Chro: Houston Rockets in playoff chase & more....

I didn't see these posted anywhere so here we go:

March 15, 2003, 12:46AM

Posey steals show with season-high 26 points
By MICHAEL MURPHY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
When you have teammates like Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and Yao Ming, it's awfully hard to steal the offensive spotlight when you're wearing a Houston Rockets uniform.

But that's exactly what James Posey managed to do Friday night in the Rockets' 121-91 demolition of the Chicago Bulls. Posey was all over the floor, finishing with season highs in points (26) and assists (eight) while handing the Bulls their worst loss of the season.

"I was just trying to take advantage of what's there," said Posey, who scored 15 points in the first quarter, helping the Rockets to a 33-11 lead. "It felt good having an opportunity to take advantage of the open shots. They were falling for me, and my confidence went up from there. It felt good."

It made Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich feel even better.

With Sunday's showdown game with the Phoenix Suns on the horizon, the Rockets could ill-afford yet another letdown against one of the league's bottom-feeders. But With Posey darting all over the court, making six of his seven shots, the Rockets established the tone early and held a 20-point lead with four minutes to go in the period.

"Posey was great. He came out and set the tone," said Tomjanovich of the 6-8 small forward who in December was acquired from Denver. "He knocked some balls loose, made some shots and got the running game going. He's a kid who's making an adjustment to a new team. He had a different role there (in Denver) and his role is still being defined here.

"He's an intense guy. I just love his approach to the game. He has a lot of pride."

All you need to know about Posey's level of pride and intensity came with under six minutes to play in the game.

With the Rockets holding a 106-77 lead, Chicago rookie Jay Williams attempted to slip a pass by Posey. Sure, there are some players who might relax a bit and let the game die of natural causes, but it seems that Posey's not wired that way.

He instead broke up the pass, dove to the floor head first to recover the ball -- his fifth steal of the game -- and then pitched it out to ignite yet another Rockets fast break.

"I was just playing basketball," Posey said. "The game's not over, and while I'm out there, I'm going to be playing hard. That's part of the game. That's how I play."

With Posey and Steve Francis (five steals) playing the passing lanes, the Rockets piled up 121 points, shot almost 58 percent from the floor and dished out 29 assists.


March 15, 2003, 12:34AM

Suns bring heat to playoff chase
By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
Up until this point, it has been nothing more than a faint image in their imaginations, a fuzzy blur on a distant horizon.

They could talk about it, and they did. They could fantasize what it would be like, and they tried.

Now it's about to hit the Rockets right between the eyes.

The Phoenix Suns come calling Sunday night and will bring a once-familiar item that has been gathering dust in the attic of their glory days. You can picture it being taken out of an old steamer trunk, gently unfolded and held up to see if it was recognizable.

This, children, is a playoff race.

"This should really be fun, exciting," Mo Taylor said. "This is what it's all about."

This is the Rockets and Suns standing toe-to-toe with identical 34-30 records, tied for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with 18 games and just over four weeks remaining.

This is the last chance for the two teams to go head-to-head down the stretch.

This is exactly the situation the young and often cocky Rockets have been saying they've been ready for the past few seasons.

This, of course, is time to prove it.

"It's all about making the playoffs and getting it done this year," Taylor said. "I think about what it would mean for the organization to get back there. This is a franchise that has won championships and used to be a playoff regular, and it's been missing out for too long.

"It would mean a lot for the city and to really get the fans believing in us completely in what we're doing and where we're going with this club. Naturally, it would mean a lot to the guys in here who are trying to get it done."

They are a collection of individuals who have struggled over the past several seasons to come together as a team. They are a bundle of individual talents who haven't taken all of the strides expected of them. They are now pretty much a group of raw soldiers fresh out of boot camp who don't have the experience and don't understand what is ahead of them.

The other day in practice, coach Rudy Tomjanovich started off on one of his long, emotional coaching rants, where he goes off onto tangents, where he breaks down all of the X's and O's as if they were sub-atomic particles under a microscope, where he gets himself worked up into an evangelical fervor.

Rudy T got to the part of his speech where he began punching the air and telling his charges that the coming weeks would require "playoff intensity."

"Then I stopped myself and looked around the room and I wondered, `Who the hell in here even knows what I'm talking about?' Except for Glen (Rice), these guys have just heard and read about the playoffs."

Cuttino Mobley has four playoff games under his belt from his rookie year and Kelvin Cato 12 games from his days as a sub in Portland. That hardly counts. The Rockets might as well be babes in swaddling clothes.

But at least now, to start the stretch run, they get one game, one big game to zero in on and their track record says they will at least show up.

"We've got a brutal, five-game road trip to the West Coast following this up, so I think it could be good to play a game like this one with Phoenix right before it starts," Rudy T said. "It should get us into a big-game mode, a pressure mentality and hopefully that will carry over."

After losing four in a row, the Rockets have rallied to win four straight to pull themselves even with the Suns. Meanwhile, Phoenix has done its part against some of the beasts of the West, beating Portland, San Antonio and Sacramento in the last two weeks.

"They've been taking care of business," Taylor said. "With the kind of wins that they've put up lately, they've shown they're for real. Truth is, now it's up to us to make this thing a race."

There has been so much talk of adjustments all year long. Getting used to playing with Yao Ming and becoming comfortable with a new offense and personnel changes when Kenny Thomas was traded and James Posey brought in.

Now what the Rockets have is a month to make a push, make a run to the playoffs and show there is something big in the air besides a 7-5 center from China and the rising beams of a new arena for next season.

"I really believe this is going to be good for us," said Rice, the veteran of 55 playoff games. "These are must-have games, no excuses. That's what I've been trying to talk to these guys about, tell them.

"All I can do at this point is tell them about the level of play in the playoffs, about how it goes up, about how everything changes. But you can only understand by going through it.

"These are the playoffs right here as far as most of these guys are concerned. Phoenix is the team we've got to beat out. So it's good that we get them when we're playing well. This is the start of something."

A playoff race, if anybody remembers.


March 15, 2003, 1:24AM

Rockets don't let up against Bulls
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
UPDATE
• Friday: Rockets 121, Bulls 91.
• Boxscore

• Playoff watch: 34-30, tied for Phoenix for the No. 8 spot in the West.

• Yao watch: 16 points, six rebounds, two blocks in 29 minutes.

• Sunday: Phoenix at Compaq Center, 7:30 p.m.

• TV/radio: Ch. 51; KILT (610 AM) and in Spanish on KYST (920 AM).


The difference was timing. It turns out it is all right to look at the Chicago Bulls as inferior. It is just a matter of not looking down on them until up by 20 points.

This time, when the Rockets allowed themselves to believe a weak, overmatched, struggling team could not beat them, they were right. But this time, the Rockets humiliated the Bulls long enough to have a right to feel cocky.

With the Bulls showing few signs of being familiar with the concept of defense, the Rockets rolled to a rapid 22-point lead and never felt the least bit challenged, coasting to a 121-91 win Friday night before 14,758 at Compaq Center.

The Rockets matched their highest-scoring game and had their most lopsided win of the season to head into Sunday's game with the Phoenix Suns with momentum. They extended their winning streak to four games, matching their longest of the season. And they moved into a tie with the Suns for the eighth spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

"I think this is the ideal way to go into Sunday," Rockets forward Glen Rice said. "Defensively, we went back to playing the aggressive defense we're capable of playing. And the ball was moving around beautifully. We can learn a lot from this game. This was a team that beat us in the past because maybe we didn't respect them. Tonight, we gave them their respect and took care of business."

Unable to control their demons against other subpar teams like the Bulls, the Rockets more than treated a team with three road wins all season with respect. They avoided the temptation of looking ahead to Sunday. Instead, they looked back to failings against poor teams, their inability to sustain a winning streak and the Suns' decisive win Thursday.

"Longest winning streak of the year, biggest win of the year, it's definitely big," Rockets forward Maurice Taylor said. "We saw what Phoenix did to Sacramento, and we had to keep pace."

The Rockets needed about seven minutes to prove justified in whatever feelings of superiority they might have developed. It took that long for the Rockets to roll to a 16-3 lead and for James Posey to hit his first five shots.

Once Posey, Steve Francis or Cuttino Mobley got a step to the lane, they found a Bulls frontcourt coming to help with all the speed and grace of a fleet of oil tankers.

"From that first group," said Bulls coach Bill Cartwright, who began clearing his bench with 35 minutes left to play, "the only guy that was ready to play was Jamal (Crawford.)"

The Rockets led 33-11 at the end of the first quarter, their highest point total and fewest they have given up in that quarter this season. But Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich did not need the 22-point lead to see the difference in the Rockets against struggling teams. He said he saw it "on the first possession.

"We know they run that play the first play," he said. "It was supposed to be a post-up play. Pose just worked and worked and worked, pushed the guy out to the 3-point line and knocked the ball loose. That's what you call setting the tone.

"The Bulls have been a thorn in our side the past couple of years. In fact, we did better against them when they had (Michael) Jordan than we have the last couple years. I was pleased with the way we came out defensively."

By the time Posey sat less than five minutes into the second quarter, he had 17 points, one shy of his high since joining the Rockets on Dec. 20. He finished with a season-high 26 points on 9-of-12 shooting and a season-high five steals. Also, his eight assists were his most with the Rockets.

But no one had much trouble scoring. Francis took only five shots. But he made them all and knocked down 11 of 12 free throws to score 23 points, adding 10 assists, nine rebounds and five steals. Rice came off the bench to score 16 points, hitting four of seven 3 pointers. The Rockets made 57.7 percent of their shots and had 29 assists, one shy of their season high.

"I think our offense was pretty normal today, actually," Rockets center Yao Ming said. "We were able to push the ball. I think the primary reason we were able to win by so many points was because of our defense. Our defense gave us our foundation and then our offense really picked up."

By the third quarter, the only entertainment value of the game had become a contest between Yao and Bulls' second-year center Eddy Curry. Both had their moments in the quarter, with Curry scoring 10 points and Yao 12. But Yao won the highlights competition, spinning past Curry for a slam and ending the quarter with a blocked shot that rather than slapping away, he snared with his right hand.

The play was ruled goaltending.But at the time, the Rockets had a 24-point lead, and such details didn't matter.

"We haven't been able to have a really, really good game against a team that was subpar," Francis said. "Tonight, we came out intense and executed our game plan. It's a good way to go into Sunday. This is what we needed."

March 15, 2003, 12:56AM

Rockets summary


Growing up

Just when it seemed time to question the Bulls' decision to remake themselves around Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler, the second-year big men are rushing to Michael Jordan territory -- sort of.

The baby Bulls have a chance to do something no Bulls player since Jordan and Dennis Rodman did in 1998 -- lead the NBA in an offensive statistical category. Neither has taken enough shots to qualify, but Curry's 57.4 percent shooting would lead the league and Chandler's 54.3 percent would rank third.

Curry needs to make 83 field goals in the final 16 games and Chandler 74 to qualify.

No Bull has led the league in field-goal percentage since Artis Gilmore shot 67 percent in 1980-81 and 65.2 the next season.

"I feel confident and feel that I'm finishing moves around the basket in strong fashion," Curry said.

Curry had scored at least 20 points in four consecutive games before being held to 14 on Friday. He had one 20-point game before that streak.

"They're so young and the talent is there," Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "You look at the guys who did that, Jermaine O'Neal and those guys. You're starting to see flashes of the greatness to come."

Curry is also unique as a young center, rather than a power forward forced to play center.

"He is a center. He looks like he has a heck of a future, from what I've seen," Tomjanovich said. "It looks like his confidence level is up. They run the floor. He has a good body. He seals in the paint. He catches the ball in good position and he's got some shots."

He also has a chance to establish a long-term rivalry with Rockets rookie Yao Ming, also a rare true center among players to enter the NBA in recent seasons.

"He's a good player and a huge player," Curry said of Yao. "I didn't play much when they came to Chicago. For the most part, all I really had to do was push him away from the basket. With him being 7-6, there's not much you can do to contest his shot.

"With Shaq (O'Neal), you can push him away as far as possible and have somebody help down and hope he misses the turnaround. But with Yao, he's a little more comfortable out there. He wants to shoot anyway, so you're not taking anything from him. You have to get to his body and frustrate him more.

"I have a lot of respect for (Yao). He's a great player."

Interest increasing

Depending on the walk-up sales today and Sunday, the Rockets have a chance to sell out Sunday's key game against the Suns.

The sellout would give the Rockets a chance to reach the goal set in the preseason by Rockets vice president for sales Mark Norelli to sell out 12 home games, four times last season's total.

Norelli said Friday he and other vice presidents had agreed on a goal of six sellouts for this season when he got excited and publicly announced a goal of twice as many.

The Rockets are certain of a sellout for the Lakers game March 26 and have a chance at a sellout for the April 15 game against the Grizzlies, billed as the last game at Compaq Center.

Including those games, a sellout Sunday would allow the Rockets to reach 12 sellouts.

Fatigue factor

Rockets guard Cuttino Mobley moved into a tie with Allen Iverson for average minutes played this season, 42.3 per game.

Mobley said he usually does not feel the difference after playing a few extra minutes in a game. But he said he knew Thursday that he played 53 minutes the night before.

"I felt it the other day after the 53," Mobley said. "But that's why I work hard in the summertime so just in case, I can play like that.

"There have been a few times I called over to the bench. Coach gave me a break. Not a lot. But I've done it a few times."

Press row view

James Posey is not going to put up 26 points and eight assists often. But as he said after the game, he doesn't have to. Nor should he have to be so productive to earn some time in the Rockets' backcourt. Because Posey was on such a roll Friday, and with third guard Moochie's Norris' role reduced to a bit part, coach Rudy Tomjanovich gave Posey playing time as a backup shooting guard. The rout helped Tomjanovich hold Cuttino Mobley and Steve Francis to 36 minutes each. But if Juaquin Hawkins is going to remain out of the rotation and Norris is barely in it, Posey looks like a way to keep Mobley from playing more than every other NBA player except Allen Iverson.

Inside the numbers

The Rockets had at least 100 points in consecutive games for the first time since Feb. 11-12, the first two games after the All-Star break. ... The Bulls had 26 turnovers, the most against the Rockets this season. The Rockets' 17 steals were also a season high. ... The Rockets blocked 10 shots and are 22-2 when blocking at least eight. ... Steve Francis fell one rebound shy of his first triple double of the season. He had his eighth double double.

Did you know?

The Rockets' starting lineup -- Eddie Griffin, James Posey, Yao Ming, Cuttino Mobley and Steve Francis -- has started 25 games, the most for a Rockets lineup since Maurice Taylor, Walt Williams, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shandon Anderson and Francis started 25 games together in the 2000-2001 season.

-- JONATHAN FEIGEN