Celtics Take On Rockets

I was going to write a bit more about our next opponent, the Houston Rockets (8:30 p.m. Eastern, NBATV), but I needed to write about the Iverson trade first, and before I did that, I needed a nap, because I was up til 5 a.m. Pacific Monday morning doing homework. Between my nap and the Iverson post, I got distracted, first by Grizzlies-Warriors (27 and 16 for the Spanish Flea!), then by the Monday Night Football game (which had big implications for two of my fantasy teams), then by dinner (cheese ravioli and frozen veggies), then by an entire episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles (happy that I finally watched the show that ran those ads with Danzig's "Mother" during last year's Finals!).

So you get a long Iverson post and a short note on the Rockets. Whatever. It's Election Day; none of you people are reading anyway.

Houston made a big splash this offseason, adding Ron Artest to Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, thus giving them a Big Three -- if an oft-injured Big Three -- of their own. Early returns (political term, +1) are mixed: The Rockets looked dreadful offensively in beating the Grizzlies 82-71 on opening night in Houston; put up 62 points -- more than they scored through three quarters against Memphis -- the next night in Dallas; then moved to 3-0 on Saturday with a listless 89-77 home win over Oklahoma City.

So the good news is that Houston has hardly been dominant, barely sliding by hapless opponents like Memphis and Oklahoma City. The bad news is that the Rockets came to play the one night they had to, and the Celtics count as an opponent against whom you have to come to play.

This is likely one of the games where our role players are going to decide if we win or not. Pierce is going to have his work cut out for him on both ends of the floor against Artest; ditto Ray with McGrady; and KG is going to have his hands full with the seemingly endless string of energetic, physical big men the Rockets can run out there. (Luis Scola, Carl Landry, Chuck Hayes -- why did this team draft Joey Dorsey? How many of the same guy do you need?)

So a key matchup comes at the point guard slot, where Rondo should have a big advantage over Rafer Alston. It's not so big an advantage, however, to overcome the mismatch at center, where Yao has a big edge over Perkins even when Perk is playing well. For the record, Perk isn't playing well, or at least he hasn't yet; he had trouble with Roy Hibbert against the Pacers on Saturday, so I'm not terribly optimistic about how he'll handle Yao.

Houston's bench is good, too, with point guard Aaron Brooks complementing the aforementioned depth up front. It actually should be pretty fun to watch Powe and Big Baby go up against the likes of Landry and Hayes -- you aren't going to see many guys who play harder than that crew.

Actually, I'm not going to see it at all; with no digital cable and no sports bars I know of -- never mind feel particularly safe walking to -- nearby, I'm in the dark on this one, since it's on NBATV and therefore blacked out on League Pass Broadband (which I don't really understand). Depending on how the game goes, how much work I get done, and whether or not the presidential election ends with rioting in the streets outside my apartment, I'll give some thoughts on what I can ascertain from the boxscore. If not, I'll be back with you on Wednesday, when we face Oklahoma City and Kevin Durant.