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Let's break a few POTW rules, shall we?

1. I'm not going with the obvious choice this time. Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, and Aaron Brooks - I apologize, because I know just how offended each of you are for being excluded. Great week nonetheless.

2. I'm counting last night's game. Yes, I know it's a new week. But I'm counting it anyway.

Trevor's shot selection has steadily improved over the past month, especially when Kevin Martin has been healthy. As a result, this past week was one of the more efficient weeks that Trevor has had in a while. In all (excluding last night's game in Sacramento), Trevor only took 4 shots from the 5-23 foot interval. In other words, all but four of his shot attempts for the week were either at the rim or from behind the three-point line. Coincidentally, Ariza missed all four of those attempts.

As I noted earlier this week, the addition of Martin should help improve Ariza's game, if only because it will help eliminate many of those long pull-up jumpers that Ariza, for whatever reason, fell in love with for much of the season. Last night, Trevor turned in a fantastic stat line, finishing with 29 points on 10 of 18 shooting, and added 2 blocks and 2 steals for kicks. Ariza has shot over 40% in each of his last four games, and hasn't been forcing the action quite as much as we are used to seeing.

It's great to see Ariza ending the year on such a high note, especially given how tumultuous a year it was at times. Now that he, Aaron, and Kevin have an entire summer to work together, we should only see better things from Ariza next season. And that defense is still doing the trick, whether anyone wants to take notice or not. 

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Take a look at that box score for the week. How do you like them apples?

A couple of weeks ago, Chase Budinger had us worried. At one point, he had only scored 12 points over the course of five games. Fast-forward to this past week, when he scored 12 points against the Spurs, which turned out to be his lowest output of the week.

Sure, Chase's numbers may have fluctuated due to an increase in playing time, but let's be honest: as good as Chase has been for a second-round pick (or just as a rookie altogether), nobody saw 77 points in a single week coming this soon. Perhaps next year. But not this year. What does this mean? He's improving his game at a scary-good rate.

Budinger was billed as a knockdown shooter (thank you, Mark Jackson) coming into the season after impressive summer league and pre-season numbers. And for a little while, he lived up to his billing and found a spot in the rotation. But as the year wore on, the shots started to clank quite a bit, and I know I wasn't the only one who was thinking, "Maybe he's not as good of a shooter as I thought." Apparently, I need a lesson in patience, because Bud has been partying from the three-point line at a rate that would have surely impressed one Jeff Spicoli.

By far, the most impressive aspect of Bud's recent success has been the type of shots he has been taking and making. Many of the threes that he hit weren't on calculated plays - they were impromptu shots on impulse. Remember that corner three that he heaved up against Boston late in the game? The one that kept us alive and allowed Aaron Brooks' shot to even matter? A few weeks prior, Budinger would have never taken that shot.

If anything positive can be taken from our recent injuries, it is that they allowed young guys like Budinger to start games and gain experience as an important player on offense. Perhaps the reason Budinger took that shot against the Celtics was because, as a starter, he felt it was his responsibility to the team to take it if he was open. That's a huge step in the development of a rookie: gaining the trust of teammates, and trusting yourself. And then, if you can gain the trust of a blogger, you're sitting pretty.

Obviously, Budinger still has work to on defense, but to be fair, he was guarding folks like Paul Pierce. He still gets beat on easy plays, but a lot of that is mental. And it's not even the "dedication" version of mental - instead, it relates to experience, little tricks that one picks up the more he plays.

Anyway, congratulations to Chase for winning the T-Mobile Player of the Week award.

I feel like this was a long time coming.

Kevin shot over 40% in each game last week, and played a key role in the Rockets' victory over the Denver Nuggets with 29 points. He also scored 28 against the Knicks, and with the exception of that game, kept his turnovers to a minimum throughout the week.

There are two aspects of Kevin's game that Rockets fans need to start getting used to:

A. He does his damage while you are leaning forward to look for the remote, or looking down to reach for your popcorn, or simply zoning out while watching the game. In other words, you don't notice Kevin's production nearly as much as you notice that of other elite scorers. He doesn't demand the ball like a Carmelo Anthony or a Kobe Bryant might. He takes what comes, and moves around the perimeter or down the baseline, hoping someone might find him for a pass. But he doesn't handicap the offense in the same way that Tracy McGrady did. He might not even touch the ball once on many possessions. That's just the way he plays, and if there is any beneficiary of his unselfishness and patience, it is Aaron Brooks.

B. He still has a lot of work to do on defense. As one of the commenters, Tisbee, pointed out, teams are starting to attack Kevin more. I remember David Thorpe telling Henry Abbott that if Kevin really dedicates himself to defense, he can be a good defender. Not to disagree with David, who knows far more about Kevin that I do, but in watching Kevin, I've noticed how flat-footed and upright he can get while guarding an opposing player. He doesn't get low to the ground like good perimeter defenders do, and as a result, he gets beaten off the dribble quite easily. His help defense seems to be getting better, which is a good sign. But he has a lot of work to do in order to become a better defender - luckily, it's in the little things that are tied to simple dedication.

For now, Kevin's going to have to do even more offensively, as our frontcourt seems to have been swatted to the trainer's room like a bunch of flies. I don't think he'll mind.

44 points. On 25 shots. And a bunch of rebounds, too.

That is all.

As a young child, Luis Scola was out to prove that there is more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. Apparently, he found rebounding, because he's ridiculously good at that, too.

Scola finally hit the 40+ minute mark last week - three times, in fact. He amassed a total of 62 rebounds in four games, including 21 against the Timberwolves. He went 13 for 13 from the free throw line, and shot at or above 50% in each contest. Come to think of it, Luis hasn't missed a free throw since February 26th. That's 31 straight makes, people.

While the fifteen turnovers were forgettable, it was a fantastic week for Luis, even if the Rockets went 2-2. He did everything he could to help.

On a side note, while it was nice to see Luis receive so many minutes, I'm praying that Coach Adelman decides to show us some more Jordan Hill. I think the brunt of Rockets' fans dismay with Scola's playing time earlier this season was that he was never on the floor in the fourth quarter when we really could have used him. I don't want to see Luis have to play 40 minutes a night, but I would like to see him during important situations. Given Hill's standout performance against Detroit, even if it's just one game, he proved to Adelman that he's not going to be the same waste of space that Hilton Armstrong is. Ideally, he would spell Scola sparingly during the second and third quarters, and then give way to Luis come crunch time.

We'll see how it plays out, but there's no sense in playing your thirty year-old power forward for nearly an entire game when you have a young talent that could use some developmental minutes sitting on your bench.

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We have our first repeat winner. We have our first repeat winner.

Aaron Brooks has been phenomenal ever since Kyle Lowry went out with an ankle injury, and hasn't missed a beat with new backcourt mate Kevin Martin on board. You'd think these two have been playing together for years the way they are finding each other open shots and distributing the ball. Kevin has made Brooks' life much, much easier.

Anyways, congratulations to Aaron for becoming the first repeat winner of the T-Mobile Player of the Week award.

For now, Chase Budinger really only has one purpose: to shoot. Oh, and to dunk on the fast break whenever possible.

He did both of those quite well this past week, scoring in double digits in each of the Rockets' four games. Last night against New Orleans, Chase nearly matched a career high with 18 points on 7-11 shooting. Over the course of the week, he made 8 of 13 three point attempts, and also had two blocks against the Hornets.

It will be interesting to see what this new guard-oriented attack does to Chase's playing time, especially when Kyle Lowry comes back. Given Kevin Martin's penchant for subpar defense (I haven't seen quite enough to judge myself), Coach Adelman may be looking to leave Ariza or Battier on the floor with Martin as often as possible and leave Budinger to play between 10-15 minutes per game. Budinger has certainly made an effort to defend, but he's not there yet.

But anyhow, congratulations to Chase for winning the T-Mobile Player of the Week award!

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I was this close to making Aaron Brooks our first repeat winner. He had two fantastic games against Golden State and Philadelphia, and a decent performance against Memphis. If you want to do this purely based off of scoring, then Brooks will get the award nearly every week.

Then I noticed something peculiar about Carl's stat sheet from this past week: he went to the free throw line 28 times in three games. He scored 24 points against the Warriors on only nine shot attempts. He had his first double-double in a month against Philadelphia, and had he been able to perform better against the double teams he was receiving, he may have won this award by a couple furlongs. He also had five blocks, and after looking at some more advanced stats, only six of his fifteen field goals were assisted - he did the rest on his own.

Landry has drawn plenty of attention from the public this year after starting off the season on a scoring tear. Now he is beginning to receive the same level of attention from opposing defenses, as opponents have begun to front Carl on the block as if he were Yao Ming or something.

Jonathan Feigen has a great piece from the Chronicle detailing how the Rockets are dealing with Carl's newest obstalce:

Whether dealing with teams throwing zones around the paint, switching on the perimeter, double-teaming Landry when he catches passes or starts moves, or Saturday's return of defensive fronting, the Rockets' offense has been fragile, breaking when hit with something different.

...

"Yeah, they basically gave me the Yao treatment," Landry said, "so we've got to figure out some ways, some options to keep the offense flowing when they play me that way. ... They defended us differently, and we may see that the rest of the season, especially down the stretch in the fourth quarter.

...

As much as there are opportunities on the other side of the offense, the Rockets cannot afford to let teams take Landry out of the mix, especially in fourth quarters. The emphasis, however, has been on how to attack when Landry is double-teamed with the ball rather than to keep the ball from him.

"Somehow we have to find ways to get Carl the ball, and it's got to be a combination of him figuring out what they're doing and us finding a way to get him the ball," coach Rick Adelman said. "They're going to front him in there, they need to have someone in there with a high-low game or something. For some of our guys, that's not a good situation. It's a thing we need to figure out."

Adjustments. It's something the Rockets have managed to do all season long without Yao Ming. But when it comes to making specific adjustments against opposing defenses, the Rockets can't do a whole lot. They're incredibly predictable on offense because they don't have the personnel to diversify their attack. Landry will have to make his own adjustments, but the key will be what the other Rockets do around him to make it much riskier for an opponent to front or double. Whether it involves adding Scola down to the opposite block to force an extra rotation or making more skip passes (which is rarely a safe option), the other Rockets will have to step up. This is nothing new for Adelman and everyone else - they saw the same thing with Yao Ming against Portland and many other opponents. Needless to say, it will be much more difficult to adjust this time around.

That said, if anybody can re-work his game to counter more attention, it's definitely Carl. His progression from "that energy guy" to probable team MVP in just three seasons has been stunning, especially given how undersized Carl is for the position that he plays. When it comes to finding loopholes in opposing defenses, Carl has been the man for the job. He's too smart to let something like double teams bury him for too long.