It’s often hard to say whether gimme games like the Rockets 115-98 win over the Sacramento Kings are helpful or hurtful. On one hand, they build needed confidence but on the other, they can build too much confidence. Nevertheless, Houston will get another confidence booster tonight against the Golden State Warriors before finishing out the season with two tough conference games. Home vs. the New Orleans Hornets and the season finale @ Dallas. Winning those two games is more important than the Kings and Warriors.

Kings notes, as usual they started out scoring the bucket, pushing the tempo, but eventually, talent will always present an opportunity to prevail and the Rockets took advantage. Sacramento even made a little run in the 4th but in the end, they’re the Kings. Rockets finished shooting 54% from the field with solid contributions from, well, everyone. Even Brian Cook got in on the action, dropping 5 pts and 1 reb in 1:02 min. Yao Ming had a solid 20 pts, 9 rebs and two nice baseline spin offs past Spencer Hawes for the rare but always appreciated authoritative dunk. And Ron Artest returned to Sac with 26 pts, 4 rebs and 3 asts. It was nice to see him get a little love pre-game.

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For the first time in a long time, I’ll be out the next few days unable to watch Rocket games (yikes!) celebrating a family event on an out-of-town trip. But Ren is going to be blogging here after tonight’s game against Sacramento, and Friday night against Golden State. So the coverage here will continue.

I guess my trip couldn’t come at a much better time since the Kings and Warriors aren’t that good and are mired deep down in the standings. If there’s one game I’m worried about, through, it’s the game at Golden State. The Warriors run-and-gun style and athleticism always gives the Rockets fits, kind of like what Philadelphia does to them (who swept Houston this season). The Rockets have gone into Oakland before with lots to play for (this time home court in the playoffs) and have lost.

I’m going to miss seeing what happens in the standings as it plays out the next few nights. Here’s how it looks as of Thursday afternoon:

As you can see, the Rockets are tied with Portland and San Antonio at 50-28 with the 3rd, 4th and 5th seeds at stake. Denver, 2 1/2 games ahead of all 3 of these teams, has the #2 seed locked up, having gone on a pretty good tear late in the season, with a relatively easy schedule ahead of them. I don’t think anyone saw the Nuggets making the run they’ve had.

San Antonio has really struggled lately having lost 4 of their last 6 games, and with Tim Duncan’s knee giving him problems and Manu Ginobili officially out for the playoffs, they could lose home court advantage. Injuries are finally catching up with the Spurs, who were extremely lucky the past few years on the injury-front while winning their championships.

Another good thing for the Rockets is that Utah has lost 4 of their last 5 games, the latest loss coming last night in a blowout in Dallas. They’re now duking it out with Dallas for the 7th and 8th seeds. Two of Utah’s remaining 4 games are against the Spurs and Lakers ON THE ROAD, not their strong suit. So chances are high that Utah will stay at #7 or #8 and play either the Lakers or Denver in the first round, not Houston, unless they finally start bucking the trend of losing on the road against playoff-bound teams in the West.

The only caveat is that New Orleans, currently one game ahead of Utah, has a tougher schedule, having to play Dallas twice, Houston and San Antonio. If the Hornets crater, Utah could overtake them for the 6th seed, meaning the Rockets probably DON’T want to win the #3 seed and face them in the first round.

There were so many storylines in the Rockets-Magic showdown Tuesday night. In case you weren’t keeping track, let me recap some of them for you.

– The return of Rafer Alston to Houston, and matching up against his former understudy Aaron Brooks and the guy he was traded for – Kyle Lowry.
– Yao vs. Dwight Howard (the self-anointed Superman during NBA Slam Dunk competitions), arguably the two best centers in the league.
– It was a big game for Orlando since they’re in a neck-and-neck competition for the second seed in the East with Boston.
– The Rockets are still in the hunt for home court in the first round of the playoffs.
– The return of Carl Landry to the court after recovering from a gunshot wound.

Yao Ming won another matchup game against Dwight Howard. In this photo, Yao is about to block his shot in the first quarter. Click here for pre-game photos of Rafer hugging ex-teammates, and more photos from the game.

You have to give credit to the Rockets for winning a 93-83 game against a very good Orlando team, their second big win in a row after beating Portland Sunday night. The Magic have won 57 games this season, which in the tougher Western Conference is probably equivalent to wins in the high 40s like the Rockets. But they still have so many dangerous shooters, and Howard is still Howard.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect since I’m still a little bitter the Rockets played poorly down the stretch in Phoenix and LA last week. It’s hard to get over those losses and think the Rockets have addressed their flaws, even after that encouraging win over Portland.

This time the Rockets came out strong, just about held the lead the entire game, had a few moments where it got close, like 55-54 in the 3rd quarter. But they would turn it on after that by closing out the quarter on a 12-5 run, and hold the Magic off with another solid 4th quarter, their second good 4th quarter in a row against decent competition.

Maybe they’re finally righting the ship after so many implosions most of this year in the 4th.

The Rockets’ offense was good, but their defense was even better, holding the Magic 19 points below their scoring average of 102 and to 38% shooting.

On offense, the Rockets had only 6 turnovers, the second game in a row where they’ve taken care of the ball fairly well after only turning it over 8 times against Portland.

Yao would win the battle against Dwight Howard for the 7th time out of their 9 matchups, scoring 20 points on 8-of-13 FG attempts, grabbing 16 boards, blocking 2 shots, and having NO turnovers. Howard scored 13 points (5-of-11 field goals) grabbed 10 rebounds, had 3 blocks, and 3 turnovers. His making only 3-of-9 free throws didn’t compare to Yao’s 4-of-5 from the line.

Tuesday night I came across an interesting analysis on this Orlando Magic fan site of why Howard doesn’t play so well against Yao compared to other NBA centers. It’s pretty good, and hopefully it will be more relevant to all of us in a couple of months if the Rockets and Magic are lucky enough to face each other in June.

Yao started off the game strong over Howard with a hook shot him along the baseline, then a couple of minutes later he hit a turnaround jumper over him, and about 3 ½ minutes later scored on another jump hook. Then about 1 ½ minutes later, he would block Howard on a spin move in the paint, which had to surprise him. Yao set the tone early he was ready for the competition. I like it when Yao raises his game to meet the challenge from a dominant big man, like he does for Shaq.

One of my favorite Yao plays occurred with just under 2 minutes remaining in the first half when he banged Howard hard for position underneath the offensive glass, snagged the rebound, then pivoted around Howard for a left-handed layup off the glass! Howard was trying to keep from picking up his 3rd foul, so he didn’t really contest the shot, but it was good to see Yao banging hard in the paint for the board. Four of Yao’s 16 rebounds were on the offensive end, a little better ratio than we’ve seen from him this season. The Rockets will need more of that from him.

Another favorite play of mine from Yao happened with 3:29 remaining in the game when he dribbled a couple of times way out high, then pulled up and hit a jumper as the shot clock was winding down to make it 84-74 Rockets. That’s a rare move for Yao since normally when he shoots a face-up jumper far away from the basket, he doesn’t dribble at all before launching the shot. This time he did, and it was fun to watch him stop-and-pop.

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Raymond has translated an interview of Yao that he gave to Sina Sports where he talks about his satisfaction levels for this season and the pressure he’s felt, his leadership on the team, playing in the NBA versus the CBA, the matchup between him and Greg Oden, and much more!

Thanks to Raymond for his tireless work on this translation (4 hours)!

In case you missed it, after the Blazers game on Sunday, Yao heard that over 500 members from the local Chinese community had organized to come to the game together. So what did he do? He came out to greet some of them and take some photos. Good going, Yao!

Click here for more photos of Yao greeting his fans.

Here’s that awesome dunk from Von Wafer yesterday. It’s so good, it’s better than some dunks I’ve seen in slam dunk competitions where it takes them a few times to get it right. Click on the little ‘HQ’ button to reduce some of the graininess from the videos.

And here’s Yao‘s dunk over Greg Oden from earlier in the game. Throw it down, big man!

I love both Von and Yao’s reactions! Chills.

Thanks to piyong for finding these.

The Rockets may have disappointed many fans earlier in the week by showing they aren’t very strong in fourth quarters, on the road, against playoff teams. It was a sad reality check that doesn’t bode well for a long run in this year’s playoffs.

But Sunday night the Rockets picked up their fans a bit with an encouraging win against potential playoff foe Portland, a very dangerous team. It got tight at times, but they came through when they needed with a 102-88 win, and have almost assured they will have home court advantage if they face them in the first round.

Yao Ming had a solid game against the Portland big men, scoring 21 points and grabbing 12 boards. Click here for more photos.

That’s because the Rockets are now ½ game ahead of the Blazers with 5 games left to play, and now hold the tiebreaker. And with the Spurs’ loss to Cleveland on Sunday, the Rockets are only ½ behind the Spurs for the 3rd seed.

But watch out: the Jazz beat the Hornets on Sunday, gaining 1 full game on New Orleans, and the Jazz are now only ½ game behind the Hornets for 6th place (#3 vs #6 will play each other in the first round). So a Rockets-Jazz first round playoff series could still happen.

The Blazers game was obviously huge because I heard during the Rockets’ radio broadcast that Daryl Morey’s staff had calculated the probability of the Rockets having home-court advantage for ANY playoff serious would have dropped to 11% if they had lost this game, whereas by winning it, the probability increased dramatically to 65%.

There were times during the game when I thought, “Here we go again,” like when the Blazers made a run to pull within striking distance. But to their credit, in the fourth quarter players like Luis Scola and Von Wafer stepped up to hit some big buckets to put the game away.

Perhaps no score was more dramatic than the one with 8:25 remaining in the game. With the Rockets only up by 8 points, Wafer drove the baseline and threw down a FEROCIOUS ONE-HANDED REVERSE JAM!!! WHICH GOT THE WHOLE BUILDING ROARING AND ON THEIR FEET! I’m sure someone will put it on YouTube, and if anyone finds it, post a comment at the end of this post and I’ll make sure to highlight it.

That dunk had to be the most athletic dunk I’ve seen by a Rocket since Clyde Drexler was in a Rockets uniform, and is sure to be seen on Sportscenter’s Top 10.

I believe one of the keys to the game occurred as early in the second quarter when the Rockets had a 46-39 lead, their offense with Hayes, Scola, Battier, Artest and Lowry was bogging down, and were definitely in need of something solid on offense.

That’s when they played smart and got the ball to Scola in the low post, and Scola delivered on 2 straight possessions with scores in the block (both over Lamarcus Aldridge), putting them up 50-39 to get some breathing room and put them back on the right track.

That is, until the 3rd quarter when, after the Rockets built a 14-point lead, gave it up again and the Blazers kept hanging around down by 7 most of the quarter. That’s when Yao put a little hook shot in the lane, missed, BUT GRABBED THE OFFENSIVE REBOUND, PUMP FAKED ON GREG ODEN, AND THREW IT DOWN OVER HIM! THAT GOT THE BENCH AND CROWD OFF THEIR FEET AGAIN!

That play extended the lead to 69-60, but it was one of the few bright points in a quarter where the Rockets shot only 24%, but were fortunate to lead 72-64 at the end of 3 quarters.

Against Portland, that’s not a safe lead considering the Blazers had come back to win 10 games this season when trailing after 3 quarters.

That’s when Wafer hit a huge bucket over Oden in the lane, putting the Rockets up 76-70. Ron Artest would follow-up with a jumper to push it to 78-70, and that’s when Wafer threw down his jaw-dropping reverse jam to give the Rockets a 10-point lead.

Wafer would hit another jumper a couple of minutes later to push it to 86-76, giving him 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting at that time. I’m still loving the Wafer story. Once the playoffs start, he could really show the rest of the league how much of a stud he is.

Sandwiching a huge Shane Battier three-pointer was Scola, who kept the points flowing by hitting two long jumpers, then another about a minute later to put the game away 95-82 with 1:55 remaining.

Scola’s 16 points on 8-of-10 shots Sunday night was what they needed from him when the Rockets lost against the Suns, but it’s so rare for him to have a bad game, it’s really unfair to complain. I still think Scola is one of the most underrated players in the league.

But Yao was the biggest difference, scoring 21 points on 6-of-10 shooting, and hitting 9-of-11 from the line. His 12 rebounds were encouraging in that 6 of them were offensive boards, a very high ratio for him, especially considering the Blazers’ front line is tall with Joel Pryzbilla, Aldrdige, and Oden.

He won the battle against Oden, who played only 11 minutes and scored 4 points as Pryzbillla’s backup.

Yao also had 3 assists, two of them spectacular, one coming late in the first quarter from a beautiful give-and-go bounce pass to a cutting Chuck Hayes for a layup. Then early in the second quarter, Yao whipped a pass to a cutting Kyle Lowry for another layup! If Yao continues to be a threat in the passing lanes, watch out.

It was a complete and balanced game, with 5 Rockets scoring in double figures (Yao, Scola, Artest, Wafer, and Aaron Brooks). Brooks had 14 points on 5-of-12 shots, and showed why the Rockets had such faith in him to give him the starting PG job.

Two other players finished close to double figures with 9 points: Battier (3-of-11, with all 3 shots made being 3-pointers), and Chuck Hayes (of all people), hitting 4-of-7 shots and grabbing 10 boards. Hayes was also able to hold Aldridge in check, who ‘only’ scored 22 points on 7-of-15 shots, not bad considering he scored 35 points against Oklahoma City.

Ultimately, there were 4 team stats that was the difference: 51.4% shooting vs. 45.2%, free throw shooting of 81.5% vs 66.7% for Portland (16-of-24), 42 rebounds compared to 34, and only 8 turnovers compared to 11 for the Blazers

I hate to say it, but I think the Rockets recent mini-break where they played only 1 game in 7 days – and had plenty of time to practice – did no good, and has maybe even made them worse. It makes you wonder if these guys, and the coaching staff, really have what it takes to get this franchise over the hump.

Once again, the Rockets folded like a cheap suit in the fourth quarter, this time against the Lakers, losing 93-81.

Yao and Shane force Kobe to dish off instead of shoot on this play, but in the 4th quarter Bryant would hit two 3-pointers to put the game away. Click here for more photos from the game.

You’d hope the Rockets could take advantage of the fact that San Antonio has lost a few games lately to give them a chance to win the division.

But they couldn’t win 2 games against rivals Phoenix and the Lakers this week and as a result, the Rockets have fallen to 5th in the standings, with New Orleans (who lost to Golden State Friday night) only ½ game behind them with 6 games left to play.

Meanwhile, Denver has zoomed past them, having won 5 games in a row and now 2 games ahead of the Rockets in the 2nd seed, and Portland ½ game ahead of the Rockets after winning 4 in a row.

In my opinion, Sunday’s matchup between Houston and Portland at Toyota Center Sunday night is going to be the biggest game that ultimately decides where they’ll end the season.

The only silver lining to the Rockets’ losing is that by getting closer to the middle of the pack, they’re less likely to play Utah because they’ve lost 3 in a row (they lost to Minnesota in Salt Lake Friday night!). But if the Rockets finish in the fourth or fifth spot — and they happen to win their first round series — then they will probably play the Lakers and their playoff run will soon be over.

If they finish 2nd or 3rd, they’ll probably have a SLIGHTLY better chance of winning that second series because it wouldn’t be against the Lakers. But I emphasize the word ‘slightly’ given how they’ve been playing lately.

The players and coaches will acknowledge that they failed to execute all game long against the Lakers. For example, Yao said the following after the game:

“From the first minutes of the game until the last minutes, we did not run our plays well. We did not execute well. We said that from the first day of the season until now. In two weeks, the playoffs will start. We’re still not executing well.”

But at least they still had a chance by pulling to within 5 points with 4:46 remaining, and had a chance to do some damage.

That’s where Kobe took over. Again. I’ll recap the collapse a little later.

It’s a little embarrassing to see the Rockets get swept for a season, even if it’s against the Lakers. If you’re a Rockets player, it definitely has to wear on you mentally that you’re not good enough. Does not having Carl Landry around make that much of a difference? I think his absence has been a bigger loss than we could have anticipated, but it shouldn’t be.

Someone has to step up. Shane Battier is doing what HE can, scoring 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting Friday night, and averaging a little over 14 points over his last 4 games.

After Battier hit an off-balance 3-pointer to cut the deficit to 81-76 with 4:46 remaining in the game, Kobe did his damage by hitting two consecutive 3-pointers that basically put the game out of reach 87-76 with 3:54 remaining. When you enter a fourth quarter against the Lakers, just like against Utah, you better be up at least 10 points at the beginning of the quarter to help withstand a certain rally.

The Rockets couldn’t build that kind of cushion, though, and it cost them. Almost like in the Phoenix game, the Rockets went about 5 ½ minutes without a field goal in the fourth quarter.

Yao didn’t play down the stretch because Rick Adelman thought he had played way too many minutes (about 40), and said later he would have put him back into the game if his teammates could have gotten them closer. They couldn’t.

ESPN announcer Mark Jackson was wondering why in the world they weren’t playing Yao, their “go-to” guy, to give them a better chance of catching up. I kind of have to agree with him, but with the way they’ve been playing late in fourth quarters, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Since Yao finished with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting, it would have been nice if he had gotten more touches. Obviously, something is wrong that we keep having to say that game after game. Could it be a combination of his teammates taking stupid shots (yes) and throwing bad passes (yes), but also Yao not battling enough for position? I believe so.

Yao needs to work harder and move around more to get himself free, and his teammates need to zing it in there more crisply during that small window of time when there’s an opening to get it in there before the defense collapses on him. I remember JVG talking about Yao’s teammates needing to work on the timing of doing that more, and you could tell they did when he was still coaching. I’m not so sure now.

The other problem I see is that Yao is being asked to set lots of high screens way outside the paint so his teammates (Artest) can shoot long jumpers. Or he’s coming out high to do pick-and-rolls. That would be fine if Yao was the recipient of some of the passes that come out of those, but we know Yao can’t dribble toward the basket after receiving the ball off a pick-and-roll. So it’s up to the man with the ball to hoist it up.

I’m actually okay if Yao occasionally takes long jumpers out high after setting a pick, like he did successfully in hitting a long two-pointer against LA. His touch is just as good as anyone’s. But we know most of his points have got to come from the low block or along the baseline where he can shoot his hook shots or turnaround jumpers, which by the way got some nice ooohs and aaahs from Jackson and the play-by-play guy.

Artest was okay (21 points on 9-of-19 shots, 9 rebounds), doing some good things, but also doing his normal thing hoisting too many long jumpers (only 1-for-6 from 3-point land). When he took it strong to the hole, he was more successful than not. You wonder why he doesn’t do that more often. He also had 5 turnovers.

Hmmm – not attacking the basket, jacking up 3-pointers, and mishandling the ball: the more things change, the more they stay the same (McGrady).

Luis Scola had a nice bounce-back game after only scoring 4 points against Phoenix. He finished with 16 points on 7-of-10 shots, and grabbed 9 boards. But he couldn’t handle Pau Gasol late in the 4th quarter when he was playing in place of Yao at center. Why Adelman couldn’t put Dikembe or Hayes on him at that point, who knows.

So Yao, Artest, Battier and Scola had double-digit production. Wasn’t fantastic, but wasn’t the worst performances in the world, either. So where did they fall short to lose this game?

I hate to say it, but Aaron Brooks was one of the culprits. He provided no point production whatsoever, shooting 0-for-4 from the field, and scoring only 3 points, all from free throws. That’s not going to get it done. Although he had 6 assists, which is pretty good for him, none of them were all that memorable. When you watched this Laker game, when he wasn’t scoring, he seemed to be invisible.

He finished with only two turnovers, but when he commits them, they seem to be so much more noticeable, probably because of the scrutiny he’s getting from fans, including me. It’s only natural.

I must admit that when Kyle Lowry was inserted into the game after Brooks was struggling, I was happy to see it. And Lowry delivered with hustle and spectacular assists. There was a point where he was playing so well, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he could become the starting point guard soon.

But then you look at his boxscore, and he shot 1-for-7 from the field with only 2 points. That’s not going to get it done either.

Getting a total of 5 points from your point guards isn’t going to win you many games. If they had racked up collectively at least 18 points or more, then the Rockets most likely could have won this game.

4th quarter miscues:

Okay, here’s some of the mistakes I logged in that 4th quarter collapse I mentioned earlier. You just CAN’T make these stupid errors against a team as good as the Lakers…

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The Rockets needed to win in Phoenix Wednesday night to prove they could take the division lead away from the Spurs, not just by hoping San Antonio would continue losing games against teams they should beat, like Oklahoma City Tuesday night.

Yao Ming was calm and measured shooting over Shaq Wednesday night.
Click here for more photos from the game.

If the Rockets were going to get the 2nd or 3rd seed in the West — which would be a golden opportunity to get more favorable match-ups (no Jazz) — they would have to show they have the mental strength to beat a 9th-seeded team when the chips are down, especially after the Rockets just went 3 days where they didn’t have to play, and had only played one game 1 game in 7 days. After all, they don’t have much more time to get it going before the playoffs start on April 18th.

I’ll cut to the chase: they failed the test. Not as badly as they did in Utah last week, but a loss is still a loss.

I’m pissed that they came out with no intensity. The Suns looked like they were going to run away with it when they hit 9 of their first 10 shots, shot 80% in the first quarter, 61% in the first half, outrebounded the Rockets 26-11, outscored them 32-16 in the paint, and led 67-56 at halftime.

To their credit, the Rockets finally got serious, made a run in the third quarter thanks in part to Yao scoring 6 straight points, and entered the 4th quarter tied at 88-88. At that time, I thought the Rockets were going to need to build a big lead in the 4th to just hold on for dear life, because we knew it was going to be a crazy 4th quarter with Nash and Shaq fighting for their playoff hopes.

Well, the Rockets did that according to plan, opening up an 86-79 lead. That’s when you step on your opponent’s throat and put them away, right?

Instead, they fell apart, missing 9 shots in a row and turning the ball over 3 times while letting the Suns go on a 15-0 run to take a 7-point lead with 4:17 remaining. The damage had been done, much to my worries. The Rockets made a mini-run to try to get back into it, but they were going to have to rely on a colossal breakdown by the Suns to win it. That’s not going to happen with Steve Nash at the helm. Rockets lose 114-109.

This loss hurts not only because the Rockets had the Suns on the ropes, but because it brings up the concern again that they can’t win big games against decent teams on the road in a statement game like this one where they could grab the playoff position they want by the neck. Remember the Utah Jazz game in Salt Lake they couldn’t win last week?

The Rockets got away from the things during that dry spell in the 4th quarter that they had done so well in the 3rd. Just like ESPN’s Jon Barry said in the fourth: you just don’t know what their offense is going to do, and too often they get away from Yao.

Except for a few series, like when Yao let Steve Nash drive right past him under the bucket for a layup without even contesting the shot, and getting blocked twice in a row (at the beginning of the fourth quarter), I liked how Yao didn’t try too hard to make things happen that he’s not capable of doing, like dribbling too much before a shot. Instead, he just shot jump hooks over Shaq and turnaround jumpers. It worked to a degree: Yao would finish with 20 points on 9-of-18 shots and 14 boards.

But there was one big error that Yao made late in the game that was costly. With the Rockets down 111-105 with 1:32 remaining, Yao grabbed a defensive rebound and the Rockets really needed a score in a bad way. Good. But he wasn’t careful enough to watch where he threw his outlet pass. He intended to throw it to Aaron Brooks who was further up the court, but Yao telegraphed the path such that it was an easy steal for Nash, and that was the ball game right there. You just can’t make silly mistakes like that at that juncture of the game.

I’ve been a big supporter of Aaron Brooks in the past because his points are very much needed by the Rockets. Although he only scored 9 points Wednesday night, he did have 5 assists. But I was pretty upset in the 3rd quarter when he had a terrible series of 3 plays in a row when he got stripped by Shaq (or tried to throw a behind-the-back bounce pass, I couldn’t tell), then took an ill-advised 3-pointer when he should have dumped it into Yao, then threw a bad bounce pass into Yao in the post that Shaq knocked away for a steal.

This series shows Aaron still has some maturing to do. But like I’ve mentioned before: don’t blame Brooks for being a young player. It was the Rockets front office who rolled the dice by trading away Rafer Alston and promoting Brooks to be the starter. I have full confidence that the move will turn out to be the right one over the next few years, but the question is will it pay off in time for this year’s playoffs? Time will tell.

It may be more acceptable to lose a game like this one EARLY in the season when you have dozens of games to make up for it, but now it’s time to get serious and show you can put teams away. THIS game was as close as to a playoff game as you can get, and if you can’t put the 9th-seeded team away only 8 games away from the playoffs, and that team misses 15 free throws, including 3 from Nash (who had only missed 10 all year!) then chances are you’re not going to be able to do it consistently a couple of weeks from now when the playoffs start.

Rick Adelman said it best after the game: ““We did everything we talked about not doing. We allowed them to run the court, if they missed they got the offensive boards back, they had 30-something points in the paint. It was all the stuff we talked about that you can’t allow them to do.”

Get prepared, Houston. Based on what I saw Wednesday, this could be another “one and done” playoff season for the Rockets. If that happens, look for some major changes to be made in the off-season for the Rockets get mentally tougher.

On the bright side, Shane Battier‘s point production has been coming around lately. He scored 18 points thanks to 4-of-7 shooting from 3-point land. Von Wafer had an outstanding game with 17 points on 8-of-10 shots, taking it strong to the hole on numerous occasions. But it wasn’t enough to overcome an extreme rarity these days: Luis Scola only hit 2-of-5 shots for 4 points.