Rockets hoping to return to winning ways

Philadelphia at Houston, Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.

Damien Pierce
Rockets.com Staff Writer

HOUSTON -- Rick Adelman realizes the Rockets have been on a roll of late by winning five of their past six games.

The coach, however, wants more.

"Our team hasn't proven anything yet," Adelman said. "We're a 20-18 team. If we want to move up with the playoff teams, we have to keep winning games."

On Tuesday night, Adelman's bunch will try to maintain their recent surge.

The Rockets, fresh off a disappointing setback to New Orleans, will try to begin a new winning streak Tuesday night when they host the struggling Philadelphia 76ers at Toyota Center.

Before suffering the loss to the Hornets on Sunday, the Rockets had finally started to make up some ground in the Western Conference playoff race. They won a season-high five games in a row, moving above .500 for the first time in almost a month.

But even with that spurt, the Rockets haven't completely closed the gap on the West's top eight teams. Houston is 10th in the conference, two games behind eighth-seeded Golden State for the final playoff spot.

That's why Adelman believes his team can't afford to regress.

"We're 38 games into it," Adelman said. "We had a nice little run and I was disappointed in how we finished (against the Hornets). But now, this team has to understand that we had a disappointing game, but we have to get on another run. You got to keep moving forward. You can't take five steps forward and then lose three in a row. That's the challenge right now."

The Rockets were still having some trouble moving on from the setback to New Orleans on Monday -- and for good reason.

Besides wanting to pick up a win over a team leading them in the conference standings, the Rockets felt like they gave the game away because of their own miscues.

Heading into the final four minutes, the Rockets were holding a 78-74 advantage. But New Orleans took advantage of three late turnovers to end the game on a 13-4 run. Yao Ming, who had 30 points and 16 rebounds, was the only Houston player to score over the final six minutes.

Rockets point guard Rafer Alston was so frustrated with the setback that he didn't stick around in the locker room after Sunday's game for postgame interviews.

"It's hard for me to forget that game because we had that game," Alston said. "I really felt like we gave that game away. All we had to do was take care of the ball down the stretch and make them defend us. We didn't do that. But we can't let (Tuesday's game) get away (because of Sunday's loss)."

The Rockets shouldn't have trouble recovering from that setback considering there's no reason why the Sixers shouldn't have Houston's attention.

Despite coming into Tuesday's game with one of the worst records in the Eastern Conference, the Sixers have proven that they can handle the Rockets. Houston dropped a 100-88 decision to the Sixers on Dec. 10 after failing to generate any resemblance of an offense.

Really, the game wasn't even as close as the final score might indicate. The Sixers led by as much as 31 points thanks to 22 Houston turnovers and a cold-shooting night by the Rockets.

"They just destroyed us," Adelman said. "We didn't do anything right against them. We didn't guard them very well. That was one game where we really defensively broke down. They really did what they wanted in the first half."

Since that performance, the Rockets have improved.

They've gained more motion in their offense. They've gotten more balanced scoring with major contributions from Luther Head and Alston. And they've received a confidence boost by winning seven of their past 10 games without injured star Tracy McGrady.

Now, the key is maintaining that momentum and continuing to win games. Adelman and Co. know they can't afford to suffer any more skids.

"Not at this point," Rockets forward Shane Battier said. "We have a lot of games to make up."