Houston Community News >> RIP: Houston Rockets Season Ends on Sour Note

5/5/2007 Houston- Up 2-0 versus the Utah Jazz, most fans thought this year might be the year that the Houston Rockets make it out of the first round of the playoffs. On Saturday night, all hopes and dreams came to an end as the Utah Jazz defeated the Rockets 103-99. The Jazz have never won in Houston until today.

The Jazz out-hustled, out-played, out-matched, out-coached, and out-shot the Rockets who played as if there will be a next game. There was no sense of urgency for the Rockets. On the last possession for the Jazz, they missed two shots but they out-hustled and rebounded. All they needed was to make one more shot and they did. The Rockets season was over.

What disappointed me the most was the lack of hustle for that final possession. What are the Rockets players playing for? Do they know that this is Game 7, do or die? I guess they didn't want to win. I guess they had already made plans for summer vacation. There is another side to this story as well.

Yao Ming is an ok player. His downfalls are pretty evident: slow, turnover prone, too soft, and too tall. He was out-hustled on one of those two shots at the end of the game by Utah. With the ball bouncing gingerly for someone to grab, Yao or Boozer, Boozer ended up with the ball because of his quickness. Yao looked as if he was stuck in cement.

The game should not have come down to this anyways. The Rockets were up by 5 with about four minutes left in the fourth quarter with momentum on their side. But again, as in previous 6 games, they turned the ball over, missed open shots, and slacked on defense. When it is suppose to be McGrady time, he choked again. What is his record in the playoffs now.. I will just leave it at that. Maybe he was right before the game when he said, "this is not my biggest game of the career."

If this series offer any upside, I would like to chime in to the Rockets management. I have a list that I compiled during the course of the season and playoffs that the Rockets should do:

  1. Fire Coach Gundy.. his time has come, his plays are obsolete, we need new leadership on this team.

  2. Trade Alston, Howard, Head, and all of those players who cannot shoot consistently. The basic fundamental in basketball is shooting. If you cannot shoot, you should not play basketball.

  3. Trade McGrady or Yao.. or both. We must all come to realize that these two players (their decent players by the way) will not bring a championship to Houston period.

I feel sorry for all of the Houston Rockets fans because they were lured into thinking that they had a great team or at least a decent team. The fact was, the Houston Rockets turned out to be an ordinary team who embarrassed themselves and Houston.

(By Shaun Yeu)