[Cornholio]

Houston Rockets (19-29) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (24-24)

Wednesday, February 8, 8:30 p.m.

Toyota Center

vs.

ROCKETS

Alston / Wesley / McGrady / Howard / Yao

LAKERS

Parker / Bryant / Odom / Cook / Brown

Rockets.com Preview

The Rockets will be looking for their fifth straight win Wednesday night when they host the Los Angeles Lakers at Toyota Center. Houston (19-29) is currently playing its best basketball of the season and is coming off an 87-81 win Monday night in Philadelphia. Los Angeles (24-23) plays Tuesday in Dallas before heading to Houston.

The Lakers have lost four of five heading into Tuesday’s game with the Mavericks. Lamar Odom has been out recently suffering from sprained rib cartilage and will be questionable for Wednesday’s game against the Rockets.

That’s good news for Houston as Odom is clearly L.A.’s second scoring option behind the NBA’s best, Kobe Bryant. Odom leads the Lakers in rebounds and assists and is a triple-double waiting to happen every night. Still, Bryant’s star power is bright enough to illuminate an L.A. win even with Odom out of the lineup. With Bryant at Toyota Center Wednesday, 60 percent of the Western Conference starting lineup for the All-Star Game will be in action as Bryant, Yao Ming, and Tracy McGrady were all elected to start the game to be held in Houston on Feb. 19.

Wednesday will be the second of three meetings between these two teams this season. Houston defeated Los Angeles 76-74 Dec. 18 at Staples Center.

A driving lay-up by McGrady with .3 seconds left on the clock iced a game in which the Rockets were without Yao, Rafer Alston, Jon Barry, and Derek Anderson.

Yao and Alston will be in action Wednesday, and both are coming off outstanding efforts against the Sixers Monday. Alston played the best game of his Houston career, and Yao led the Rockets down the stretch with eight of his 27 points coming in the fourth quarter Monday. Barry and Anderson will also be game-time decisions.

Houston’s defense was suffocating Monday as they held the Sixers without a made shot from the field for over 15 minutes in the second half. The Rockets will need a repeat performance Wednesday as the NBA’s leading scorer heads to Houston in the person of Bryant, who pours in over 35 points a contest.

The Rockets were able to limit Bryant to 24 points in the game at Staples Center, but Bryant has been in a zone as of late and averaged over 40 points a game in January. Don’t look for Los Angeles to repeat their 74-point showing from December Wednesday as they rank among the league’s best, scoring 98.6 points a contest.

Houston was able to limit the Lakers to a 35 percent shooting effort at Staples Center, but considering the Lakers average 44 percent a game, that too was probably a statistical anomaly last time out.

Houston is on a roll, however, and enters Wednesday winners of four out of their last five games with Yao in the lineup and has three straight home games on the horizon as Houston slowly pulls itself back into the Western Conference playoff race.

I wish I could see this game......F*** you, ESPN Deportes! (showing ORL vs MIL, instead )

....Anyway, should be a win, although we're playing at home.

[Yao Mania]

Expect Yao to continue his streak of strong games. He tends to play very well against LA, and with Mihm and Odom out look for him to dominate even more.

Let Kobe put up his 40, and we'll still get the win.

[eaglewu]

rockets 93: Lakers:89

[kisstherim]

Beat LA!!!

This is a must win

[Yao Mania]

Actually Odom's back playing tonight against the Mavs. Let's hope Lakers can keep the game close so their starters won't be pulled...

[OneBadLT123]

Im going to assume Tmac will switch once a while and take kboe and JH will be at the 3 and Stro at the 4 for a lot of the game.

[Dragnsmke1]

Ill bet all my uCash on the Lakers so yall win this one...

[debarge]

HHHmmm, actually I think this is a trap game for us not the Lakers. I will never underestimate Kobes' Killa instinct, he loves going against the Texas teams, especially HOU and SA. I don't think he respects the Mavs at all, defensively that is. Even the haters know that the Rocs' are totally different w/ Yao and Mac and mostly healthy other guys. 4-1 in Yao's return. The game will be decided by how much intensity we have, and whether or not the coach decides to actually play someone off the bench not named Swift or Bowen?? The Lakers have a system built on PF shooting 3s, that's always a detriment to us for some reason. We have to defend the 3pt line, get the ball out of Kobes hands, and run our own fast-break. If we do that, and have great intensity and focus we will win a solid game against a tuff opponent.

It would be great to get our 20th win against the Kobes, I mean Lakers

[Mr. Predictable]

Houston MUST close out this game. Kobe will probably have a poor shooting night, since JVG's trapping defense really makes it hard for wing players to dominate against Houston. Consistently getting the ball to Yao even AFTER they take the lead is the key to not blowing this game. It just seems like LA is one of those teams we cannot put away, even though they don't rebound, don't pass and don't play defense.

I'm more worried about Odom than Kobe, if Odom is dominating Howard as he always does than JVG shouldn't hesitate to put McGrady on him.

[Demiloy]

Expect Yao to continue his streak of strong games. He tends to play very well against LA, and with Mihm and Odom out look for him to dominate even more.

Exactly. Even against Shaq Yao scored well, and with no Shaq, and not even a Mihm, he should do great. Guaranted. I'm betting all my Ucash that the Rockets will win this.

[kisstherim]

The Lakers were playing well then, having taken seven of eight games before the Rockets stole a victory. So when McGrady drove through the Lakers to pull out a 78-76 comeback victory with a layup in the last seconds Dec. 18, Bryant announced he would not let such a thing happen again and, right then, seemed ready to take on the world.

"That just shouldn't happen," Bryant said. "Next time, I'll guard him."

Since then, of course, Bryant has seemed in search of every conceivable challenge. But tonight at Toyota Center is his first chance at the "next time" against McGrady.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/3643752.html

[Yao Mania]

And T-Mac criticized Toronto's Defense when Kobe put 81 on them. I wouldn't mind seeing them shutting each other down, 'cuz for once I can finally say that our team has much more depth than they do

Brian Cook actually might be a cause for concern seeing how well he can shoot. I'm gonna go out and say Stro may be a big factor in this game.