Landry Knocked Out, Cuban Crying, T-Mac Back: Latest in Rockets Land

Dirk and Landry, What Happened?

When Dirk Nowitzki drove into the lane and collided with Landry mid-air, the collision seemed rather minor.

Then Dirk would bend to the floor, and blood would begin to pour.

Landry seemed fine, but called to the bench, with apparent bleeding coming from his mouth, as well.

The initial reaction would be that Dirk knocked out Landry's teeth and bit Dirk in the process, which created the bleeding.

That's the story in a nutshell, but it goes beyond that.

In fact, it was found that chips of Landry's teeth—two of the five total knocked out—were dislodged in Dirk's elbow.

That play seemed to be a foreshadowing of things to come.

Jason Kidd's hard screen on Anderson, which sparked a mini-scuffle, Josh Howard's technical foul, and the eventual ejection of both Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle and center Erick Dampier late in overtime.

Nothing New, Cuban Crying Over Refs

The Rockets were able to come out victorious due to some clutch shots by Brooks and the brilliant play of Lowry, but the Mavericks coming out as sore losers.

Not because of their lack of physicality, but because of their owner Mark Cuban announcing he'd be filing a public protest against the game, reason being due to a "multiple misapplications of the rule."

It's Cuban being Cuban, and nothing is likely expected to come out of this, except the loss of $10,000 from Cuban's back pocket.

But he does have a legitimate case that there should have been more time on the clock in the final possession, but, if anything, the referees missed calls on Brooks' foul being called a flagrant and unfairly giving Anderson a technical foul when Kidd clearly instigated the contact, doing his best impersonation of the hard Derek Fisher foul on Luis Scola in last year's playoffs.

If any further implication were to come out of this, I'd be surprised.

McGrady's Progress: Third Game Back

Because of all the hoopla around the game, it made one of the lesser stories go unnoticed: McGrady's third game back from micro-fracture knee surgery.

After going scoreless in the game against the Nuggets, McGrady looked the best he did in his consistent seven to eight minute stretch since coming back.

He blocked Dirk's fade away jumpshot, made some crisp passes, one particularly to Scola, and was moving better than he has since returning.

Then coming off a screen with a man in his face, McGrady knocked down a jumper from the left wing just inside the three-point line.

With Landry's injury, there was speculation T-Mac could see some time in the second half, but nothing came to fruition, as Adelman has his plans and is intent on sticking to it.

You honestly can't blame him, as Adelman knows more than anyone the seriousness of putting too much on a player returning from that magnitude of a surgery after seeing Chris Webber going through the same thing just a couple seasons ago.

Even if Landry were to be out for tonight's game against the Thunder, I wouldn't expect the plans to change much, as McGrady's minutes will be re-evaluated after the stretch of games when the horrid back to backs finally ends.

One thing is for sure, I'd rather see him shooting than Ariza at this point.

Ariza's Underachieving

With McGrady back and soon will be clamoring for more minutes, it has to come from somewhere, and all signs point towards Trevor Ariza, who leads the Rockets in minutes at nearly 39 minutes per game.

Many articles have been mentioning Ariza as one leading Most Improved Player candidates in the NBA and a catalyst to the Rockets success.

He's certainly been a factor, but his improvement this season has been severely overrated.

He's currently 18th in the NBA in shot attempts per game. And, among the top 50 players leading in that category, Ariza shoots the second worst percentage and the worst percentage among players who have played at least 20 games. The worst being Devin Harris, who's played 17 games. 

He's fifth in the league in three-point attempts per game and second in the NBA in total three-pointers attempted.

Only Rasheed Wallace among the top 20 three-point shooters launches at a worse percentage than Ariza.

He only gets to the line 3.1 times in his 39 minutes per game, which would be exactly half the amount of the 13 other players who receive more minutes.

He's shown no improvement in his handles or his ability to create either for himself or his teammates.

So far in the month of December, he's averaging 14.0 points per game, with six rebounds and the same amount of assists and turnovers.

He's shooting 39 percent from the floor (which is higher than his season average), 27 percent from three, and 50 percent from the line.

He's a role player, who, so far this season, has been thrust into a role he cannot handle.

Concluding Thoughts

Despite so many questions, one thing has remained consistent, the effort and passion the Rockets have displayed in nearly all their games.

At 15-11, the Rockets are sixth in the West and half a game outside the fifth-seeded Portland Trailblazers.

It's still too early to determine playoff ranking and seedings, but it's a position no one expected the Rockets to be in at this point in the season.