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West coast games suck. Usually, I'm falling asleep by halftime, but I missed all of the game yesterday because I'm studying for a board exam. I'm not upset that I missed the Rockets running out of gas late, but I am pleased that they fought a team that had most of its rotation firmly in place in their arena.
Back-to-backs suck a lot. I'm sure they suck for NBA players, but I really hate them because trying to turn around and write a game preview right after a game that ends around midnight local time is difficult. Barring injury, there's not much to say that you guys don't know already.
So excuse me while I treat you like intelligent NBA fans and just give you my feelings about the game and skip the matchups.
Sacramento has been missing DeMarcus Cousins for their last 7 games due to viral meningitis. You don't need a medical student to tell you that's some bad stuff, but I'll say it anyway: that's some bad stuff. I hope he gets better quickly. I'm sure Kings fans are also pulling for him, as the Kings are 2-5 without him. The last game he played in was actually against the Rockets.
Houston's coming off a tough loss against the Warriors and the Kings are coming off a tough loss to the Lakers (been there) on Tuesday night.
The Kings have their fair share of guys who can light up a scoreboard. Rudy Gay, Darren Collison, and Ben McLemore can all shoot from all over the place and can get to the line almost at will. Derrick Williams can come off the bench and throw 20 at you. Ramon Sessions hasn't been great this year but he's been known to play well against Houston.
Reggie Evans is a mad dog under the basket and grabs every possible rebound. Jason Thompson will always look like a stud against the Rockets and he's always good for a offensive rebound followed by a putback dunk every time these teams square off. Ryan Hollins gets under everyone's skin and Nik Stauskas is a rookie with range.
Oh, and we all still love Carl Landry around here. Omri Casspi has 2 straight DNP-CDs so he may not get much burn if any at all. Still, it was incredibly nice of him to say such nice things about his time with the Rockets when a certain Chach Douche pretty much burned his bridges as he left Houston. For that, I'll always have appreciate the Playa from Judea.
I'm sure when TNT picked this game up, they were thinking of "Dwight Howard vs. DeMarcus Cousins" or "Rudy Gay vs. James Harden." Well, they'll get one of those tonight. I really hope Shaq tries to give the centers advice. In my head I can already hear it.
Shaq: Terrence Black's got 2 points and 4 rebounds at halftime Ernie. I need him to get at least 25 more points and 15 more rebounds. Donuts-ah Valanciunas is down there making moves and he's just wiggling around down there.
Ernie: Um, it's Tarik Black and Donatas Motiejunas, and Motiejunas has 12 points and 7 rebounds at the break.
Shaq: Valanciunas, Motiejunas, Divac, Olajuwon, I owned all of them!
Kenny: Actually, Hakeem and I beat you 4-0 in the Finals.
Charles (after sucking in his spit before he talks like he always does): Kenny, you never beat nobody. You just prayed Hakeem would do all the work.
Kenny: Someone had to pass him the ball!
Ernie: Guys...
Shaq: NO ERNIE, JOEY DORSEY ISN'T SHOWING ME ANYTHING DOWN THERE! HE'S TOO LITTLE DOWN THERE!
I could write for the NBA on TNT. Really I could.
Also, Propeller Plane revenge game!
The Kings were one of my favorite teams during the early 2000s. I hated Steve Francis so I needed a team to root for that routinely had a shot in the playoffs and I picked Sacramento. I'm devastated for them that they never won a title, but there's still Youtube to remember them by.
Tip-off is at 9:30 CST on TNT.
Rockets vs Kings coverage