Streaking

Uhhh...I planned for this entry to be written last week when this actually mattered, but I'll finish it anyways for funsies.

The Rockets won a NBA-history-2nd-best 22 games then proceeded to get destroyed by a Ray Allen-less Boston team. KG made sure the streak ended, and you can see signs of KGness from their defense. Boston played insanely stifling defense (which I think will lead them over Detroit to the Finals if KG is alive and has his vocal chords working), and combined with a Houston team with inexperienced rooks, a cold T-Mac, and no Yao led to such an embarassing end to the streak that the media immediately tossed the streak away as headline news and went back to LakersLakersLakers.

And yes, Houston did win without Yao for the second half of the streak, and everyone got to see the finger-wags again, but I don't think the team will go very far in the playoffs Yao-less. Rafer Alston is not going to drop 25-7 per night (even though he's on my fantasy team and is awesome), T-Mac will be doubled, and Luis Scola and Carl Landry won't be enough to fill in for a 7-5 center who can score in the post consistently. The team can play great defense, better defense with Mutombo than Yao, and have more room in the paint for the smaller players to drive and make plays which before would have been Yao's fade-away jumpers. Still, great defense and never-been-out-of-the-first-round T-Mac don't add up against the rest of the ridiculously stacked West playoff teams. As of now they are the 3rd seed and would play 6th seed San Antonio, and I don't think Dike will be finger-wagging Tim Duncan too much. Houston did beat SA during the streak, but it was the very first game and Yao was still healthy *cough* pre-Olympic-tampering. Their last regular season meeting is this Sunday, and will be tough for Houston to win at San Antonio now that Parker is healthy and back to his crazy circus layups routine. I do like the Bobby Jackson pickup though. If he can rain those 3's and play alongside Alston, T-Mac, Scola/Landry, and Dike, that's a very good if somewhat undersized Rockets five.

I also planned to write about the Hawks' 4-game losing streak earlier in the month, but the team has since seemingly found the urgency that never seemed to display itself in games even though most players on the team who talks to the press talk all the time about urgency (J-Chill, Joe, Horford), and you don't need me to point out the Highlight Factory battling for its first playoffs in a century and actually having a good chance because so many Eastern conference teams suck. Which will forever be repeated because it is ridiculous that the Hawks are actually in the playoffs right now; they would be 12th in the West right above the Clippers and T-Wolves.