Yao throws one down with Utah’s Mehmet Okur looking on. Yao carried the Rockets with 35 points, 16 boards and 4 blocks, but several breakdowns contributed to Houston losing a 9-point second-half lead and letting the Jazz sneak out of Houston with a huge victory. Click here for more photos from the game.

The Rockets lost a huge game to the Utah Jazz Sunday night in Houston. I was confident the Rockets were going to win after taking a 9-point lead late in the 3rd quarter. I thought surely they would make the necessary defensive stops and hit the buckets they needed to take a lead in the standings over Utah for home court advantage in the playoffs, especially after seeing the two clutch wins they had in Los Angeles this past week.

But they lost, and I narrow it down to four specific things that contibuted to Houston’s loss.

First: the officials. Carlos Boozer hit a huge bucket with 43 seconds remaining in the game, but he charged into Shane Battier. Battier had position to draw the charge, but the damn ref called it the other way, saying Battier was too late in sliding over. I vehemently disagree.

That was a huge call that put Boozer on the line for the penalty free throw, making it 85-81 and capping an 8-0 run. ^&#%@*! REFS! If anything, you don’t make that call. You let it go if you’re not sure at such a crucial juncture in the game. That 4-point edge with 43 seconds remaining was going to be hard to overcome.

Next, I blame the Rockets themselves because they still had their chances. With 19 seconds remaining and Houston down 85-83, Yao grabbed a defensive board and the Rockets had a chance to either tie it, or take the lead on a 3-pointer.

I don’t know if they were out of timeouts (I doubt it), but the Rockets elected to have T-Mac bring it up the court rather than call a set play in the huddle. I’m okay with that.

What I’m not okay with is for Rafer Alston to be taking a 3-pointer in this situation when an easier two-pointer could have tied it, there was plenty of time on the shot clock, and because Alston couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn all game long! Before that shot, he had made 1-of-7 three-pointers, and was 2-for-10 overall. Please play the percentages!! I don’t care if making this shot will give him confidence down the road – it’s too important of a shot to mess around with!

After Alston missed, Mehmet Okur grabbed the rebound and was fouled intentionally. Luckily, he missed the second free throw, giving the Rockets a chance to tie the game with a 3-pointer.

That’s where I find my third cause for losing this game. Either the play they called was awful, T-Mac had a brain cramp, or as we found out later from T-Mac in the locker room…

“There was miscommunication on a couple of guys’ part. They didn’t know where to go and they didn’t set screens. I couldn’t get open and nobody could get open.”

Here’s what happened: The Rockets inbounded the ball into Yao, and Yao dumped the ball off to T-Mac in traffic, which was almost stolen.

Not having an open shot, he decided to dribble toward the corner of the court and went up for what appeared would be a jumper falling out of bounds. A very difficult shot. When he went up for the shot, I knew there was no way he was going to make it. It was just too low percentage, except if maybe Kobe Bryant was shooting it.

So I was happy to see him pass it back to Yao since there were a few more ticks on the clock. Yao then dropped the pass off to T-Mac who was able to get a higher percentage three-point attempt off, but it was right after the buzzer sounded and it fell short anyway.

The main problem I had with that play is that it didn’t start with T-Mac at the top of the key or away from the sideline to where he would have more room to operate, and could see the floor for open men like Shane Battier who could hit a higher percentage three-pointer (remember the end of the Clipper game where that play worked?) Obviously the play broke down so that kind of play wasn’t possible, but Yao is 7’6” and can pass almost over anybody to find T-Mac, almost anywhere he may be on the court.

It was an ugly play and didn’t play to the Rockets’ strengths – allowing T-Mac to be creative.

Finally, although Yao had a monster night with 35 points, 16 boards and 4 blocks, when the Rockets needed to make shots down the stretch, Yao was only 2-for-8 in the fourth quarter, missing shots in the lane that he would normally make. The Rockets hit a dry spell in the fourth quarter that allowed the Jazz to come back from a 77-70 hole with 4:46 remaining. The lead could have been bigger before that point, and after when Yao missed 2 of 3 shot attempts.

But you can’t put much of the blame on Yao missing 6-of-8 shots in the fourth quarter. Sure, he’s arguably the franchise player and you expect him to make shots like that, but without him, the Rockets would been blown out of this game long before the fourth quarter began.

Yao was all the Rockets offense had in the first half. In the first quarter, he scored 12 of the Rockets 16 points on 3-of-5 shooting while the rest of the team only made 1-of-13 shots. T-Mac was 1-for-6, and the Rockets were lucky only to be down 20-16 after the first quarter.

Yao continued his domination in the second quarter when he scored the Rockets first six points to tie the game at 22-22, with Yao having 18 of those 22 points! Unbelievable. But by halftime, the Rockets were still only down 36-32 despite making 6-of-17 shots in the second quarter, and 28.6% shooting as a team overall. T-Mac only had 7 points on 3-of-9 shooting, and had no assists.

But again, the Rockets’ defense was keeping them in the game because Utah wasn’t much better – they only shot 28.9%.

Finally in the third quarter, the Rockets got it together. Shane Battier and T-Mac both hit 3-pointers to start the second half to spark an 8-0 run. Throw in a couple of made Yao shots, and the Rockets went on a 12-2 run to take a 44-38 lead.

Houston continued to build the lead to 9 points, making it 58-49 with 3:34 left in the third. But Houston couldn’t put the Jazz away when they had a chance, and Utah would go on a 10-3 run, most of it done with Yao needing to rest on the bench. That saved the Jazz, who cut the deficit to 61-59 and was able to see Houston hit its dry spell in the fourth quarter.

That was another failure contributing to the loss – Houston’s defense. The Jazz got easy shots down the stretch to overcome their deficit and go on a 15-6 run to build an 85-83 lead.

Too bad Rafer Alston and Juwan Howard through the first 3 quarters had shot 0-for-5 and 1-for-4, respectively, or else the Rockets could have had a bigger lead. The only thing more repetitive than seeing these guys miss shots was Clyde “The Cliche” Drexler referring to the Yao as “The Great Wall” over 10 times in this game (Man, I can’t wait until TNT, TBS and ESPN start broadcasting all the Rocket playoff games so I don’t have to listen to him).

Noticeably absent from the game was their best 3-point shooter — Luther Head. Luther is out nursing a shoulder injury. The other players need to step up with Luther out, especially Rafer, or else the Rockets aren’t going far in the playoffs, and they will be picking a point guard with their first pick in the draft who can dish, drive, and consistently hit big, outside shots. Rafer has done a decent job at times, but he can hit long stretches where he hits hardly anything. That shot is there to be made, but in his last 3 games, he has made only 5-of-26 three-pointers, or less than 20%

It’s too bad the Rockets didn’t pull through on this one. If the Jazz win home court in their playoff series against the Rockets, THIS will be the pivotal game that decided it.

Now the Rockets are 1.5 games behind the Jazz with 8 games left to play for Houston, and 9 for the Jazz. Utah has a much better home record (29-7) than road (19-18), and they have a 7-game home winning streak compared to a 6-game road losing streak before winning today’s game against Houston.

It’s also too bad for Rocket fans, who showed up wearing red and were rowdy like it was a playoff game. I think the Rockets promoted a “wear red” day or something like it, but still, it was like a college game atmosphere.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 1st, 2007 at 10:35 pm and is filed under vs. Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.