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Tuesday December 30, 2008 1:08 AM

Wizards Stun Rockets 89-87


Antawn Jamison scores season-high 30 points in Washington win

Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff Writer

Houston - "We got what we deserved."

Those were Coach Rick Adelman's words immediately following Houston's disheartening 89-87 defeat at the hands of the woeful Washington Wizards (6-23) Monday night at Toyota Center.

There was simply no other way to describe the outcome of a game which saw the Rockets struggle and stumble their way around the court for the majority of the first three quarters before finally staging a desperate - and ultimately futile - comeback bid.

Making the loss doubly discouraging was the fact Houston (20-12) had already fallen victim to a similar fate several times this season. It resulted in a familiar scene within the club's somber postgame locker room where players attempted to find the right words to express their anger and frustration.

"We could name ten games that could come back and bite us," said Rafer Alston. "So we don’t even know where to begin with those games. You start with Portland, Indiana or tonight – it’s just mind boggling.

"It hurts to show up like that. It’s almost embarrassing to have people pay to come watch you play, and we come in here and do this type of stuff on the court. It was one of those games where they just had to show up. Because we didn’t."

Indeed, the Rockets anguished through a first half which saw them sabotage their own (attempted) success time and time again. Particularly gruesome was the second quarter. During that ill-fated frame, Houston turned the ball over a whopping 8 times (5 came courtesy of Ron Artest) while scoring a measly 14 points.

"We came out terrible," lamented Adelman. "It was the worst half of basketball I’ve seen us play since I’ve been here, on both ends of the court. It was inexcusable the way we played. We forced things, we didn’t play together, we didn’t defend."

The third quarter saw Houston finally get its offense in gear but, unfortunately, they weren't alone in that regard. Washington's Antawn Jamison (30 points, 12 rebounds) scored 15 of his club's 27 points in the frame, making sure the Wizards took a ten-point lead into the final 12 minutes.

Desperate for some sort of spark, Adelman looked to his second unit and they delivered. The fourth quarter began with an emphatic dunk from Carl Landry and that rim-rattling jam finally seemed to stir the Rockets from their slumber. In fact, it took fewer than three minutes for Houston to storm into the lead, as Brent Barry capped a 13-2 run with a three-pointer from the left wing, putting his team on top 75-74.

The game was a nip-and-tuck affair from that point forward as both clubs took turns assuming the lead. Washington inched ahead by one with 3:11 left to go on a pair of Jamison free throws, so Adelman decided to send his big guns back in, hoping they could rein in a win.

But instead of taking command in crunch time, Houston's usually dynamic duo of Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming merely continued to fall victim to the shooting woes which had plagued them all night. The pair produced only two points during the deciding stretch - and their inauspicious evening came to a seemingly appropriate close when Yao missed a ten-foot baseline turnaround that could have tied the game just before the final buzzer.

"“I thought it was a clean look," said a visibly distraught Yao. "I feel disappointed [in] myself. This is not the first time this year that we didn't win against a team that didn't have a good record, and we came into the game thinking it was an easy game and we played with little energy.

"Sometimes I want to say tomorrow is new and the next game is still coming. But until we start thinking ‘I need to change,’ tomorrow will just be the same like today. So I think my job is not to sit here and talk about our energy level being low, my job is going to be playing with a high energy level tomorrow."

QUOTES

RICK ADELMAN

Obviously a disappointing, tough loss. We just didn’t come ready to play and it cost us.

(on bringing the starters back at the 3:11 mark): You either make a decision that you’re going to sit them the whole game, or you put them back in. Those are the guys that win for you. The [second unit] did a great job and we felt we were right there, but whatever you do in that situation, if it doesn’t work out, people are going to ask questions about it. But, yeah, I’m going to go with the guys who start the game – those are the guys who are going to win the games for you.

I don’t even know what to say about this game. We talked about this team (Washington), I don’t care what their record is. They won their last game, they had Cleveland beat at Cleveland… so you can’t just come out here. I don’t know if we read our press clippings and think we just have to go out there and play to win; it doesn’t work that way.

(on the difficulty of playing with different lineups every night): I don’t think that should have anything to do with it. We knew everybody was going to play tonight and that didn’t help. I think you can run that into the ground. There are no excuses. We’ve got to go out there and play much better than we did tonight. And much harder.

TRACY MCGRADY

(On the 4th quarter play) “We're just not making shots. I think that the case tonight, we just thought that we could turn it out in the 4th quarter and win this ball game against a team that doesn't really show that they are a good team. It really backfired on us.”

(On the play of the bench) “I thought Ron came in and gave us some great energy. I thought that Brent and Carl, when those guys came in, did a good job of making the game and taking the lead because our starters really didn't get it done for whatever reason. The energy wasn't there. We weren't making shots. We weren't just a smart basketball team. Defensively, all principles went out the window.”

RAFER ALSTON

(On the Rockets bad start) “We turned the ball over and we allowed them to get confidence in their game and they got into a flow and a tempo that favors them.”

(On the Rockets getting back into the game) “We played some defense but they took some bad shots. They were doing nearly the things they were doing that got them the lead. We played a little bit of defense in the fourth but in the other three quarters, I don't even know if we had uniforms on.”

YAO MING

We passed the ball out of bounds for no reason. In the fourth quarter we made a run but I think that we should play better than what we did tonight for many reasons. We need to play better. I need to play better.”

(on coming back in with three minutes left): I’m always ready.

RON ARTEST

(On the Rockets first half play) “I don't think we came out with lack of energy or lack of focus. I think that we just played bad. I played really bad tonight and that was my fault. You have to take the good with the bad. Some days you are on fire and you are on top of the world and some days you are not.”

(On whether tonight was a letdown game) “I don't necessarily think that it was a letdown game. I just think it was one of those things where the circumstances that we were under in terms of guys were injured and coming back in the lineup, it kind of throws off the rotation a little bit in terms of how everybody is going to play with each other. We've got to get over the hump of new lineups and new rotations and everybody has to be ready for that, including myself. We had a chance to put them away but I gave the game away.”

SHANE BATTIER

(On the 1st half of the game) “We played the 1st quarter even, although we didn't play well. It was probably one of our poorest quarters along with the second quarter. We have to give Washington credit tonight. They played with energy and they did the things they needed to win and make this a basketball game that we didn't.”

(on watching the bench guys get the team back in the game): We didn’t deserve to be out there. We played bad basketball. Those guys came in and changed the complexion of the game and got us back, so that was the least of my concerns.

(on contemplating taking a three before throwing the ball into Yao for the final shot): I thought about it, but after sitting for half an hour that probably wouldn’t have been the best move. I’ll take Yao Ming ten feet from the hoop any day of the week.

WIZARDS COACH ED TAPSCOTT

(on the game) “Boy, oh boy! What a game! We had to keep it simple, nothing fancy and run our offense. Holding our own on the boards was critical. This lets our team know we can compete against the good teams in the league. This was a confidence boost for us. You have to know what thoroughbred to ride and Antawan (Jamison) is a thoroughbred and we rode him down the stretch.”

(on the Rockets and the final possession) “ Houston played much better in the second half and we knew they would. I told our team at the time out (at the end of the game), don’t give up the three and play good strong defense in the post. We played them straight-up and did not give up the three. We’d live with good honest defense against Yao and it worked out.”

ANTAWN JAMISON

(on his injury ) “I got a knee to a sore spot but I’m used to it.”

(on his team’s play) “We showed resilience and competed the entire game. We don’t let any team out-work us and we competed at a high level tonight. We stood our ground as Houston made a comeback and our bigs did a good job inside. This was a great win for us.”

MIKE JAMES

(on the game) “This was a good opportunity for our team and myself. We came out and played hard for 48 minutes. Houston made their run late but we were resilient and we’ve been lacking that this season.”

(on returning to Houston) “The hard part for me was when I was here I was getting a lot of DNP’s. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I wanted to show that I can still play this game.”

ANDRAY BLATCHE

(on the game) “It was all about effort.. We played as a team and we never gave up. Good things happened to us.”

(on defending Yao on the final play and the game) “I was prepared and I contested his shot and held my ground. I wasn’t going to let him go through me. During the game I wanted to mix it up and show him a lot of different looks and it worked for me.”

NOTES

Tonight’s attendance of 18,278 marks the ninth sellout of the season at Toyota Center .

The Rockets had their home winning streak snapped at seven games (11/29/08-12/27/08) with an 89-87 loss to the Wizards, marking Washington ’s first-ever win at Toyota Center.

Tonight’s loss also ended Houston’s overall winning streak over Washington at seven games (1/3/06-11/21/08), which stands as the longest such streak for the Rockets in the history of this series (prev. long: 4 consecutive from 3/21/94-12/8/95)..

The Rockets had just one turnover in the second half after giving the ball away 11 times over the opening two quarters.

Houston failed to place a player in double-figure scoring in the first half of a game for just the fourth time this season. The most recent occurrence came at Denver (11/30/08).

The Rockets set season lows for second-quarter scoring (14) and points in a first half (36), surpassing the previous lows of 17 second-quarter points vs. Memphis (10/29/08) and 42 first-half points vs. Oklahoma City (11/1/08). This was a reversal of last season’s meeting at Toyota Center where the Rockets held the Wizards to an opponent franchise-low 23 points (.213, 10-47 FG) in the opening half vs. Washington (2/26/08).

Ron Artest recorded another 20 points (3-7 3FG) off the bench tonight after scoring a game-high 28 points vs. Utah (12/27/08). It marked the first time Artest has posted consecutive 20-point games this season.

Tracy McGrady returned to the lineup tonight with 15 points, seven assists and six rebounds. It was the sixth time this season McGrady has dished out at least seven assists in a game (Rockets record: 4-2).

Luis Scola had 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting tonight, marking his fifth straight game of double-figure scoring. Scola, who also reached 10 or more points over a five-game stretch (11/1/08-11/9/08) earlier this season, scored in double digits in six consecutive games (2/24/08-3/6/08) last season to set the longest such streak of his career.

Antawn Jamison recorded a season-high 30 points to go along with his game-high 12 rebounds tonight. Jamison actually scored 15 of his points (6-9 FG) in the third quarter, equaling Houston ’s opponent best for points in a quarter this season.

Mike James made his return to Houston with 12 points on 6-of-15 shooting in a start for Washington .

Caron Butler (sprained left ankle) did not play in tonight’s game. He will continue to be listed as day-to-day for the Wizards.

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