[Chron] Rockets take off like jet with 100-point games

What's with all the points the Rockets are scoring?
It's about being pass-happy, with Yao and T-Mac doing a lot of the dishing

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Next, the Phoenix Suns will ditch all that high-speed offense and just stick to the half-court to grind it out. The Spurs will forget all that wearisome stuff about defense. The Lakers will opt for balanced scoring.

Suddenly, the Rockets are high-scoring. Ridiculously high-scoring. And with that the case, anything must be possible.

"Hey, that's how we play," center Yao Ming said, speaking of style, if not quite the recent offensive roll. "Whoever is open, pass to them. Make shots."

The Rockets, 17th in the NBA in scoring, have won six of eight games since Yao's return, averaging 112.2 points in the victories.

In the season's first 60 games, the Rockets topped 110 points, the Suns' league-leading average, five times (twice in overtime). They have scored at least 110 in six of the past seven games.

They are 23-4 when scoring 100 or more points, and in tonight's return home against the Indiana Pacers will be coming off their most prolific game of the season, a 124-74 rout of the 76ers.

49 in the hoop

The Rockets' 49 field goals at Philadelphia were their most in a game this season and came on 53.3 percent shooting. But as much as they have been driven by their sudden sharpshooting, the Rockets insist it's the passing before the shooting that has led to their offensive surge.

"The game of basketball is funny the way it works," said forward Shane Battier, the Rockets' top 3-point shooter, making a career-best 43 percent. "When you play the right way — moving the basketball, making simple plays — it's funny how much more efficient you are, how much more effective you are. When you get in a game when the passing is contagious, the shots become so much easier. The shots are almost made before the pass even begins. That's the way the game should be played.

"It's fun to watch. It's fun to be out there. We have unselfish guys on this team, probably the two most unselfish superstars in the league. When we can do that, it makes us a much better offensive team."

As with all things Rockets, the passing begins with Yao and Tracy McGrady. McGrady is averaging a career-best 6.2 assists per game. The Rockets are 22-6 when he gets at least seven assists and have won their last 10 such games.

In those six recent 110-point games, the Rockets, who are averaging 20.9 assists this season, have averaged 27.2 assists. But with Yao and McGrady, who draw double teams and start the ball movement, theirs is often the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the shot.

"When you have two stars willing to pass, it rubs off on everyone," guard Rafer Alston said. "We love to make the extra pass. I think we appreciate that hockey assist — the pass to the pass that leads to the shot."

That ball movement often finds Alston or Luther Head at the top of the circle or Battier in the corner. The Rockets are fifth in the NBA in 3-point shooting percentage, and only the Suns take more 3s.

"It's a component of our game, but obviously, we can't be totally dependent on it," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "What you're striving for is to have a balance."

Season pace for 725 3s

The Rockets are on pace to make 725 treys on 1,924 attempts, which would shatter the franchise records of 671 and 1,839 in the 1996-97 season, the last in which they won a playoff series.

"It's ball movement," Head said. "Whenever you get a good pass, you're confident to shoot the ball. It's easy to shoot the ball when you get the ball perfectly passed to you. You have to reward the passer for getting you the ball.

"That's everybody's personality. Nobody is a selfish person even off the court. It just carries over. We've got a lot of good guys on the team. I think everybody is fortunate to get on a team with just good guys. I think it shows on the court."

Still, the sudden gush of scoring is more likely a surge than a trend. The idea, Van Gundy said, is to be "balanced."

"We've been executing on the offensive end and making shots," McGrady said. "When you have that presence down low ... it helps.

"We want to be playing our best ball going into the postseason. Looking at the teams in front of us — Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix — those guys are in championship form. That's what we're working our way to."

ROCKETS NOTES
Rockets '86 loss still stands in the record books

The Rockets' 50-point win on Sunday put them in the record books, but it could not get them out. Their 124-74 win in Philadelphia was the third-largest margin for an NBA road team.

The largest margin of victory by a visiting team was in the 136-80 win by the Seattle SuperSonics over the Rockets in 1986. The other 50-point road win was the Pistons' 118-66 rout at Boston in 2003.

By the numbers

Some of the figures related to the Rockets' recent impressive scoring displays:

23-4: Rockets' record when scoring at least 100 points

112.2: Rockets' scoring average in their last six wins

592: Rockets' 3-pointers this season, 79 shy of the club record

.377: Rockets' 3-point percentage, which ranks fifth in the NBA

Bigs being bigs

Before the Rockets' two-game road trip, coach Jeff Van Gundy said he wanted to see his "bigs play big."
That would seem to have been accomplished in the Rockets' 124-74 win in Philadelphia. The 76ers scored just eight points in the paint, and the Rockets outrebounded the Sixers 54-36.

The Rockets had three players reach double-figure rebounds — Chuck Hayes (13), Juwan Howard (10) and Yao Ming (10) — for the first time since March 6, 2005, against the Mavericks when Yao had 11, Howard 10 and Tracy McGrady 10.

"Certainly, Yao with his post presence is a different dimension, and Juwan and Chuck have both been playing well," Van Gundy said. " Dikembe's ( Mutombo) been banged up. We need him to come back and start giving us second shots."


Pacers update

The Pacers snapped an 11-game losing streak with a 113-90 win over the Hawks on Saturday. ... Jermaine O'Neal has come back from a sore left knee and Jamaal Tinsley from a strained left calf. ... The Pacers, last in the NBA in field-goal percentage, had been among the league's top defensive teams before dramatically breaking down defensively in the past 20 games.

Rockets update

The Rockets have won five of their past six games, averaging 119 points on the Toronto-Philadelphia trip. When they lost to the Pacers, it was the first game without Yao Ming and first with Tracy McGrady coming back from back spasms, and the Pacers were led by the since-traded Al Harrington.

Check out

Watch the Rockets' defense in the paint. They took away the lane Sunday, and the Pacers lack the outside shooting to take advantage from the perimeter.

Statistically speaking

The Pacers have gone 10-17 since trading Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, Josh Powell and Sarunas Jasikevicius to Golden State for Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu and Keith McLeod.

jonathan.feigen@chron.com

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