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Saturday November 22, 2008 10:37 PM

Rockets Make Magic Disappear


Yao, Artest lift Houston to second straight victory



Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff Writer

Click here to listen to the Rockets postgame highlight show.

Houston - Ron Artest lurched his way up and down the court in the fourth quarter, still bothered by his sprained right ankle. Yet by the end of the game, the Rockets’ rugged forward made sure the Orlando Magic were the ones left feeling all the pain.

Locked in a nip-and-tuck affair with one of the Eastern Conference’s top teams, Artest hit a handful of huge shots down the stretch and Yao Ming decidely outplayed Dwight Howard in a battle between two of the league's best big men, as the pair helped lift Houston (9-5) to a 100-95 victory over the Magic. The win was the Rockets' fourth in five games – and their seventh straight in Orlando.

“We did what we wanted to do offensively,” coach Rick Adelman said after the game. “If we get the ball into Yao, it opens up a lot of things. He has such an impact on the game.”

“We made some big plays. Yao was good inside and Ron made a couple of shots. We played a really solid game, and got a lot of contributions from a lot of people.”

After suffering through shaky first quarters the last three games, Houston showed no sign of early sluggishness in this one. Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady (17 points, 3 rebounds) combined to score the Rockets’ first 16 points, helping Houston jump out to a quick 8-point lead.

The news got even better in the second quarter when Howard (13 points, 9 rebounds) picked up his third foul with 9:42 still remaining in the half. But Houston was unable to take advantage of the big man’s absence as Orlando used its outside shooting to climb back in the game. The Magic went 4-of-6 from downtown in the frame – three of them courtesy of Houston-native Rashard Lewis – to head to halftime with a 53-51 lead.

The game stayed tight from that point forward as neither team managed to seize a significant advantage until Artest and Yao took charge down the stretch. With the Rockets trailing 82-81 mid-way through the fourth quarter, Artest knocked down a pair of jumpers – one from beyond the arc – to put Houston back on top. One minute later, Yao (22 points, 13 rebounds) went to work, sinking a lay-up on one possession and converting a tip-in on the next as the Rockets saw their lead grow to four. Then Artest, limping noticeably on his injured ankle, came through once more, draining a ridiculously difficult 18-foot fadeaway with the shot clock winding down to give Houston a 94-88 lead, and putting his club well on its way to a second straight victory on the road.

“I think the last couple of games we have done a good job of closing out games by executing down the stretch," said McGrady, who remained undefeated in his old Orlando stomping grounds since becoming a Rocket. "A lot is riding on Yao. We give him the ball and he has to stay aggressive. You get the double team or he goes one-on-one. I take my chances with him going one-on-one with anybody. If he can do that consistently we will be a very good team especially coming down the stretch of games because he is surrounded by shooters."

And 1's: Much has been made - and rightfully so - of the Rockets' difficult November schedule. But while Houston's 9-5 record is impressive, it probably pales in comparison to this accomplishment: The Rockets are now 4-0 on the back end of back-to-backs, with three of those four wins coming on the road, and three of four coming against teams which made the playoffs last season.

Quotes:

Houston Head Coach Rick Adelman

On their ball movement improving:

“Yeah I think we have definitely improved over the last two nights. There’s no doubt. We’re really concentrating on trying to get it to Yao. He has such an impact on the game. If we get it to him a lot of things open up. Yeah that’s definitely been an improvement.”

On whether they changed anything during the timeout for Yao Ming:

“You can’t come down to him on the strong side and just say we’re going to throw it in. You have to go from side to the other and not make it so obvious. We changed the sets we were running. We wanted to take it to one side then back to the other and make it harder for them to zero in on him.”

On whether having Dwight Howard on the bench helped:

“It’s definitely a big help. He got it in the first half and Yao got him in the second half. Not having him on the court is a huge, huge difference for them at both ends of the court. It’s just one of those things that happened.”

On both teams having a good energy level:

“I think both teams came off of a back-to-back and we had talked about, especially the first quarter, trying to get off to a better start after the last three games. We’ve been bad, and tonight in the first quarter we were better, and in the second quarter we slipped. But to get two road wins like this, it’s good for us.”

TRACY MCGRADY: (On being undefeated vs. Magic since trade to Houston) “ Yao was actually just talking about that. It is a good winning percentage. We need to keep it perfect.”

“We have a good chance (to win NBA Championship). It is still early. We are still trying to find our identity and still build our chemistry and be a great team. We are not there yet.”

“This is the first time I really have had to deal with something like this and coming off surgery. That is my first major surgery in 11 years and it has been tough so far. It has been frustrating. I just felt like at the beginning of the season and overlooking the schedule that I felt like I had to be out there and helping my team win ballgames I was going to do it no matter how I felt. Right now we are doing so well. When our schedule starts to get a little bit easier for us, I will probably make a decision to try and sit out. Personally, I don’t measure myself by what I did in the regular season. I get measured by what I do in April and May. I am definitely not trying to be Superman and just contribute the best way I can.”

“When you play a guy of (Howard's) talent, you have to come aggressively. You have to come from the start and right away. I had a talk with ( Yao) at the beginning of the game. You have to come right away. He did that and (Howard) got into foul trouble. That kind of took him out of the game because (Howard) was frustrated and it is hard to get into a groove. Yao is learning because he really doesn’t have that demanding personality but I am trying to force into that.”

YAO MING: “It is a good road win. We try and play with much better team discipline and team defense. Dwight Howard is so powerful and everybody tried to give me a hand. That was the key.”

“It (guarding Howard) is getting harder and harder every year to play against him. He is getting stronger and learning new skills. For instance last year he made a couple of left hand shots and I have worked on that for many, many years but not at his age. That has really, really helped him. He has improved his free throw percentage and tonight that really surprised me.”

Orlando Magic Head Coach Van Gundy…

“It was a tough one. I thought that our guys fought very, very hard. I thought Houston played well. I didn’t think we made an inordinate amount of defensive mistakes, but we did make a couple, well more than a couple, a few in the second half and they made us pay on every one. We lost (Ron) Artest (when) he hit the three. They made us pay for every one. When they made defensive mistakes and left people open, we missed wide open shots. We didn’t make them pay. I don’t think we made an inordinate amount of mistakes. I don’t think we made more mistakes than they did, we simply didn’t make the plays and the shots that they did and shot the ball obviously very poorly, particularly in the second half. You have to give their defense some credit, particularly on the inside. We had a number of wide open 3’s, real good looks and we’re 1-for-14 in the second half. Our one’s, two’s and three’s for the game are 2-for-15. That’s just a big part of our game. I thought we got pretty good looks and didn’t make any of them. Even right to the end we had a chance to cut it back to two (points) again and have a chance and we miss wide open shots. We were struggling making shots and they had a good run there and sort of broke away from us. I thought Rafer Alston’s penetration really hurt us he got down in the lane and was breaking us down. They made some big shots, Yao (Ming) made a couple big shots and that was it.”

On Yao Ming’s play…

“Well he had 10 (points) in the first 4:12, we didn’t give him any resistance there at all in the beginning of the game and he got going. I thought Adonal (Foyle) played the heck out of him. Yao’s a very good player and early in the game we were letting him catch the ball way too deep. We played him a little bit better after that, particularly Adonal, but he had a very good game. He got on the boards; every time you get beat off the dribble and you go to help he’s there to tip it in. He was too big. I don’t think we got broken down more than they did they were just able to make us pay a lot better, frustrating.”

On Rashard Lewis’s play…

“We got Rashard a lot of shots. We got him shots on the perimeter, we went to him in the post. Probably a little bit fatigued from last night maybe but that’s everybody on the court that played last night. And for whatever reason it was just a bad shooting night for him and it was tough because I thought we got him some good looks.”

Dwight Howard

(On Yao) “Well, he’s a big body. He’s very gifted on the offensive end and he’s pretty tough to guard. He can shoot the ball extremely well. That’s what sets everything else up in his game. I learn a lot every time I play him, but at the same time, it’s fun.”

“It’s fun. It’s like a big beanstalk. You got to chop. Just kidding. But I had a lot of fun. I love playing against Yao. We don’t get to see each other that often but when we play each other, I learn a lot of stuff from him. I think he is probably one of the best shooting bigs in the NBA. His turnaround jump shot, no body can block it unless you’re 7’8”. It’s tough but he’s a lot of fun to play against. He’s going to be around for a long time. So looking forward to another match-up.”

“I think I’m more defensively-minded and trying to stop people and hold teams to a low field goal percentage. When they come there in the paint, try and be there for my teammates, try and block shots and try and be a good presence in the middle.”

Rashard Lewis

“They made shots and we didn’t. We had a lot of open shots. Like Coach said, we played hard and executed well, just didn’t’ make open shots in the second half.”

“Hedo Turkoglu didn’t play tonight, Dwight Howard was in foul trouble and we were able to fight and stay in the game. Hopefully, we would have come back in the second half but unfortunately, he got another foul early in the third quarter. It was a hard fought game. It came down to which team was going to knock down shots in the fourth quarter and they were the team to do it.”

“On a couple of mistakes we did make, they came down and hit a couple ’s, hit some open jump shots. It was a hard fought game. Tonight we played great but at the same time, they hit more shots down the stretch than we did.”

Jameer Nelson

“We came up a little short. They’re pretty good. In the end, we didn’t make shots down the stretch; we got good looks at the basket. They obviously got good looks and they made some tough shots.”

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