A Dirty Game

That's the the only word for it. The Lakers played a dirty game. They obviously took offense at everyone in the media calling them soft, so they used every bully tactic in the book to disconcert the Rockets and salvage game 2. I hate that it worked. The Rockets played hard, but lacked composure, time after time dribbling into the Lakers collapsing defense in the lane - only to turn the ball over.

This was a game of great succes for some Rockets and great failure for others. There wasn't much in the middle. While Carl Landry was in the game, the Rockets outscored the Lakers by 11 points and by 15 when Chuck Hayes played. But those were the good stories. The five starters had an average +/- stat of -19.2. The Lakers outscored the Rockets by 29 with Yao in the game. Yao was challenged early and did not step up. About the only good thing that came out of this game was that Houston's reserves beat up on Los Angeles's reserves. Oh, yeah, and Derek Fisher was suspended for the next game. He deserved it for his outrageous intentional foul on Luis Scola. Kobe deserved the same fate for elbowing Ron Artest in the throat, but the NBA had not the courage to issue anything more than a Flagrant one foul.

I still haven't heard any more about Von Wafer being sent to the showers early for mouthing off to Rick Adelman. Coach would only say that it's a "team matter." In other words, Addleman did the right thing twice. First, he refused to be shown disrespect by a player and he refused to rake the player over the coals in the press. Let's hope Wafer's embarassment over the whole thing is enough to have taught him a lesson. Let's also keep in mind that despite his notoriety and wealth, he's still just a kid and kids shoot there mouths off, especially in pressure situations. Learn from it, Von, and move on.