Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Respect the Hustle

That's how you protect your homecourt.

Luis Scola, Carl Landry and Chuck Hayes are the three-headed monster of hustle. We're working on a t-shirt right now. But they're not the only ones, it's become contagious. The Rockets are those guys... the ones at the gym who just take the game too seriously. They never know when to quit, dive after every loose ball, foul you hard and challenge every shot, even when in a pickup game. They're relatively unathletic, undersized and offensively-challenged, but you have to respect the hustle. Now it's back to Utah and its the Jazz looking like they've underestimated their opponent.

What a difference a star with his jumper back makes. There were many glimpses of a youthful T-Mac out there last night and for once, the Rockets didn't need him to dominate the 4th. Win-win. Houston can thank their defensive intensity for that. Holding Utah to 32 pts in the 1st half (which could have easily been 28) and a franchise playoff record 69 for the game? Unexpected yes, but having seen if first hand, certainly not beyond the realm of a repeat performance. Maybe the Rockets can get another streak going now. They certainly looked like they were in the middle of one last night.

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Yao Links: For those of you who were asking about Yao's charity roast, there was a short video on the event posted at NBA.com last week. Yao Ming Mania also posted some highlights and recently posted some additional videos of the event. Click the link to check them out.

Originally posted at Yao Central on April 30, 2008 09:10 AM

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