Pacers 91 - Rockets 90

I'm going to start by becoming the 1 billionth person to say something along the lines of "I know I shouldn't blame the game on the refs, but this one blah blah blah..." So now you're warned. I know I shouldn't blame the game on the refs, but this one should have ended much differently. I realize that we shot 12 more free throws than Indiana, but the calls in crunch time were pitiful. Yao gets swatted in the arms by Jeff Foster and nothing happens? Ron Artest drives to the basket several times in the fourth quarter, gets destroyed as only Rawn can, and nothing happens? I know the Rockets don't sport any Jedi, and I know they don't have the word "Celtics" printed on their jerseys, but come on. Give Houston a chance to show off our league-leading FT percentage. And I almost forgot to mention: Tracy McGrady didn't play. Oh well. On to the recap:

Three Up:
Luis Scola -- My Friend From Argentina has been boarding up like another hurricane is coming to town. He grabbed 18 rebounds tonight, scored 15 points, and as bad as we shot tonight, Scola's 6-17 from the field doesn't look as terrible as it normally would.

Carl Landry -- Landry was a beast tonight, posting a double-double in 29 minutes of work. He had a few monster dunks and had key rebounds down the stretch while Yao was out. He also played well enough to keep the Chuckwagon on the bench for the entire game. Which reminds me...

Chuck Hayes -- He didn't play. Hallelujah.

Three Down:
Troy Murphy Defense -- Holy shit this drove me absolutely nuts! Why do we leave Murphy WIDE OPEN for three pointers late in the game when he has been wet for four quarters? It became practice for him. Overall, he ended up going 21/14, the last thing we needed to happen.

Houston's Shooting in General -- I don't get it: why do we suck at shooting? We certainly have capable shooters. But on some nights, such as tonight, they just can't avoid the rim. It's like all of a sudden, when a player comes to Houston and puts on a Rockets uniform, their FG% completely tanks. Imagine if Yao played on another team; he might shoot 70%!

Statistical Nightmare -- Rasho Nesterovic shoots ten shots, five of which are at least ten footers. Danny Granger goes 0-7 from three-point land. We grab 13 more rebounds than Indiana. We shoot 12 more free throws than Indiana and at a higher percentage. Chuck Hayes doesn't play. And yet we still lose. It goes to show how little other statistics matter compared to shooting sometimes.

Almost-Injury of the Night: Yao went down hard on a no-call that should have been a charge on Marquis Daniels. This resulted in two things: Yao cut his face, but if it's not an injury to his legs, it doesn't matter, thus qualifying it as an almost-injury. In addition to that, we got to see our first and only example of Rusty Wants Justice of the game.

Stats of the Night:
Look at the Statistical Nightmare paragraph above for the glaring stats. There was one more stat, however, that I failed to note:

Number of Minutes Played By Joey Dorsey: Zero. COME ON ADELMAN!! EVEN LUTHER HEAD GOT IN THE GAME!!

Free Throw Defense Reference of the Night: Some fan a few rows behind me shouted "Say something, Bill!" during one of Troy Murphy's trips to the free throw line. I'm positive that he was referring to the strong Free Throw Defense that Rockets broadcaster Bill Worrell has been playing all season. Unfortunately, Murphy made both of those free throws, thus providing us with another example of how mind-boggling Free Throw Defense is.

Tracy McGrady = Ewing Theory?: We can finally put that to rest...for now.

73-9 Update: 10-6. John Hollinger would say it's possible.

Next Home Game: Saturday vs. San Antonio. Manu is back and I don't give a shit.