Houston Rockets Space Center

Maurice Taylor grabs 7 boards- Rockets lose
November 22
By: Ace

Rockets 81 Celtics 95

Unbelieveable. One night after delivering an impressive victory over the Indiana Pacers, the Rockets came up flat against the struggling Boston Celtics. Houston played their worst game of the season, and shot a paltry 32% from the field.

It looked to be a long night when Boston jumped to a 10-0 lead and leading by 13 in the first quarter. Boston, unlike the Rockets, were red-hot, shooting an amazing 74% early on. The game was never close, and the Rockets could not find anyone to materialize this game into an actual contest. Believe me, they looked ugly tonight.

The Good

Antoine Walker had a near triple-double, scroing 13 points, grabbing 11 boards, and dishing out 8 assists.

The Bad

Maurice Taylor had a terrible game, especially considering who he hwas playing against.

The Ugly

Man, Steve Francis sure has ways of surprising us. After one of his best games of the season, Steve came back to shoot horribly on his way to 6 points and only 4 assists.

Steve Francis followed up his maginificent performance against the Pacers with 6 points and 4 assists. Hakeem Olajuwon had 11 points to go with 6 boards, but shot just 4-13. His backup, Jason Collier, did not do much better. 3-10 for 7 points. Specially ugly was Maurice Taylor's performance against one of the worst defensive starting forwards in the league. He was only able to hit 1-9, but he did get 7 boards. Now if he could only find a way to concentrate on both rebounding and scoring at the same time...

The Celtics did not play excellent basketball, but there is room for compliments. Smothering defense at certain stages of the game kept the Rockets at bay, and strong interior defense proved to stop the attack from our big men. Tony Battie had a strong game, blocking 5 shots and grabbing 7 boards. Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce combined for 29 points, 19 boards, and 10 assists.

Cuttino Mobley led the Rockets with 17 points, but this was only due to the fact that he was given some free baskets at the end of the game.

The Rockets face the Miami Heat next, who have picked up form in recent games and have a monster at center in Brian Grant. It'll be a tough game, but I expect the Rockets to come out with a vengeance. Steve Francis will not take this loss lightly.