MVN - Most Valuable Network

Rockets secure playoff spot, sink Sonics

Well, well..  my preseason prediction of 56 wins is looking pretty good about now, isn’t it?  

Currently, now that Houston put the Sonics out tonight pretty handily 103-80 with TMAC sitting out and resting his shoulder, the Rockets sit in the standings at 53-25, just two games out behind New Orleans for the Western Conference lead.  Currently seeded 5th behind Utah at 4, the dream matchup between these two teams have me Pavlovian dogging it for the first round.  There’s five teams at 52 and 53 wins right now, so that can, and will, change quite a bit hour to hour.  Four more games remain on the schedule, including a matchup with the Jazz in Utah on 4/14.  But before that game can happen, Houston must take on the Suns at home, then travel to Denver for a scramble against the Nuggets before hitting Utah on the 2nd night of a back-to-back.    The Rockets will then end the season at home against the Clippers.   So all you haters out there that said the Rockets won’t make the playoffs???    I’m awaiting your profound apologies.  You’re now just going to have to admit that they are another pretty good team in an awesome conference race.

Interestingly enough, Houston had lost 12 of their last 13 when both big time All Stars were both off the floor at the same time (Yao and TMAC).  Tonight was an exception to that rule.  Rafer Alston scored 18 and Luis Scola joined in with 13 points and 12 boards to offset the absences in the lineup and easily took care of Seattle/(OKC?) in the Toyota Center.  Luther Head had 16 and Steve Novak had 17 points to round out the even scoring around the bench.  Houston shot 53 percent to Seattle’s 36 on their way to winning their 20th of the last 22 games in the Bayou City.   For those of you still looking at the streak, that’s 33 of the last 39 games.  Not too shabby.

To make 56 wins, Houston will have to beat the Clippers, then take two games from the three other teams - Phoenix, Denver, Utah - in order to nail my prediction.  That’s going to be at least one road win, Utah being the most difficult to hope for. 

MY COLORS FROM STARDOCK

Hey, quick product plug here.  I just downloaded and applied my new Rockets desktop theme on my laptop using MY COLORS from Stardock.  Quick and easy download, it personalized my desktop with a Houston Rockets logo on a court; my icons were changed to basketball themes (Basketball START button, net for the Recycle Bin, the Rockets logo on all folders - just some really cool stuff!).  You get a weather gadget and media player completely personalized with your team colors and graphics.  Great product - I really like it.   The whole NBA is represented, so go check out their NBA site  and get yours today.  You can look at screenshots of what your desktop would look like. 

***Kudos out to the MVN web-admin guys - love the new format.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 10:47 pm and is filed under Houston Rockets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.