Houston Rockets Space Center

Sun sets on Rockets
November 5

Rockets 99 Suns 104

By: The Cat

Fundamentals. That's the one thing you need to have in a basketball team: the basics. For the second night in a row, the Rockets lacked in that department, missing crucial free throws to kill a great comeback effort in a 104-99 loss to the Suns.

Down 10 with two minutes, the Rockets finally made some shots and cut the Suns' lead to 3. But Francis missed his free throw with 20 seconds left that would have cut the game to 2, and Kenny Thomas missed his first free throw of three with 9 seconds. After Thomas made his last two shots, the Rockets were down 3 with 9 seconds, and in a position where the game was over if the Suns made just one of their two foul shots. Kidd calmly sank both. But if Francis and Thomas would have made their free throws, it would have been a 1 point game at the time, with the worst possible scenario for the Rockets being down 3 and having the ball with at least 7 seconds to play. But, it wasn't to be, and the Rockets went on to lose by 5.

However, the Rockets had an admirable comeback after being down for almost all of the game. Taylor got in early foul trouble, and played only about 6 minutes in the entire first half. Walt Williams sprained his knee in the 3rd quarter, and did not return. But Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley would not let the team die. Mobley made shot after shot in the 4th quarter, scoring 19 points in the period and 27 for the game, including 8 points in a row at one stretch. Despite that, he also uncharacteristicly missed four free throws in the game, and fouled out with under a minute left when the Rockets were making their comeback effort.

The Good

Cuttino Mobley. Has led us in scoring two times now, both with excellent efforts. Had a huge fourth quarter with 19 points.

The Bad

Mario Elie. Is it just me or does he look bad in anything that isn't the Rockets uniform?

The Ugly

Still can't get over the fact that we lost against the Clippers...
The Clippers, for God's sake!

Francis himself scored 24 points to go along with 6 rebounds and 5 assists. He also made several shots in the closing minutes as the Rockets cut a 10 point deficit with 2 minutes left to 3 with 20 seconds. His defense, despite misleading stats, was also very nice against Jason Kidd, probably the best point guard in the NBA.

The Rockets found trouble Sunday night in their frontcourt. Hakeem was not ready to play significant minutes after playing 35 minutes the night before in LA. Taylor got into early foul trouble guarding a red hot Cliff Robinson, and was not given the ball often in the post during the time he was in. And Walt Williams sprained his knee in the 3rd quarter and didn't return. Jason Collier, Kenny Thomas, and Carlos Rogers did try and pick up the slack somewhat off the bench, but none at this point are reliable post up options, and it left the Rockets' guards with the responsibility of doing even more scoring than usual.

The loss dropped the Rockets to 1-3 on the young season. They host the Lakers at home on Tuesday night, on the same night that many of us will be celebrating the passing of the new arena referendum. They then host Vancouver on Thursday before a tough road trip to LA and Portland next weekend.