I had the opportunity to take in an entertaining basketball game last night. The defending champion Lakers took on the Rockets of Houston at the Staples Center in a rematch of last year's playoff series which went a full seven games before the heavily favored Lakers escaped embarassment and knocked out the feisty Rockets. The series was memorable for Ron Artest's antics and elbowings of Kobe Bryant, getting under the superstar's skin at times but in the end only pissing him off enough to make him play better.
During the summer, the Rockets didn't attempt to re-sign Artest and he joined the Lakers while Los Angeles let budding young wingman Trevor Ariza (exactly 18 days older than I am) depart to the Rockets. The pregame talk focused on Ariza's return to LA and taking on his former team who won this season's first matchup between the teams on November 4th in Houston, 103-102 in overtime.
The Rockets won by ten, 101-91, and it didn't even seem that close.
Their leading scorer in the game was tiny unheralded pointguard Aaron Brooks (shown above defying physical laws) and their second leading scorer was this guy:
