Sunday April 20, 2008 4:00 PM


Rockets seek better offensive flow against Jazz


Utah at Houston, Game 2, Monday, 8:30 p.m.



Damien Pierce
Rockets.com Staff Writer


HOUSTON --Before returning to the practice court on Sunday, Rick Adelman spent a few hours holed up inside his office dissecting film from the Rockets' playoff-opening setback to the Utah Jazz.

The Rockets' coach watched enough tape to realize that the shots his team was taking on the offensive end weren't nearly as bad as the numbers might have indicated.

But if the Rockets are going to extend their season, Adelman is aware his team will have to do a better job of finishing.

"We have to do better and we can," Adelman said.

The Rockets will have to make that offensive turnaround quickly.

Less than 48 hours after struggling to generate much scoring in their playoff opener, the Rockets are hoping to find their offensive rhythm Monday night in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against the Utah Jazz.

The Jazz gained a 1-0 advantage in the series by holding the Rockets to 36.7 percent shooting and limiting Tracy McGrady's touches in the second half of Game 1. Houston, a team that thrived on sharing the ball in the regular season, had only three players in double figures, piling up a mere 15 assists.

Bad start on the offensive end? No question. But the Rockets noted that they had plenty of good looks in the paint that didn't drop through the hoop.

They're hoping to get more of those shots to fall in Game 2 -- or else, the Rockets could face the undesirable prospect of going to Salt Lake City down 0-2 in the series.

"We didn't convert shots at the rim," Rockets forward Shane Battier said. "We were 45 to 46 percent at the rim. That's not an NBA-level percentage. We got to the rim and the free-throw line. But we did a poor job of finishing those shots."

The Jazz didn't throw any surprises at the Rockets.

Following a plan that Utah used less than a week ago in the regular season, the Jazz did everything that they could to take the ball out of McGrady's hands.

During the first half, Ronnie Brewer defended McGrady and limited the star to 10 points and four assists. But after the Rockets' All-Star shooting guard started to warm up in the second half, Utah placed their defensive stopper -- Andrei Kirilenko -- on him.

By trapping McGrady on the perimeter with Kirilenko among the defenders, the Jazz took the ball away from the Rockets' star. McGrady made 2 of 10 attempts in the second half, scoring only one point over the final 20 minutes.

The rest of the Rockets couldn't make the Jazz pay for doubling McGrady.

"We're going to have a lot of open shots when they double team me," McGrady said. "We've just got to knock those shots down. Our big guys have to finish at the basket. And that's it. We had a lot of open shots that we missed."

McGrady and the Rockets will likely get that same treatment in Game 2. But even with that defense coming, Adelman wouldn't want his star player doing anything differently. He doesn't want McGrady to force the issue even though the Rockets' star received some criticism for not doing more in Game 1.

"I think there's too much attention to what Tracy's doing out there," Adelman said. "Come on, we're missing our starting point guard and an All-Star center and everything they did was around trying to make sure he didn't get good looks. There's only so much a guy can do. I think he can play better -- all of us need to play better or we're going to be dead. But I think there's sometimes too much put upon him and not upon the whole team. We won all year because of the whole team and not just because of one guy. I just think we got to help him out. He does need to be aggressive, but when they take things away from him, he's finding the right guy."

The Rockets are hoping to help McGrady by becoming harder for the Jazz to guard.

Despite getting a perfect shooting night from Battier, none of the other Rockets had a memorable offensive showing in Game 1. Why? Bobby Jackson contends that his team just didn't have enough movement.

He said the Rockets were standing around too much and counting on McGrady to create for everyone else.

That's not the sort of offense that the Rockets were playing when they won 22 straight games over a month ago.

"We've got to make the defense shift," Jackson said.

The Jazz did do a solid job of contesting Houston's looks. From start to finish, the Rockets rarely had an uncontested look in the paint as Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur clogged up the lane. But even with Utah playing well on the defensive end, the Rockets were getting some decent looks.

The trick, Adelman said, is getting some of those shots under less pressure.

"We can see how they're playing us and make some adjustments," Adelman said. "We might get similar shots to the ones that we were getting, but maybe with not as much pressure. But we've got to go at people. We can't avoid contact in the basket area. We did that last night. We were trying to get the shot up and avoid contact. Now, you're taking a tougher shot. I'm hoping we can get the same shots, but under not as much distress. When you're at the rim, we have to do a better job than we did last night."

The Rockets could see those openings in Utah's defense on Sunday when they reviewed film from their opening loss.

Now, they've got to find a way to convert those shots to even the series.

"There are a lot of things we can do within our offense where we can cut off the ball and get easy baskets," McGrady said. "We showed that a couple of times. We just have to read those things. It was good we saw the tape because we saw those openings. Now, I think we’ve got a better visual of what we can do."