The Houston Rockets got their first taste of game action in the 2014-2015 NBA season Tuesday night, and it was hideously ugly, but they beat the Mavericks and their new small forward 111-108.
The refs managed to blow their whistle for 81 fouls in this game; to spare you the math, that's nearly two fouls per minute of game action. Dwight Howard played 16 minutes in the game before fouling out with 6 points and 6 boards. In total, the Rockets were called for 45 fouls and the Mavericks shot 64 free throws.
Thank goodness it was the preseason and most of humanity didn't see this game. On the plus side, the Rockets beat Chandler Parsons, who had himself a Swaggy P stat line (14 points, 1 assist, 1 rebound), and Donatas Motiejunas was a bright spot, scoring 18 points in 27 minutes with a less-inspiring 3 rebounds.
The game ended when new Rocket Kostas Papanikolaou made three free throws with 0.2 seconds left. According to the Rockets, Kostas Papanikolaou does not exist, so that makes it twice as impressive. Others who played pretty well (no one looked "good" in this game): Jeff Adrien (11 points, 4 rebounds, also should form Bash Brothers front line tandem with Gorilla Dunks Joey Dorsey), Ish Smith, whistle manufacturers.
In Trevor Ariza's first game back, he shot 5-7, scored 12 points with 4 rebounds and 3 assists, which sure sounds better than 14-1-1 to me, I don't know about you.
Anyway, congrats to you all if you didn't watch this game. Based on the fact that it was apparently blacked out in Houston, that should be most of you. Next game is on Thursday night against the Grizzlies against a former Rocket whose post-Houston career it would be nice if Parsons' emulated, Courtney Lee. The game will also be on NBA TV.