[新聞] Rockets stun Lakers 100-92 to take 1-0 series lead
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
LOS ANGELES ─ For a few agonizing, heart-stopping moments, Yao Ming rocked
back and forth on the floor, grimacing and holding his right knee.
The Rockets had taken the usual Lakers fourth-quarter hit and hit back harder
. But then Yao was knocked hard to the floor, felled when Kobe Bryant’s
left knee crashed into Yao’s right. And all that the Rockets had built seemed
to be crashing with him.
But Yao insisted he be brought back into the game and the Rockets were every
bit as unstoppable, surging through the final six minutes that had tormented
them this season to stun the Lakers with a 100-92 win Monday night at Staples
Center in the opener of the Western Conference semifinals.
The Rockets led by eight when Yao went down, with Pau Gasol dunking over
him to cut the lead to six. Lamar Odom put in a rebound to reduce the lead
to four with 3? minutes left.
Then Yao nailed a jumper from 20 feet and he and the Rockets seemed healed
. Ron Artest put in a jumper to finish with 21 points. Yao nailed four free
throws.
The Rockets took their lead to 11 with 1:32 remaining on a pair of Shane
Battier free throws. Still, as usual, the Rockets struggled to put the game
away, with the Lakers within six with 33.4 seconds remaining.
With that, Yao added two more free throws to finish with 28 points, his post
-season high, and the Lakers had run out of time.
Bryant, who had missed Saturday’s practice and was called a game-time decision
with a sore throat, led the Lakers with 32 points, but needed 31 shots to
get it. Yet, as well as the Rockets had defended to stay in the game, they
had to win it down the stretch.
With eight minutes left, the Rockets lead that had reached nine was gone,
the Lakers led by one, and the Rockets were facing the demons left from
their four regular season meetings.
The Lakers had led those four games by an average of one point, and outscored
the Rockets by an average of 12 in those fourth quarters, sweeping the four
regular-season games between the teams and making the key to the Rockets
’ chances in their series clear.
The Lakers had outscored the Rockets, 8-2, which was not much of a run, but
was more than enough to remind of all those dominant fourth quarters.
But the Rockets responded. Artest hit a tough jumper through a Sasha Vujacic
foul. Yao put in a 19-footer. Aaron Brooks sank a jumper and finished a
drive, and the Rockets led 85-77 with 5:19 remaining.
On the next possession, however, Yao crumbled to the floor and the Rockets
held their breath, wondering if their chances had broken down, too.
Instead, when he rose, so did they.
But from the start, the Rockets had made it their sort of game.
Though they led by as much as eight and by 43-40 at halftime, the Rockets
were far from sharp offensively through the first half. Yao got his shots
, but made just four of nine.
Artest got off to a strong start, but then spent the half as if trying to
run out the clock. Luis Scola never got going.
None of that really mattered. The Rockets would be thrilled to take every
game and “muck it up” as Shane Battier put it, the way they did the first
half of the series.
If the Rockets had a complaint with the first half it would have been that
they did not get more out of it.
Even when the Rockets started the second half well, scoring on their first
three possessions to take a 49-40 lead, they broke down in the same way
they had with leads in the first half, dribbling their way through the shot
clock and committing turnovers that led to a 7-0 Lakers run back to within
one.
This time, however, after they got a time out, the Rockets began consistently
and quickly attacking the Lakers’ defense. With the exception of a possession
in which Trevor Ariza blocked a Scola shot and Brooks had to launch a 3
from the backcourt, the Rockets scored on nine consecutive possessions.
They did not leave the Lakers far behind, largely because Bryant began to
heat up, scoring 13 points in the quarter.
jonathan.feigen@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/discuss.mpl/sports/6407960.html
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