Let's hear it for the bench.

​In my season preview for the Houston Rockets, I cited the current portion of the season as the "make or break stretch" for the team -- a six-game road trip against a bunch of pretty-good-but-not-great teams followed by a six-game homestand against mostly good teams.

And once the season started, and the Rockets evolved into a fairly predictable group, essentially knocking off bad teams and struggling against good teams, this current road trip looked even a little more daunting.

But don't look now, after losing to Minnesota in the first game of the road swing (the infamous "Kevin Love Using Luis Scola's Face As Welcome Mat" game), the Rockets have won three in a row and the last two have been in a highly improbable fashion.

More >>

The Owls pulled off quite the comeback in defeating UH on Wednesday night.

​The Houston Cougars dashed off to a 13-0 lead against the Rice Owls on Wednesday night. The offense worked to perfection. There was some decent defense being played. But as the teams went into a timeout only 7:45 into the game, one couldn't help but sense doom hanging over the Hofheinz Pavilion court.

The Owls stormed back to lead 35-34 at the half. And though the score see-sawed back and forth for most of the second half, a win by the Owls seemed inevitable. An inevitability made final by Arsalan Kazemi's reverse dunk at the buzzer to make the final score 79-71 Rice over Houston.

The two teams that met Wednesday night were the proverbial two ships passing in the night. The Cougars (11-12, 3-7) are a talented team. Talented, but young. They lack height and muscle and on-court leadership. The Owls (14-11, 5-5) have a lot of young talent, but they're anchored by upperclassmen who refused to get ruffled or upset when the Cougars stormed out to that early lead, primarily because they knew they were getting good shots and that, as long as they kept taking good shots and playing good defense, the points would begin to pile up.

More >>

The play worked as designed, on both sides.

​I got home from my show this afternoon and, having just finished up talking about sports for five hours, I did what I normally do -- turn on one of the sports channels on television.

Luckily (or perhaps not so luckily, if I had any designs on being productive), I stumbled across a marathon of Sound FX on the NFL Network. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Sound FX is a no-narrator, field-level version of game highlights where usually a handful of players/coaches are wired for sound.

It takes the game and turns it into a virtual drama, turns the players into characters and sucks you in like a mosquito to a blue fluorescent light. It is awesome.

More >>

Milo: He's baaaack

​In sandlot football growing up, we always had a saying after touchdowns that "losers walk," meaning the team that scored stays at that end of he field to kick off and the "losers" on defense have to march to the other end of the field to receive.

So it's probably appropriate that, due to the NBA calling a presser to announce the 2013 NBA All-Star Game's coming to Houston, the Astros had their scheduled lunchtime news conference today moved at the last second to a 10 a.m. brunch instead.

While the Rockets have been no great shakes lately, they haven't come close to the recent futility of the Astros. So in the battle of dueling pressers, the Astros had to move things to 10 a.m. Losers walk.

More >>

Wikiepedia

Jeremy Lin

​Daryl Morey's incessant shuffling of second-rate players over the past few seasons, constantly tweaking and tinkering looking for "assets," came to an almost comical head last week when a player the Rockets cut in the offseason to make room for Jonny Flynn, who they acquired from Minnesota, came to the forefront with the Knicks doing damage to the Rockets in more ways than one.

Let me first start by explaining who Jeremy Lin is exactly. The Harvard-educated California native point guard went un-drafted last year before signing with the Golden State Warriors. He played in 29 games averaging 2.6 points per game. He also spent 20 games in the NBA Developmental League.

He was signed in the offseason by the Rockets, but waived after the Rockets traded with Minnesota to pick up Flynn, a talented former first-round pick at guard, who hadn't fulfilled his potential.

And that's where things start to get interesting.

More >>

NBA All-Star time already?

​Go ahead and chalk up the NBA All-Star Game taking place in a few weeks (Sunday, February 26, to be exact) in Orlando's Amway Center as the next "feels weird" moment of the NBA season. It feels like the season just tipped off a few weeks ago and yet here we are, about 20 games in, deciding who the best of the best are for the 2011-2012 season.

It's like The Bachelor making Ben decide who he's marrying after the opening cocktail party and one group date. I mean, do we really know who is most deserving? Truth be told, do we really know after the 40-some odd games we get most seasons?

It doesn't matter. On February 26, there will be an All-Star Game, and in it there must be players. Here are my picks if I had a vote for the reserves in each conference:

More >>

The Twitter world blew up when Gisele Bundchen, supermodel wife of not-so-super QB Tom Brady, endearingly defended her man to boorish Giant fans, throwing his teammates under the bus in the process.

But that is apparently not the most important thing to know about Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen. The most important thing, if Twitter is any guide, is that this married couple has sex.

That was a recurring theme surrounding the Super Bowl, tweeted by comics, normal people and three Web sites that have "Humor" in the name.

Revel in it all:

@TweetsLMAO
Even though Tom Brady lost the Super Bowl he still gets to go home and bang his Super Model wife Gisele.

More >>

Gisele's next step: Calling in to sports-talk radio.

​A good woman stands by her man.

Prior to Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday, Gisele Bundchen, supermodel and wife of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, e-mailed a prayer request out to many of her close friends and family:

"My sweet friends and family,

This Sunday will be a really important day in my husband's life. He and his team worked so hard to get to this point and now they need us more than ever to send them positive energy so they can fulfill their dream of winning this Super Bowl.

So I kindly ask all of you to join me on this positive chain and pray for him, so he can feel confident, healthy and strong. Envision him happy and fulfilled experiencing with his team a victory this Sunday."

More >>

​Fresh off its Friday afternoon debut performance, the Josh Hamilton Redemption Tour made its second appearance on Friday night inside Katy's Merrell Center. And if Nolan Ryan and/or Jon Daniels were paying attention to anything said, then they should seriously be thinking about just how much money, if any, they want to invest in Hamilton once his contract expires after the upcoming season.

It needs to be said that Josh Hamilton probably didn't have to make his appearance on Friday night. He was booked for KSBJ's "Born To Be Wild: The Man Journey Featuring Josh Hamilton" way before his most recent adventures with alcohol last Monday. And while the event, featuring a bad comic and a Christian rock band, was billed around Hamilton discussing how God has helped him navigate the evils of drugs and alcohol, it would have been understandable if he were to have bailed on the event while getting a better grip on his own personal demons.

But after making an appearance before the Metroplex media on Friday afternoon -- an event he likened to the Rangers signing of Yu Darvish -- Hamilton, with special guest Lance Berkman, stepped out before an adoring crowd of boys and men and kind of spoke about his problems while touting God.

More >>

Oh here go hell come.

​In some alternate universe, the streets of Houston are currently bathed in Miller Lite, Reliant Stadium and every bar in town is a watch party, with even the homeless folks are wearing soiled Texans jerseys. But alas, our Houston Texans only made it into the second round of the playoffs, and here we sit together, watching two teams from up north -- ew -- battling it out in Indianapolis for the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Welcome to Super Bowl XLVI, between the New England Patriots, led by dreamboat Tom Brady, and the New York Giants, led by Eli Manning, whose brother Peyton's shadow has been looming over the proceedings the past two weeks. This is a rematch, pitting the same two teams from Super Bowl XLII in 2008, which I lost $20 on. On the bright side, well there is no bright side.

If you are already watching NBC's pre-game programming, how much do you hate Pizza Hut right now, and/or did you finally break down and order something? The plugging and commercials are relentless. HD is also not doing the 60-year-old Bob Costas any favors either. But that redhead in the Century 21 ad? That's making watching the two hours before the game worth it.

More >>