Off And Running

Rockets roll to 99-85 victory over Spurs in preseason opener

Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff Writer

Houston - After a summer spent trumpeting the virtues of pushing the pace at every opportunity, the Houston Rockets turned those words into reality Tuesday night, using an uptempo, fast-paced brand of basketball to knock off the Spurs in their preseason opener 99-85.

Carl Landry led all scorers with 19 points, helping to lead a balanced attack which witnessed seven Houston players post at least 8 points on the night. And though the Rockets had to be pleased to produce 22 fast break points – 19 of which came in the opening half - perhaps most heartening was the fact that they still managed to shut down the Spurs on the defensive end as well, limiting San Antonio to an anemic 35% shooting from the field.

“I thought it was a good game for us, “ said Rockets’ Head Coach Rick Adelman after the game. “It was good to see where we are as we did a good job pushing the ball in the first half. We had pretty good movement in the first half; the second half I thought we really slowed down as we tried too much one-on-one.

“If we‘re going to be successful we have to have ball movement and player movement as that is what this is all about. Defensively, we did a decent job but we did give up some threes to Bonner in the first half, and those are just situations that we just have to get better at. Overall, I was pleased. ”

As Adelman mentioned, the Rockets were at their attacking best early on as the team raced out to a 35-26 first quarter lead, sparked by the lightning-quick play of point guard Aaron Brooks. The third year player out of Oregon scored 8 of his 12 points in the opening frame, most of which he spent flying past San Antonio’s helpless defenders at every opportunity.

And when Brooks wasn’t weaving his way into the lane for lay-ups or pulling up for threes in transition, teammates like Luis Scola, Trevor Ariza and rookie Chase Budinger proved more than capable of contributing as well, as that fab foursome combined to tally 27 of Houston’s 35 points in the quarter.

While hardly crawling to a snail’s pace, the second quarter certainly saw the tempo slow down a tad when both club’s second units hit the floor. San Antonio was especially buoyed by the presence of rookie DeJaun Blair, who took advantage of the Rockets’ lack of interior size to put on a rebounding clinic. By the end of the first half, the burly power forward had 8 points and 11 rebounds, numbers which would swell to 16 and 19 respectively when he left the game for good at the end of the third quarter.

“Yeah, that‘s going to be our problem,” acknowledged Adelman, when asked about the difficulties his team demonstrated while trying to keep Blair off the glass. “We know that we‘re small and we have to battle. The guys had to guard someone that was a handful. They just have to continue to battle to keep him off and the rest of our guys cannot be spectators.”

But the Spurs’ rookie was not the only first-year player who made his presence felt; Budinger was smooth as advertised, putting his pure jumper and savvy court presence to good use which scoring 15 points on 7-10 shooting from the field.

“I had a lot of butterflies in my stomach coming into the game,” admitted the rookie from Arizona. “The coaches were all being encouraging and telling me to just go out there and be aggressive and do what you do in practice and you’ll be fine. I was able to knock down my first shot and it gave me a little confidence.”

Adelman has spoken highly of Budinger since the start of training camp and nothing that he saw Tuesday night changed his opinion.

“He‘s just a really solid player. He‘s very good coming off quick and shooting the ball. Like I‘ve said, he‘s just a solid player that would fit in whatever you do. He‘s been impressive during the whole training camp.”

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