Houston Rockets center Yao Ming stands outside the court and encourage his mates in the battle with Utah Jazz on Sunday, April 1, 2007. [Photo: sina.com]

 

The difference, for all that brought them there, might have been in one minute, one possession, one shot.

 

Then, the minute was a disaster. The shot missed. The possession was botched. And as close as the Rockets had been to the Utah Jazz when the day began, it ended with the Jazz surging to beat the Rockets 86-83 Sunday at Toyota Center, leaving the teams suddenly seeming very far apart.

 

The win put the Jazz 1? games in front of the Rockets in their race for home-court advantage in their expected first-round playoff series (two in the loss column). With two wins in the three games so far and a wide edge in conference record, it assured the Jazz the tie-breaker should the teams finish in a tie.

 

But beyond the standings or the Rockets' loss, the team they expect to face when the playoffs begin, showed all sorts of late-game poise and precision while the Rockets broke down on both ends of their homecourt.

 

"It boils down to execution in the fourth," forward Shane Battier said. "That's what playoff basketball is about. That's what beating good teams is all about."

 

That was when the Rockets came up short.

 

They had overcome a horrible shooting first half — when which Yao Ming had 20 points and the rest of the Rockets combined to make 5 of 25 shots

 

— to build a nine-point lead in the third quarter. The Jazz, with a league-leading 16 comebacks from double-digit deficits this season, rallied to within a point, but the Rockets recovered and went into the last 4? minutes leading 77-70.

 

They stopped the Jazz only one more time the rest of the night, giving up dunks or layups on four-consecutive possessions.

 

"That's really, really bad," Yao, who finished with 35 points, 16 rebounds and four blocked shots, said. "You have a seven-point cushion with (four) minutes left, if you're a consistent team, you should take that game. You should have that game, particularly on your homecourt. We relaxed too early.

 

"Intensity. Concentration. For the last four minutes, we weren't concentrating. You have to know, last two minutes (ellipses) you have to play everything harder. Those scores were all by our mistakes."

 

Tracy McGrady finished a drive and Yao hit a jumper with 2:21 remaining to keep the Rockets in front 81-77. But Deron Williams passed to Carlos Boozer for a jam and to Matt Harpring for a layup and a three-point play to put the Jazz in front 82-81 with 1:35 remaining.

 

"Our help was late and the guy guarding the pick got screened off," Battier said. "Against a team like Utah, you have to keep your focus and concentration the entire time. If you relax for even a second, you get picked off. It results in the three-point plays and layups they got down the stretch."

 

Yao and McGrady each missed before the Rockets could not get the rebound of a Mehmet Okur miss, allowing Williams to pass to Boozer for another layup and another three-point play for a four-point Utah lead with 43.3 seconds left.

 

"They ran possibly one play several possessions and they executed on that one play," McGrady said. "For some reason, we knew the play was coming, but we couldn't stop it. That was the one play they were executing down the stretch of the game.

 

"We stopped executing and we stopped getting loose balls and we stopped executing on the defensive end. That cost us the game."

 

McGrady slipped past a Yao screen on a drive to cut the lead to two, and Boozer missed a jumper with 21.9 seconds remaining, giving the Rockets a chance to tie the game or reclaim the lead. But this time, when McGrady went around the screen, the Jazz sent help and McGrady found Rafer Alston open for a 3.

 

"In a situation like that, you just got to make the best play," McGrady said. "It was going to be a bad shot if I took a shot. Rafer had a clean look. "

 

The miss dropped Alston to 1 for 7 from beyond the arc, but the Rockets had time to launch one more 3 and one more chance to force overtime when Okur made one of two free throws with 8.2 seconds left.

 

But when the Rockets set up a last, McGrady got the ball and looked to his left, expecting a screen that never came. He passed to Yao inside the arc. By the time, McGrady got the ball back, his deep, off-balance 3 at the buzzer fell far short.

 

With that, the Rockets could not get a good shot to end a game the Jazz won with four-consecutive layups. And as close as they were on the scoreboard and in the standings, the difference between the teams to heading to a playoff meeting seemed enormous.

 

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(CRIENGLISH.com via Houston Chronicle April 3, 2007)