[CHRON] Rockets seek true identity

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/rox/3467027

Rockets seek true identity
Team has two big answers, but lacks confidence
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

SAN ANTONIO — The Rockets, above all teams, surely must know who and what they are. The best teams do, and though the Rockets cannot claim to be a member of that exclusive club, few teams seem more obviously defined.

The Rockets are Tracy McGrady, the way his Tour de France team is Lance Armstrong. They are Yao Ming, as if anyone could not notice the 7-foot-6 combination of immense size and skills. And they are a team of players entirely selected to complement Yao and McGrady.

Yet, the Rockets are trying to figure it all out. On some level, they know these things the way a medical student can down caffeine and study around the clock until he memorizes the answers. But the real tests don't come until the heat of the ER or fourth quarter.

"This team," McGrady said, "is still searching as far as knowing our identity."

While they search, the Rockets will face two teams that know who and what they are best, and best demon-strate the value of never straying far from themselves.

The San Antonio Spurs, whom the Rockets face tonight, and Detroit Pistons, who will be waiting for them in Houston on Friday, went seven games in the NBA Finals before the Spurs emerged. Between them, they have won the past two NBA championships and no matter what changes have come to their roster, almost never stray from what has made them the league's superpowers.

"They are the best two teams in the league," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "A lot of it comes down to that they do a lot of what every team wants to do, but don't do it as much. They defend both longer and harder and are more efficient in their games offensively than the other teams in the league.

"There's no magic formula. Everyone knows what the formula is. It's just a matter of can you get players to do it longer."

The Spurs and Pistons will stick with their game plans and only occasionally break a play to explore something else. Everything doesn't work. Both can go through offensive droughts as much of the Finals demonstrated. But when they face late-game or defensive pressure, the Spurs and Pistons rarely stray from themselves.

The Rockets and most teams become more likely to crack.

"We don't know our identity yet," McGrady said. "We haven't been playing like that. Sometimes we play inside-out. Other times, we're not getting the ball in the paint at all. What are we going to be?

"Last year, we were much more of a team that had attitude and a team that really trusted in one another. Right now, this year we don't have that. We don't have the attitude. We're still searching."


Lacking the will
Some of the identity that Van Gundy is trying to develop is pretty basic stuff — defend, rebound, compete. But each of those fundamentals are, not coincidentally, on the top of the Spurs' and Pistons' checklists.

"We know what wins and what loses, and we don't have the willingness at this present moment to do what it takes to win every time," Van Gundy said. "What it takes to win is to defend, get defensive rebounds, handle the ball, get it inside to score in the paint, go inside-out and give up a good shot to get a great shot.

"It is true for every team. If you want to win, that's what your identity will be."

The Rockets especially believe in shutting down the lane defensively and getting the ball to the paint, but have done neither with any regularity. Van Gundy even tweaked many of the team's playing rotations to help close up the paint. But until playing Minnesota, generally a jump-shooting team, the Rockets' defense was still springing leaks.

"Coach has made some changes to make up for some of our weaknesses, different rotations," guard David Wesley said. "We've always been a close-the-paint-down team, but we're trying to close the paint down even more, to make them shoot more shots outside. But we're still giving up drive-bys. We're still giving up stuff. It's frustrating when we're specifically trying not to do that."

The biggest frustration, however, might be the Rockets' play late in games. That could be starting to come around. Though they were never in the Boston game, they closed out wins in New Jersey and Minneapolis by not reinventing themselves with every late-game possession.


Mental strength
But last week, after three consecutive fourth-quarter breakdowns, Van Gundy said, "I think our game stinks when it counts the most.

"It's random, undisciplined, helter-skelter, Rockets gone wild, just doing whatever we want. Because of that, we get bad results. To me, players and teams are separated by two things: Who can sustain their play longer, because everybody has some good plays in games, and who can play their best when their best is needed late.

"The league over time has gotten a little more fragile. And yet, you look at San Antonio, you look at Detroit, one of the reasons they're so great beyond their individual skills and great coaching, is they have unbelievable mental strength to handle the good, the bad, the ups, the downs, the grind. Winning in this league is as much about outlasting through mental strength as any X and O or great players."

That is their identity. The Rockets are a team that knows what it should be but still can't suppress its wanderings.