Rockets top Mavs in not so big D

The Rockets 112-102 win over the Mavs in Dallas, was not as easy as the ten point margin might suggest. For the second consecutive night, the Rockets faced a 4th quarter deficit. Last night the largest Grizzlies 4th quarter lead was just 2, for the Mavs it was just 1. But the game was tied at 92 with 8 minutes to go when the Rockets scored 16 of the next 18 points and were up 14 with 3 minutes left. Now to the Good, Bad & the Ugly.

GOOD
1. 4th quarter defense - Games are won and lost in the 4th quarter. The Mavs were 6-24 from the field and scored just 16 points. So far Rockets' opponents are 11-41 shooting (28%) in the 4th quarter. Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard amassed 35 and 26 points, respectively in the 1st 3 quarters. They combined for 3 points in the final quarter. Howard his a layup and was 1-3. Dirk was 0-3, scoring only on a technical free throw.

2. Artest's fire - It was pretty easy to see that he wanted to bring the Rockets a win. He scored 10 of his 29 points in the 4th quarter and was draped all over Howard in the 4th quarter. He also immediately stepped to Yao's aid when he and Howard got involved in some pushing and shoving. Naturally his reputation led to him being the only player to draw a technical but he scored 7 of the Rockets 16 points during the aforementioned 16-2 run.

3. Yao - Two games, two productive nights. As usual he torched Erick Dampier. He has taken much better care of the ball this year and is much stronger once he receives a pass. He was very effective finishing or getting fouled or both. He finished a pair of 3-point plays and remains perfect at the FT line, going 8-8 vs. Dallas to go with the 9-9 performance on opening night.

- Didn't even mention the Rockets hit 29-31 free throws, had just 11 turnovers and shot 50% (7-14) from three-point land. Nor did I mention Aaron Brooks was ridiculous. This guy looks ready to tear up any second unit out there, and it will be fun to see if he can make Nash, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, etc. chase him around and try to slow him down some nights. He may not make his shots every night, but his speed will always be there.
(check out the Rockets.com for Jason Friedman's game story, plus Craig Ackerman's postgame interview with Brooks and my postgame highlight show.)
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BAD
- Alston's offense. He did have 5 assists, but he is really struggling with his shot. Just 1-6 vs. Dallas and now 3-14 (21%) in two games. He hasn't looking nearly as good running the offense either. But it's just a two-game sample with no other games to balance it out.
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UGLY
- The only thing ugly about this win was yet another NBA arena nearly empty. However on this night the AAC was only empty for the final three minutes. When Artest buried his deep three from the top of the key to make it 108-94 - Mavs fans left in droves. Cuban just fired the most successful coach in their history and his replacement Rick Carlisle opens his era with a loss to their in-state rival.
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This seemed just a bit presumptuous by the DMN Mavs blogger during last night's game.
Can Dirk hang half a hundred?
and within the post was written...

With the Mavs running and gunning and Jason Kidd getting Dirk easy buckets, this might be the first of a few 50-point nights for the big German this season.

This is actually one of the better blogs around the league, certainly from a local newspaper in an NBA city. Tim Mac makes a good point about the Mavs' reluctance to part with Josh Howard in an effort to land Ron Artest. At the time who would've known it, but had the Mavs pulled off the deal it would have hurt the Rockets maybe as much as it helped the Mavs. MacMahon is also a contributor to profootballtalk.com so he's obviously a good dude.
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Can you imagine a more appropriate Phillies World Series champion t-shirt???
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--------- WEX