Houston may have lost to the Hawks Saturday night, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the newest Rockets, reports Jenny Dial Creech of The Houston Chronicle. Corey Brewer and Alexey Shved left cellar-dwelling teams to join the Rockets in Friday’s three-team trade. They couldn’t play Saturday because all the players in the deal hadn’t undergone physicals in time, but they were happy to be in Houston. “In Minnesota we were the last seed and now I am with a team competing for the playoffs,” Brewer said, “so I am really excited to be here.”
There’s more from the Western Conference:
- Troy Daniels, who was shipped from Houston to the Timberwolves in the Brewer deal, has an unlikely new teammate, writes Jerry Zgoda of The Star Tribune. As a member of the Trail Blazers, Mo Williams tried to intimidate Daniels during their playoff series last spring. Now that they’re teammates, Williams downplays the incident. “It’s all in competition and it was all in fun on my part,” he said. “He really didn’t do anything to me. He just made a couple of shots and I was like, ‘Where did this kid come from?’ It was like, ‘Let me get in his head, being the veteran I am,’ and I got a lot of attention on me, which was good.”
- The Suns‘ Gerald Green has spent time in the D-League and been cut in China, so the soon-to-be free agent tells Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic he won’t be fazed by bad shooting nights. Green has been pulled from the last two games in the fourth quarter, but doesn’t plan to change anything. “If I’ve gotten to this point, nothing is going to make me not do what I need to do. I’m never going to stop because I had a bad game,” he said.
- Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy got a surprise visitor after Wednesday’s game with the Mavericks, writes Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. Dropping by was Jameer Nelson, who told his former coach how happy he was to be in Dallas. The next day, Nelson was shipped to Boston as part of the package for Rajon Rondo. “He’s not a guy who’s going to pout or hang his head or anything else,” Van Gundy said of Nelson’s transition to the Celtics. “Not only a good player, they got a great locker room voice and a great teammate.”