Friday April 18, 2008 3:54 PM


Rockets looking forward to second chance vs. Jazz


Utah at Houston, Game 1, Saturday, 8:30 p.m.



Damien Pierce
Rockets.com Staff Writer


HOUSTON -- During his summer break, Luther Head tried to forget about last season's heart-breaking finish in the first round of the playoffs.

Unfortunately, the Rockets' sharp-shooting guard didn't have much luck with that.

Head instead spent most of the summer hearing about his team's early postseason exit from a pair of former college teammates -- Utah's Deron Williams and Dee Brown.

"I heard from them all summer," said Head, who played with the two Utah players at Illinois. "They wouldn't let me forget about that. I've wanted to play them again because I want to beat those guys so bad."

Head and the Rockets are getting their second chance.

One year after their premature exit from the postseason, the Rockets will get another shot at the Utah Jazz when the two teams meet in the first round of the 2008 NBA Playoffs. The best-of-seven first-round series begins Saturday night at Toyota Center.

The Jazz ended Houston's playoff run in Game 7 of last season's entertaining first-round matchup, claiming the series-clinching victory in Houston after the Rockets failed to secure a couple of defensive rebounds in the closing seconds. Behind Carlos Boozer and rising star Deron Williams, Utah went on to reach the Western Conference Finals.

With that disappointing setback, Houston spent the summer thinking about what could have been. Instead of making an anticipated deep playoff run, the Rockets failed to end a decade-long drought without a playoff series win. They also missed an opportunity to go even deeper in a Western Conference playoff race that seemed to open up when top-seeded Dallas was toppled by Golden State.

Now, the Rockets are facing the team that ended last season's high hopes.

"I'm excited because it's team that we matched up with last year," McGrady said. "We went against them for seven games last year and it was a very entertaining series. We got them again and have a chance to get some revenge."

The Rockets will be bringing a different look into this series.

During their first-round series against the Jazz last season, the Rockets relied heavily on McGrady to create shots for everyone else. The seven-time All-Star was one of Houston's few players who could take his defender off the dribble, meaning it was his job to create for himself and everyone else.

But with a new share-the-wealth offensive philosophy under Rick Adelman and several new additions, the Rockets are hoping that the latest series isn't hinged on McGrady's play alone. Luis Scola and Carl Landry are capable of giving the Jazz fits in the pick-and-roll game and players like Bobby Jackson and Aaron Brooks offer Houston more options to penetrate the lane.

The Jazz will, in all likelihood, test that theory by running two defenders at McGrady to see if anyone else in the lineup can beat them.

"We're going to have to be a lot better," Adelman said. "I don't know how these guys are going to respond, but I've seen them respond all year. I anticipate that we're going to go out there and that we're really going to compete. Offensively, we've got to find ways to score and have people step up because they're going to come at Tracy. They're going to put three or four people rotating on him. We have to find ways to make plays."

The Rockets aren't necessarily ready to declare that their lineup is better-suited for the Jazz this time around. They are, after all, missing Yao Ming.

But this time, the Rockets don't think the pressure is on them to win the series. Despite making their historic 22-game run earlier in the season, the Rockets believe they're being cast as the underdog against Utah.

"We've been counted out multiple times this season," Rockets forward Shane Battier said. "We started off slow -- 15-17 -- and we're called the most disappointing team in the NBA. We lost our best player (Yao) to a season-ending injury and everyone said that we have no chance to even make the playoffs. Well, we made the playoffs and we have home-court for the first round. So if we've learned anything, it's that we shouldn't listen to what people think of our chances. Anything is possible."

The Jazz? They haven't changed much.

Besides losing Derek Fisher and picking up Kyle Korver, the Northwest Division champs are essentially the same bunch that knocked the Rockets out of the 2007 Playoffs.

Like last season, Utah will once again rely on the potent inside-out punch of Boozer and Williams. The duo made the Jazz one of the NBA's most efficient offensive teams, finishing second in the league in shooting at 49.7 percent.

The Rockets are also expecting another series filled with pushing and shoving against one of the league's most physical teams.

"The Jazz are the Jazz," Battier said. "At the end of the day, they run their stuff as well as anyone in the league. They're well coached. They play hard. There are never any surprises when you play the Utah Jazz. You know exactly what you're getting. And that's a pretty damn good team."

That is, of course, exactly who the Rockets wanted to draw in the playoffs.

Despite having home-court advantage and a chance to beat the Jazz in the waning moments of last season's playoff series, the Rockets spent the summer pondering what might have been.

The Rockets don't want to relive that finish.

""It took me a while to get over it," McGrady said. "But I'm thankful we've got another opportunity."