Yao walks off the court Sunday with a bandage on his chin after getting accidentally elbowed in the paint. Despite Yao’s return to the lineup and leading the team in scoring (19 points) and rebounds (12), the Rockets lost their second consecutive game because of poor shooting, this time against the Phoenix Suns, 91-78. Click here for more photos from the game.

by John

SUNDAY, 4/3/05 – Through almost three quarters of play, it looked like the Rockets had a chance to keep up with the heavily favored Phoenix Suns. Houston was only down 64-62 with about a minute remaining in the third when Shawn Marion made a layup. Up until that time, there had been 11 ties and 18 lead changes in a tightly contested battle.

But like their losses against the Hornets on Friday and the Spurs last weekend, the Rockets fell apart in the fourth quarter and lost another game that was winnable, losing 91-78 at Toyota Center.

The Suns started off with their high-octane offense, and surprisingly, Houston revved up its own engines and managed to keep pace with much more fluidity in their offensive game compared to how they played against the Hornets in that humiliating loss Friday night. Yao got off to a great start, making a dunk on Houston’s first basket, and showed just how missed his inside presence was on Friday. Houston was only down 31-25 at the end of the first quarter, with Yao hitting 3-of-4 for six points.

In the second quarter, the game quickly became more defensive-oriented, with the Rockets limiting the Suns to 10 points on 5-of-25 (20%) shooting. Yao was playing extremely well defensively, tipping passes, blocking two shots, and coming up with numerous intimidations. And he wasn’t getting into too serious of foul trouble, either.

But Houston’s offense didn’t really capitalize, scoring only two more field goals (7-of-23) and 17 points overall to lead 42-41 at halftime.

Other than free throw percentage (1-of-6 for Phoenix, 6-of-8 for Houston), all of the stats were pretty much even. So the second half was going to come down to who wanted it most.

At first, it looked like Phoenix was going to run away with it when they started off on a 6-0 run. Jeff Van Gundy called a timeout, probably not happy about how the Rockets’ Ryan Bowen — not confident after a 1-for-4 shooting performance in the first half — had passed up a couple of open shots. For the fifth time this season, Bowen was starting in the lineup since Jon Barry experienced back spasms before the game. So T-Mac moved over to shooting guard and Bowen came in to fill T-Mac’s small forward spot.

After the timeout, their offensive liability (Bowen) soon turned into an asset. Van Gundy positioned Bowen on the low block, and he scored on a layup and was fouled for a three-point play. Energized, Bowen stole the ball on the ensuing Suns possession, dribbled it down court with one defender in his way, then dished to an oncoming Yao who beat everyone down the floor and threw it down for a one-handed jam to tie it at 47-47.

Steve Nash came back to hit a three-pointer, but Bowen responded and hit a 17-footer to close it to 50-49, Phoenix with the lead. Bowen came back and hit a wild 8-foot hook shot from the baseline to put Houston up 53-52.

In a span of about 4 minutes of action, Bowen showed he could play by scoring 9 consecutive Houston points, getting a steal and dishing an assist. Perhaps Bowen was going to be yet another un-sung hero that emerged from the Rockets’ bench this season, just like Jon Barry and Scott Padgett have been able to do this season. Bowen had a decent track record, being 4-0 as a starter this season, but never performed like this before. He was sitting on 14 points and the Rockets looked like they were going to make it competitive.

Not for long, though. Bowen didn’t score the rest of the game, and not many other Rockets did either. Houston’s shooting continued to head southward, and the Suns finished off Houston for its 30th road win of the season.

Although they did a great job on defense, the Rockets’ final shooting stats were horrific. 34% overall, 22% from three-point land. T-Mac (13 points) hit only 6-of-21, and was 0-for-5 from three. That’s his second bad shooting game in a row. Bob Sura (10 points) was 4-of-15, David Wesley (8 points) was 3-of-11, and Mike James (7 points) was 3-of-15. If it wasn’t for Yao’s great return, 19 points and 12 rebounds, this one would have been over much, much sooner.

What seemed to be a strength (good shooting) during recent win streaks is now turning into a weakness. Perhaps you can chalk it up to the chemistry imbalance that has arisen since Juwan Howard got hurt, but the Rockets are going to have to get over it and compensate somehow, or their playoff run will be as short as some of the jump shots we saw on Sunday night.

Even though Phoenix’s Amare Stoudemire (9 points) wasn’t much of a factor because of foul trouble, one ironic twist was that Jim Jackson returned to his former arena and haunted them like no else has in a long time, scoring 15 points and hitting 3-of-5 treys. In 21 minutes Jackson, a reserve, scored as many points as Wesley and James combined in 69 minutes of play.

Now the Rockets head to the Bay Area where they face a very hot Golden State team. Houston was lucky to win their last game there a few weeks ago. With the way Houston is shooting, look for another loss and more risk of Houston’s hold of the sixth playoff spot unraveling before our eyes and having to face either the Suns or San Antonio in the first round. Yikes.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s post-game analysis, click here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 at 11:51 pm and is filed under vs. Phoenix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.