It was a nice little streak while it lasted.

Wait a minute, what in the world am i saying? The Houston Rockets had won 22 straight in a row before tonight. TWENTY TWO!!! Good for 2nd on the all time list!!! Am i becoming a disbeliever? hater? bandwagoner??!?!

Well, it's funny. Because the past 22 games, the... no, MY Houston Rockets were invincible. 22 straight, 14 straight at home, 10 straight by double digits, manhandling teams like Hornets (2x), Cavs (2x), Mavs on road, Lakers at home. It was amazing, it was exhilarating, and it was historic.

It's also funny because after all that's been accomplished, it only takes one loss to bring you, your team, and your expectations back down to earth.

No, I don't think I'm overreacting to one loss. I know that this fun ride will eventually come to an end, like all streaks do. And you need not to remind me that we fell to the best team in the league, with the best trio on the team, and the best defensive coach in the league that knows about this rockets team like the back of his hand. It's set up like Don Nelson vs Mavericks, Part II, if you will.

What i didn't expect was this fun ride coming to a screeching halt. Rockets managed to stay close in the first half at home, but by the closing seconds of the first quarter, all momentum was surrendered to the opposing team. And without a doubt, the Celtics blitzed out of the gate in the 3rd quarter and effectively put the game away, outscoring us 32-16. Frustration grew, careless turnovers ensued, capitalized by an uncharacteristic (and poorly whistled, imo) flagrant foul committed by Scola late in the 3rd quarter. McGrady was back to his old form from Game 7 of the Dallas series, dribbling passively around the parameter and unable to "impose his will" on anything, scoring only 8 points. Everything adds up to a 20 point blowout by the best team in the league.

For a month and half, the Rockets overachieved. They played over their heads, rode on the wave of the hot streak, and had the basketball gods on their side. Bucks w/o Redd, Hornets w/o West, Mavs w/o Dirk, Lakers w/o Gasol. They busted their asses on the court and out-hustled the opposing team every night, and was able to compensate for the lack of talent and size on the roster. And for a month and half, the Rockets managed to beat bad teams, mediocre teams, and good teams.

Tuesday night, Rockets found out first hand that the Celtics are not just another "good team."

The Celtics came to town with a mission: to break The Streak, and they didn't sugarcoat it either, because they KNOW they can do it, being the best team in the league. The night before, they had just escaped SA with a 2 point win over the Spurs. On the second leg of a back-to-back, without Ray Allen, in the Toyota Center, I was fully confident that the Rockets will deliver once again and further silence the remaining doubters whom have yet to jump on the overcrowded bandwagon known as the Houston Rockets.

From the tipoff, I knew this wasn't going to be easy. McGrady saw double team everywhere he went with the ball, and the Celtics were extremely quick on rotating to cover the open man. All of a sudden, the wide open 3s we had in Lakers game were all taken away. So inside the paint we go, and Celtics used bigger bodies to clog the paint, challenge the shots, and prevent second chance opportunities. Houston did not get any second chance points until sometime in the second quarter.

Okay, there's still a way to squeeze out a win out of this one. Or so I thought. We just had to outwork the Celtics and beat them with our hustle, slow the game down, and play half court. You can see I haven't watch many Celtics games, because what I just said is how Boston plays now. And we were getting beat to the loose balls, rebounds, dribble penetration rotations, everything.

That was the time I realized we were in deep trouble. The score might have indicated otherwise, but this game is not going to be close.

For the first time in a long time, we were fully exposed, on national television no less. The D-Leaguers started to look they really didn't belong in the big men's game. The size disadvantage we had was alarmingly obvious, as seen by the 35-45 rebounding margin (keep in mind the Rockets are THE BEST REBOUNING TEAM IN THE LEAGUE for rebound differential). Ball movement stopped, open 3s were taken away, and turnovers (15) were racking up as fast as assists (16). The offense is stagnant to say the least, and the defense was porous when players were scrambling to recover from double teaming.

Game, set, match.

Give Boston all the credit in the world. We lost to the best team of the year, with our undersized & undermanned roster, to the defensive genius Tom Thibodeau that knows exactly how to shut each one of our players down. There was no shame.

After all, this game only confirmed my suspicions from my previous post. I was just a little caught up with the nice little streak, just like everybody else.

Get well, Yao. The team needs ya for next year.

so more than 24 hours after the news, i'm still shellshocked at the fact that yao ming is out for the rest of the season. so many years, so many unfulfilled promises by the superstar duo. the team got off a rough start, and it took more than half of this season to find the right players, rotation, chemistry. finally the team is clicking, finally the team is gelling, finally the team is winning games. winning so much that the rockets are riding the longest winning streak in over a decade (12), threatening to go through the entire february with an unblemished record...

and then, with no premonition, everything just came tumbling down.

yao ming, stress fracture, out 4 months.

and with that, the rockets season is officially over. done. finished.

the team went from a title contender to a first round roadkill within 24 hours.

it's funny. funny because one little crack in the bone effectively put the accomplishment of the whole season down the gutter. funny because when i first heard the news, i double checked the calendar to make sure that yesterday wasn't april 1st. funny because i can just hear the collective rockets fanbase groaning out loud, "here we go again."

injuries. nothing new to the rockets fans in the new millennium. it's almost doomed to happen every season, sooner or later. it's the freak accident which always finds it's target on rockets players. it's the glass-like durability of the foundation which the team is trying to build on. it's the sick sense of humor from the basketball gods, casting undeservedly bad karma on an entire city for the past decade plus.

i can't describe this feeling. it's a combination of every negative emotion that one can possibly imagine, all mixed up in one pot, stirred up and ready to be served. sorrow, disappointment, hopelessness, anguish... it's a little bit of everything. and it sucks. a lot.

i was so pumped about my team a couple of days ago, so excited about the winning streak, so eager to wrap up the next few home games against the scrub teams and prepare for the showdown against the much hated dallas... now, nothing matter. not the 13 game win streak, not the notion we'll go undefeated in a calendar month, not the possibility that rockets might not even make it to the playoffs, and a hell no for the olympic games that yao himself cares so much about.

now, i'm not for tanking the season and participating in the beasley megamillion lottery. rockets can still salvage (it hurts me to use this word on my team that's playing .650 ball, won 13 straight, 17 out of 18, and 23 out of 27 in 2008) the season. rockets can still make it to the playoffs, as meaningless as it might initially sound. even if my team gets swept by the likes of spurs and lakers, it would prove to be valuable playoff experience for the rookies such as landry, scola, and brooks. the more games the team can play together, the more cohesion and chemistry we can build. building towards next year, when we can make a playo... no, a title run.

...however, right now we're still in the 2007-2008 season, and the reality is that we'll be without our best player until october.

it's hard to be a rockets fan.

but there's always something to look forward to... next year will be different.

like we haven't all heard of that one before.

this fucking sucks.

money can't buy affection. money can't compensate time. money sure as hell can't guarantee happiness.

money can't even satisfy our materialistic desires; the bar for those desires are higher the more money we have.

my roller coaster emotion of the rockets so far this year:

preseason: IT'S ALMOST TIME!

during the 6-1 start: IT'S TIME!

during 6 game losing streak: IT'S TIME?

after 6 game losing streak: IT TAKES TIME...

winning the next 5 out of 7 games: IT TOOK TIME!

after losing to toronto by not showing up the second half: IT TAKES HEART.

as you can see, i don't know what to expect of my team anymore. the excitement i had before the season is all gone.

it's tough being a fan.

what... the... hell...

that's all i gotta say about college football this season. wow... unbelievable.

after both #1 Mizzou and #2 WV fell hours ago, i'm anxious to see the BCS rankings due sunday, intrigued to find out which two teams will be playing in the title game come january.

naturally, OSU at number 3 will claim one of the two spots. that leaves #4 Georgia, #5 Kansas, #6 VTech (win over #11 BC), #7 LSU (win over #14 Tennessee), #8 USC (win over UCLA), and #9 Oklahoma (beat #1 Mizzou), **ALL** possible to snatch the other spot in the title game. now, to break each team down further, with the chance to play in the title game. OSU gets in automatically despite of its relatively weak schedule... just because.

#4 Georgie, 10-2, didn't win conference, didn't win division. highest rank in BCS right now. chance: 20%

#5 Kansas, 11-1, didn't win conference, didn't win division, didn't beat anybody worth mentioning. chance: 0%

#6 VTech, 11-2, won ACC title, but it's the ACC, and got absolutely blasted by LSU. chance: 5%

#7 LSU, 11-2, won SEC title, had more than its shares of close games to be convincingly qualified, but lost both games in triple OT and beat the most number of good teams. chance: 60%

#8 USC, 10-2, won Pac-10, but lost to fricking Stanford, been playing well as of late, but PAC10 hasn't been overly impressive besides Oregon... which went from #2 to possibly unranked in a 3-week span after dixon went down. chance: 5%

#9 OU, 11-2, won Big-12, been solid most of the seaons, but unacceptable to lose to unranked teams... twice. chance: 10%

the subjectivity of the voters is the problem with BCS. are you voting based on win/loss record, strength of schedule, style points, conference titles, or who you think the best teams are at the end of the regular season?

it's so much easier to ask questions instead of coming up with answers!

there's a reason i'm not getting paid to vote for the title game contenders... regardless of how much i hate the tigers, picking LSU makes the most sense to me.

then again, this college football season made no fricking sense since day one.

at least hawaii is still undefeated...

uh... yeah.

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

while the rockets managed to trade punches with the mavs for 43 minutes and keep the game interesting, we collapsed down the stretch of the game when the result is decided.

i'll be the first to admit that the rockets were never a mentally tough team. inability to deal with full court pressure, errant/lazy passes, bad shot selections, ill-adviced threes... you can count on most of the above to happen in the 4th quarter or in certain game 7's... i thought it'd be different this year...

same old, same old. it's shouldn't even surprise anyone anymore.

but it just ticks me off *that* much more since the loss came at the hands of dallas. i thought i put this loss behind me last night, but i couldn't even sleep well, waking up on numerous occassions thinking about that game and the things that went wrong.

it's only the 4th game out of 82, and we have new players with a new coaching playing in a new system. we fought well against a very good dallas team for majority of the game on the road with one of their bench players that couldn't miss. it's too early to hit the panic button.

but we've got a lot of work to do.

so this morning, i was, as usual, in a hurry getting to work. along the way, a black SUV was on the left lane driving 35, maybe 40, on a 45, agitating me to no end. so as soon as i saw an opening, i switched to the right lane and slammed on the gas.

when i got over, i saw a school bus in front of me with lights flashing and about to stop. dreading the thought of getting stuck behind the SUV again, i kept going and cut in front of the SUV while missing the bus by a few yards... and then i saw (duh) the stop sign on the bus.

i tried to apply the brake, but i was going a tad too fast (55-60) to completely halt at the stop sign. so without really giving it a second thought (not like i had any other options, right?), i decided to just keep going and forget it.

a few minutes later, i saw in my rear view mirror a different blue SUV pulling up right next to me as both of us were slowing down at a red light. he had his window down and honked at me. i figured he needed to switch lanes so i gave him some space before the light so he can switch over, but that wasn't it...

he turned his head, looked at me, and said, "we stop at stop signs around here," then drove past me as the light turned green.

i was speechless as i simply stared back at his car, with a blank look on my face. i didn't know what to say. i admit i somewhat felt bad right after i ran the stop sign, but at that moment, it was complete guilt. he was right. there was no reason or excuse to justify what i did. the bus had its stop sign up while the kids were getting on it, and there would've been serious consequences due to my reckless actions.

as i recall that specific moment, the person in the blue SUV is a white man in his 30s, most likely a parent himself. so he knows what it feels like to raise a child. he knows actions like mine could one day affect his kid. he knows how it feels to worry about things out of his control on a daily basis.

i felt terrible the rest of the way to work as i incessantly replayed what he said to me in my head. my stomach sank and my mind went blank. i was engulfed in guilt, something i haven't felt in a very long time. i tried to cheer up myself, keep my mind off of it, or even belittle the whole experience... i couldn't do it.

lesson learned.