The Houston Rockets are Doomed

- The Season's Over -

The Houston Rockets are Doomed

May 13, 2009

Guard Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers

Kobe Bryant Photo Credit: Icon SMI

Retribution. Dominance. Punishment. Putting one’s ass squarely on another’s face.

There’s no other way to describe what the Los Angeles Lakers inflicted upon the hapless Houston Rockets Tuesday night, though Laker fans might also call Game 5 “beautiful” and Rockets fans would probably add “discouraging.”

The 118-78 trouncing was basically over a few minutes in the second stanza, when the Lakers picked up where they left off in the first quarter, a closing 23-6 run capped by a buzzer-beating three-point shot from Jordan Farmar. By the time the first half had drawn to a merciful close, the Lakers had staked a 25-point lead that would further balloon over the final 24 minutes.

Are the Rockets ready to give up and succumb to the inevitable? Of course not.

By now we all know they’re the most resilient team to compete in these playoffs, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they pulled one more rabbit out of their hat Thursday night in Houston and forced a decisive Game 7 (which I guarantee the Lakers would win). Would I be surprised? Yes, now that the Lakers seem to have their shit together, but not shocked. The Rockets already blew out the Lakers at home once with their heavily depleted lineup, and given some adjustments and much better execution than we saw in Game 5, there’s no reason they can’t rise up and do it again.

Even if they do, however, the Rockets are doomed in this series. There’s no getting around it.

The Lakers finally exploited their gargantuan size advantage over the undersized Rockets, with Andrew Bynum scoring the team’s first 6 points and Pau Gasol damn near racking up a double-double just a few minutes into the second quarter with 9 points and 7 boards (he finished with 16 points, 13 boards, and 3 blocks).

Against a team starting a 6-6 center in Chuck Hayes–who got into early foul trouble and had an evening he’d like to soon forget–the storyline of this game was to be dictated both by how well Bynum and Gasol established themselves and how early the Lakers would be able to get Scola and Hayes worrying about fouls. With Yao and Dikembe Mutombo out of the equation, the only bigs available off the Houston bench are Carl Landry (a gamer, but still just 6-7) and Brian Cook (0-7, 7 boards, 3 turnovers in about 19:30 minutes).

Mission accomplished on both fronts for LA, who did yield 5 offensive boards in the game’s first 5 minutes, but tightened up and allowed only 11 more in the remaining 43. Expect them to closely follow this script again in Game 6; Houston head coach Rick Adelman and his players know this and will counterattack as best they can, but they just don’t have the size to counter.

Speaking of the first 5 minutes, the Rockets did come out with a quiet confidence. For a few minutes there, it looked like Hayes would be effective on the boards, like Aaron Brooks would again make Derek Fisher look every bit the 34-year-old veteran he is and take him to the hole at will, like Shane Battier might have another magical night from three-ball land in him.

That’s when the Rockets started laying more bricks than a fat kid makes return trips to an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet. With their hopes clearly pinned on the three-point shot, Houston came up woefully short from both behind and in front of the arc, going an abyssmal 4-22 from the field in the second quarter and 3-15 on threes for the first half. When the final whistle had blown, Houston hit the showers having sunk just 36% of their shots and only 17% of their triple-tries (5-29, to be exact).

Credit the Lakers defense, who could afford to help each other out on the perimeter with little to worry about in the post. Point a finger at Ron Artest, who’s been brilliant at times during the Rockets’ postseason run but was terrible in Game 5 with just 9 points on 4-15 shooting (1-7 on triples), 4 boards, and 4 turnovers. And tip your hat to Phil Jackson, who had his team well-prepared and focused just two days after saying the Rockets deserved some fucking credit for the win.

On offense, the Lakers were unstoppable. They had only missed nine shots as a team as the second quarter began winding down and were 51% on the game. They were the aggressors, and as usual were rewarded for it to the tune of 36 free-throw attempts to Houston’s 16. That’s a gaping disparity that might have some Rockets loyalists howling “fix!”, but on this night, at least, there was nothing to debate about the officiating.

That leaves us with one team, the favored Los Angeles Lakers, who are once again refocused after responding to their second wakeup call in this series alone, and another, the underdog and overmatched Houston Rockets, who’ll have the home fans behind them but Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and Kobe Bryant towering above them, for Game 6 Thursday night. Both have legitimate shots at the win, but only one of them is ultimately doomed to a series defeat.

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