Saturday, November 29, 2003
SONICS 95, ROCKETS 88
The Sonics bounce back from getting taken to the cleaners in Utah and beat the Rockets and Yao Ming.
Though run-and-gun seems to have fallen by the wayside and we don't know who the team really is right now, there was some inspired play tonight, from what I'm hearing from the Calabro and McKinney, and from what I saw flipping back and forth between KONG and the CBC (Canucks game). Antonio Daniels, who should have been getting more PT this whole time, provided some very inspired play, as did Luke Ridnour. One would think Yao should have just abused the undersized Sonics big guys, but he didn't totally take over this game. Sonic overpaid big man Calvin Booth got five blocks in 10 minutes. Daniels had a play just before the end of the first half where he had the ball beyond the three-point line and just exploded for a dunk and the foul. I saw Ridnour stick a couple of threes and make a great pass to the other overpaid big man Jerome James for a flush. The bigtime player tonight, though, was Rashard Lewis, returning from tending to his family after his brother's death. He scored 27 and pulled down 9 boards. The Sonics turned the ball over 9 times tonight as opposed to 21 in Utah the other night. The Rockets missed 13 of their 40 shots from the charity stripe and shot only 18% from 3-pt land (three makes).
Though run-and-gun is gone for the time being, this team did need to eventually play some defense, and they appeared to do that tonight.
Though run-and-gun seems to have fallen by the wayside and we don't know who the team really is right now, there was some inspired play tonight, from what I'm hearing from the Calabro and McKinney, and from what I saw flipping back and forth between KONG and the CBC (Canucks game). Antonio Daniels, who should have been getting more PT this whole time, provided some very inspired play, as did Luke Ridnour. One would think Yao should have just abused the undersized Sonics big guys, but he didn't totally take over this game. Sonic overpaid big man Calvin Booth got five blocks in 10 minutes. Daniels had a play just before the end of the first half where he had the ball beyond the three-point line and just exploded for a dunk and the foul. I saw Ridnour stick a couple of threes and make a great pass to the other overpaid big man Jerome James for a flush. The bigtime player tonight, though, was Rashard Lewis, returning from tending to his family after his brother's death. He scored 27 and pulled down 9 boards. The Sonics turned the ball over 9 times tonight as opposed to 21 in Utah the other night. The Rockets missed 13 of their 40 shots from the charity stripe and shot only 18% from 3-pt land (three makes).
Though run-and-gun is gone for the time being, this team did need to eventually play some defense, and they appeared to do that tonight.
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