Chron: Rockets go down without a fight

The title says it all....

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/1860874

SALT LAKE CITY -- This, the Rockets decided, would be their Game 7, a must-win elimination game to define themselves and their season.

While their playoff hopes were not entirely wrapped into their play on this one night, that is how they said it felt every time they clanged an open shot or crashed a drive off the rim with the delicate touch of a blacksmith.

They missed free throws and saw their playoff fantasy rushing from their reach. They watched the Jazz run past them and saw a fourth consecutive season ending early. They felt the sting of Tuesday night's disastrous loss to Portland -- the worst offensive performance in franchise history -- and for three quarters Wednesday, the only quarters that mattered, they played even worse.

The Rockets' 94-73 loss to Utah on Wednesday night did not officially eliminate them from the Western Conference playoff chase, but for the second consecutive night, the Rockets showed no poise, little pride and few reasons to think they belong in the playoffs.

"When you're this close to the goal you've been talking about all season long and see it slipping away with each loss, it definitely makes you think during the game," Rockets forward Maurice Taylor said. "It definitely puts a little more added pressure on your shoulders. With every point they add to the lead, you think, `Man, that could be our season.' "

It probably was.

With Phoenix's 112-89 rout of Dallas on Wednesday night, the Suns need only two victories or Rockets losses to eliminate Houston from playoff contention. Even if the Rockets come back from this week's collapse to sweep their remaining three games, Phoenix would have to win only two of its remaining four games to clinch the eighth playoff spot in the West.

But the more the Rockets considered what was at stake Wednesday, the more it flattened their shots and slowed their feet. Even though Utah also was playing the second half of a back-to-back and had little to gain with regard to its playoff position, the Jazz, who can finish no worse than seventh in the Western Conference, outworked the Rockets from the outset.

"It happened the same way last night," Rockets guard Cuttino Mobley said. "Guys are just tired, I guess. It's the wrong time to get tired, but we're human. Oh, well. I could write a book about it. But that's all I've got to say."

For most of the game, it was difficult to tell that the Rockets -- lifeless and uninspired in a first half so important to their season -- were not put out of their misery a night before.

Twenty-four hours after they lamented all the wonderful shots that would not go in, the Rockets flung the same shots at the rim as if they hoped probability alone might change things. The Jazz scored the game's first 11 points and never trailed. The Rockets went more than eight minutes before they made anything besides a 3-pointer.

"We were telling the guys, `Our jump shots are not going. We've got to create going to the basket,' " Rockets acting coach Larry Smith said. "We didn't do that early. We weren't aggressive enough to take it to the basket. We had open looks. We just didn't make them."

But the Rockets knew that as horribly as they shot, they could not claim to have suffered the misfortune of one of those nights.

"We just didn't come out the way we need to come out," said Taylor, who scored 10 points and had seven rebounds. "The way Golden State beat Utah (128-102) last night, we should have known we couldn't come out and be sluggish against them. They just lost three in a row. We knew they would be ready to come out and play with a certain type of attitude, a certain type of effort. I don't think we matched that tonight.

"Missing everything we shot didn't help, either."

In a first half to rival Tuesday's 81-66 horror show, the Rockets made only 10 of 44 shots (22.7 percent), even extending their shooting problems to the free-throw line, where they were only 4-of-11.

By halftime, the Rockets had put together four quarters -- Tuesday's second half and Wednesday's first half -- in which they scored all of 53 points and made only 19 of 85 shots.

"Yesterday, we did a few things well," said center Yao Ming, who had only six points and five rebounds. "Tonight, I don't think we did anything well."

The Rockets were so inept that the Jazz crushed them with little help from John Stockton and Karl Malone. Stockton offered only a 20-minute cameo, sitting for the rest of the night after getting seven points and three assists. Malone played 29 minutes but made only two of 10 shots and six of 12 free throws.

Instead, Matt Harpring tossed in an easy 23 points, and the Jazz bench outhustled the Rockets up and down the court until the rout was sealed and the Rockets finally attempted to salvage some dignity in the meaningless fourth quarter.

By then, the Rockets' starters had combined to make only 12 of 48 shots. Steve Francis, who left the locker room without comment, followed his 5-of-20 effort Tuesday with 2-of-14 shooting and six points Wednesday. Mobley improved from 3-of-12 to 3-of-11 and finished with only nine points.

The frustration that had been building toward madness finally erupted when Francis, rather than simply take a backcourt violation, kicked a loose ball high into the crowd, drawing a technical foul.

The Rockets had cut a 16-point lead to nine, but after the turnover and technical, the Jazz took their lead back to 12 before the Rockets touched the ball again. Utah led by 20 moments later.

By then, a night after the Rockets matched franchise-record lows with 66 points and 29.5 percent shooting, the only goal left for them was to see if they could be better than the worst they had ever been.

They avoided that indignity. But the game, like the remainder of the season, seemed to have been reduced to just waiting for it to finally end.

"I just wanted," Yao said of the fourth quarter, "to get home pretty quick, as quickly as possible."