Rockets vs. Jazz According to the Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_4962191

Rockets 100, Jazz 86

Jazz: Too much McGrady, Mutombo

Houston stars exploit Jazz weaknesses in rolling to easy win

By Phil Miller

The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:01/06/2007 04:12:21 AM MST

HOUSTON - The Jazz's scouting reports always say the same thing about the Rockets: The magician at guard can beat you from the outside, but beware the game-changing giant in the middle.
Who knew the script was more indelible than the actors? Tracy McGrady scored 44 points, victimizing five defenders and a zone in the process. But Dikembe Mutombo, normally an understudy to Yao Ming, played the starring role to perfection, dominating the paint, and the game. The result was a 100-86 loss for the Jazz, who watched as all their weaknesses, normally obscured by offensive execution, were exposed.

Weaknesses like: An occasional willingness to ditch the cut-and-screen offense for quick perimeter jumpers. A tendency to allow an aggressive opponent to build an early lead. A lack of quick-footed on-the-ball defenders. And especially, the absence of anyone to interfere with a 7-footer who barricades himself into the paint.

"Mutombo was sensational," Jerry Sloan said calmly, after spending much of his evening screaming at officials to make the 40-year-old brontosaurus vacate the area under the basket. "The offensive rebounds, that's the big difference in the ballgame."

Mutombo had eight of them, plus 19 total rebounds, making Yao's fractured leg matter not at all. His presence kept the Jazz offense working from 18 feet and farther from the basket, a big reason they made just 40 percent of their shots.

Well, that's the Jazz's story, anyway. It sure looked like they just wanted to shoot some three-pointers.

You couldn't blame them, probably, since the Rockets made the threes appear so appealing. Houston fired up six three-pointers in the first five minutes, made all but one of them, opened a 23-8 lead and invited the Jazz into joining them in a rainbow-fest.

What the heck, the Jazz figured. By the time the game was nine minutes old, the Jazz had tried eight three-pointers of their own.

"All we did was try to take outside shots. We never worked hard enough and made them guard us enough because they didn't have to, we shot so quick," Sloan grumbled. "We put the ball up in the air like, 'Man, we've got to outshoot them.' We never kept them on defense longer than maybe 10 seconds."

McGrady, however, made the Jazz play defense over and over and over, and Sloan sent in reinforcement after reinforcement. Kirilenko took a turn, but got burned by the threes. Ditto Derek Fisher. Then Gordan Giricek had a turn, with little luck. Ronnie Brewer was perhaps the most effective, but the Rockets took particular delight in running him into Mutombo screen after Juwan Howard screen after Shane Battier screen, giving the Jazz a taste of their own playbook.

"I thought he played pretty well. He tried to stay in there on McGrady," Sloan said of the rookie, but the Rockets' scorer had 27 points by halftime anyway. Brewer, Kirilenko and Matt Harpring drew the assignment in the second half, and the Jazz briefly tried a zone, too. Curiously, they never tried double-teaming, mostly because McGrady normally received the ball far from the basket. And when he missed a shot?

"Everything T-Mac needs, Dikembe did," shrugged Kirilenko.

The Jazz fought back a couple of times, even pulling within six points 20 seconds into the second half. Houston quickly countered with a 14-3 run. The Jazz scored on nine straight possessions in the final six minutes of the third quarter and cut the deficit to nine. But Shane Battier nailed a critical shot early in the fourth quarter - a three-pointer, naturally, one of Houston's 11 on the night - to restore the lead to 13, and a 16-point quarter gave Utah little chance of preventing its third loss in four road games.
pmiller@sltrib.comRockets 100, Jazz 86