When the season started, the Rockets were one of the favorites to win a lot more games than they lose. People predicted that the Rockets would do that on the back of some players in the lineup. And they had all reasons in the world to believe so. After all, with a composition of Tracy McGrady, Ron Artest and Yao Miang, you definitely can expect an average of at least 30 amongst these three if not more. But quite the opposite happened, as the season unfolded!
McGrady had his own share of woes in whatever little games he played. Finally, he limped off with a sore knee. Artest could just not show his full prowess due to a sprained knee. The last of the trio, Yao tried his best spiritedly and pushed his average up to 19 points. But tried as hard as he did, there were few games one could remember when Yao dominated the game like he was supposed to or celebrated to be.
In spite of these three setbacks, the Rockets have been winning consistently as ever. This surely should be a lesson of sorts for other teams on what needs to be done when your torchbearers are on the sick bench. Rockets changed their plan of attack. Rather than having two or three guys moving upfront, they had a strong offensive defense line. The idea was to keep the ball moving. Yao played in most of the games, but in light of the new plan, he received touches at best.
The end result was that in a Rockets game, you could see the way Rockets attacked and fell back on their defense. It seemed like a wave to the spectators. On the score sheet, six players crossed the double figure mark in terms of points. In fact, had it not been for Shane Battier and Carl Landry, the Rockets would have had 8 players in their line up clocking double figures. Clearly, here is a team that symbolizes balance.
The role of Yao in such a game plan is quite an effective one. The team management measured Yao's effectiveness on the number of shots he creates and takes. This allows Yao to compliment the pace of his team. With the pace of his team not compromised, Yao fitted into the combination like a duck to water. Yao indeed was effective, and though his point line does not indicate how well he played, he did manage to create quite a few scoring opportunities for others.
Moral of the story is - When your stars are down and out, better think of a new game plan. Possibly, you could have some stars in the making. Even if they aren't, who cares so long as you keep winning games.
Author Resource:-
AwesomeSeating.com provides more information about this incredible team and also offers NBA Tickets to all of your favorite games including Houston Rockets Tickets, make sure to get a piece of the action, visit our website at http://www.awesomeseating.com
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlespawner.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
