Houston controlled most of the game, although Minny had a couple dangerous runs that even gave them a lead in the middle of the 3rd quarter. However, Houston ended up winning 107-92. With the win, the Rockets improve to 10-7 while the Wolves drop to 7-10. The Rockets key performer probably was Kyle "Mr. Triple-Double" Lowry, who provided 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists. Kevin Martin was no slouch, finishing with 31 points of his own.
The Wolves are basically a band of merry men surrounding their All-Star/All-World/All-Universe power forward Kevin Love, who finished with 39 points and 12 rebounds. He is relentless on the boards, especially offensively, and his inclusion of a 3-pointer into his game mixes low and high extremely well. As for the sidekicks, this year has been a kind of culmination for lots of Minnesota General Manager David Khan's experiments: namely 2011 #2 overall pick Derrick Williams out of Arizona and the #5 overall pick from the 2009 draft Ricky Rubio. As this is Rubio's first year coming to the NBA from his native Spain, the effect on Minnesota is having two Top-5 picks added to your team in the same year.
The aforementioned newcomers are playing well: the wildly-popular Rubio (1/2 of Minnesota's "Dos Lobos" Spanish contigent, along with injured guard J.J. Barea) is making his mark in the league as a distributor and good defensive player, while Williams really needs to look no further than teammate Michael Beasley to model his game as an offensive-minded wingman. As the year goes on, Minnesota can look to continue to build the rapport of their young nucleus of Love/Rubio/Williams and hopefully bring great chemistry down the stretch of this year and into next season. They have room to grow, but as was evident in large stretches tonight, these Timberwolves aren't playing very well.
So what does this win say about the Rockets? The importance of a road win cannot be understated, especially coming off of an emotional win against the rival San Antonio Spurs. The triple-double by Lowry serves as an announcement to the league, a coming-out party of sorts, that K-Low is here and he is one of the best point guards in the world. Kevin Martin keeps proving that he can score anywhere and everywhere, even though his insistence on shooting fast-break 3's continually makes me nauseous regardless of how many he makes. Samuel Dalembert has really made his own niche as a rebounder, cleaning up the glass on both ends of the court. Also, his innate sense of shotblocking is a key to the Rockets' defense.
From watching Houston play for much of this season, it is my opinion that these are the Rockets' two best lineups. First, the "normal" lineup that should be used throughout the course of the game consists of center Dalembert, power forward Luis Scola, small forward (rookie!) Chandler Parsons, shooting guard Martin, and point guard Lowry. In crunch time, however, a smaller lineup is really paying dividends by allowing both of H-Town's dynamic point guards to get some key minutes: "center" Patrick Patterson, and then guards Lowry, Goran Dragic, Courtney Lee, and Martin. These two lineups have been playing incredibly well, and it has been a big part of the Rockets' current 7-game winning streak.
With the win, the Rockets now move into the 8-seed in the Western Conference. Who's next?! That would be the Milwaukee Bucks, who travel to Houston to try to steal a win at the Toyota Center tomorrow night.
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