 seconds left in the game, at which point I tried to strike up the Yao Ming chant to no avail). It was fantastic, it was beautiful, and it was better than seeing Paul Pierce foul out on a vicious Joakim "the People's Princess" Noah slam dunk.

But there was something even more beautiful, and that was the success of the Rockets sans-T-Mac.

Now, y'all know me. You know I'm a McGrady fan, and I want to see him come back strong next year, but there is something beautiful in tragedy. And, as Free Darko pointed out, there is very little that could happen to McGrady right now that would be more tragic.

In any case, this will make his comeback next season all the more poignant.

Rockets in 6. Shock the world, baby.