Battier Buzz
Phil Jackson goes bonkers on Odom as Rockets rejoice in stunning comeback
Phil Jackson got on Lamar Odom at the Toyota Center. (The two are shown here ina different disagreement).
Shane Battier hit the big shots.
There are some Tibetan monks more prone to emotional outbursts than Phil Jackson. The Los Angeles Lakers unconventional coach breaks into a tirade about as often as Matthew McConaughey wears a shirt.
But there Jackson was at the Toyota Center Wednesday night, meeting Lamar Odom on the floor as he walked toward the Lakers bench for a fourth quarter timeout, getting into the 7-foot forward's face and chest. Jackson was pissed and insistent. And the bottom hadn't even fallen out on LA's night yet. That was just one of the scenes from the one of the wildest nights in recent Rockets memory — certainly since the 2009 playoffs.
And no one saw it coming.
As tipoff approached, this loomed as one of the most tepid, buzz-less Rockets-Lakers match-ups in years. The team kept releasing new available seats it had "found" for Kobe Bryant's only appearance in Houston this year. It was apossible to buy a lower bowl ticket 15 rows from the floor for $40, less than half face value for a Lakers game, on the Rockets' Flash Seats' bidding ticket system. Still, at the 7:30 p.m. tip, the arena was only about half full. And large swaths of the crowd there were decked out in purple Lakers gear.
By 9:55? Toyota was packed with rocking Rockets fans, standing up for a comeback. Suddenly, the "Beat LA" chants were back in style, Rockets owner Les Alexander, decked out in a red sweater, was turning and waving his arms to the masses ... and suddenly for at least a few brief moments, it felt like the giddy glory days again.
Rockets 109, Lakers 99.
Of course, it could end up meaning very little very soon. The game is probably more telling about the three-peat gunning Lakers than the now 6-12 Rockets. Jackson told reporters before the game that there were "about 35 things" the champs needed to improve on. Jackson had calmed down by the postgame, insisting it was too early to be alarmed about LA's first four-game losing streak since April of 2007 — even if not a single one of the coach's 11 championship teams ever lost four straight games in a season.
Shane Battier isn't going to score 11 points in the final three minutes of many NBA games (or perhaps, even a single other one), but it's still nice to know that this Rockets team has moments like this in him.
Battier showed grit in hitting those two straight corner threes — the kind of shots he often finds himself open for — and this time, he never hesitated. Houston survived a horrible foul call that negated a Kevin Martin basket down the stretch and still found a way to put up 33 points against LA in the fourth quarter. With Yao Ming still talking about coming back from another injury, and this night serving as a practice court curiosity for early-arriving fans, and Aaron Brooks shelved as well, the Rockets' bench shouldn't be that good.
Still, it managed to cobble together 40 points of impact.
It's not likely to make the crowd any bigger for the next home game against an unattractive Detroit Pistons team. But anytime you can make Phil Jackson mad, you've done something worthwhile. Rockets fans had a moment, an echo of the good days in that loud, frantic fourth quarter.
It's a start. Every season needs one.
