The Sacramento Kings surprisingly beat the New Orleans Hornets late Saturday night, a game that New Orleans had everything to play for to hold on to the Western conference lead. So now the Rockets can’t feel so bad for losing against the Kings 6 games ago, a huge loss for Houston’s quest to lead the conference. And get this…Sacramento can continue to be the spoiler when they play San Antonio on Monday and the Lakers on Tuesday. I had said several posts ago (last paragraph) that Sacramento was the team to watch heading into the stretch, and it looks like that’s turning out to be the case.

So now the Hornets are tied with the Lakers at 55-25, and the Spurs are 1/2 game behind both of those teams with a 54-25 record and play the Lakers tomorrow on national TV. The Rockets are also 1/2 game behind both teams, but are in the fifth spot.

I would refer you to this page on NBA.com to give you the latest playoff picture, but at the time of this post they are slow in updating the latest standings (as is Yahoo), so it doesn’t reflect tonight’s games. I don’t understand why both these sites aren’t on top of updating these standings real-time. It can’t be that hard. I typically have to wait until the middle of the night for them to get updated. Sheesh.

But what I’m still trying to figure out is what needs to happen for the Rockets to finish in the spots I want them to finish. Ideally I’d like for them to finish in the 1st or 2nd spot so they can face the #7 or #8 seed in the playoffs, which will be Dallas, Golden State, or Denver.

In order for the Rockets to finish 1st or 2nd in the conference, they’re probably going to need to win all their games and hope that San Antonio, the Lakers and New Orleans lose. But it’s not that simple because San Antonio and the Lakers play against each other on Sunday, as I mentioned earlier.

So who should win that game if you’re a Rocket fan?

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Bobby Jackson takes it strong to the hole against the Phoenix Suns, helping the Rockets beat the Suns 101-90 in a game where Jackson scored 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting off the bench. Houston’s bench was outstanding, scoring 43 points on 19-of-28 shooting.

If you had stopped watching the Rockets since Yao got hurt, or after their 22-game winning streak ended, then you probably missed one of their best games of the season Friday night.

I had written the other day that heading into the final 4 games of the season, I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised if the Rockets could get some quality wins against good teams like Phoenix, Utah and Denver.

After watching the Rockets Friday night against the Suns, I’m not only pleasantly surprised, I’m ecstatically surprised (if that’s a word).

Opening up a double-digit lead in the second quarter after falling behind 13-2, I can’t believe how badly they beat the big bad Suns with Shaq, Nash, Amare, Barbosa, and everyone else they have.

With a dominating 101-90 win in a game that meant alot to both teams for playoff seeding purposes, just like that, the Rockets have won five games in a row and are only 1 game behind New Orleans for first place in the West.

I thought this was going to be another game in which the Suns run the Rockets ragged. But Houston stayed tough and didn’t get down on themselves when they were getting killed to start the game. They not only got their offense turned around by going on a 14-3 run to tie the game at 16-16 and take over from there, but they also turned up their defense with their best defensive player — Shane Battier — sidelined with a sore foot.

On top of that, they were able to overcome a poor shooting night from his replacement in the starting lineup, Luther Head, who only scored 4 points (2-of-8 shooting) and starting point guard Rafer Alston only scoring 5 points on 2-of-11 shooting.

How in the world were they able to overcome numbers like that, as well as the loss of Battier?

There were several reasons…

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