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Monday November 10, 2008 2:20 AM

Lakers Rout Rockets, 111-82


Rockets fall short in early season showdown

Jason Friedman
Rockets.com Staff Writer

Los Angeles - The Houston Rockets scripted a near-perfect intro Sunday night. Then the Lakers turned the rest of the evening into a true Hollywood horror.

After falling behind by 16 points early in the second quarter, the undefeated Lakers (5-0) dominated Houston (4-3) the rest of the way, cruising to a 111-82 victory. Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 23 points, while Pau Gasol was a monster inside, scoring 20 points to go along with 15 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.

After the game, Rockets’ coach Rick Adelman lamented his team’s inability to find any sort of consistent chemistry or cohesiveness.

“It is just the way we are playing right now,” he said. “You have to work a little harder when teams are shutting you down. You have to work a little harder. You can’t do it on your own. You have to play as a team. We have a lot of work to do. I don’t know what else to say. They exposed a lot of things. You play some games and you see a thing and talk about it. You get beat like this and it exposes a lot of things and hopefully it’s going to wake us up a little bit.”

Making the night even more frustrating was the fact that the Rockets failed to follow through on an exceptional beginning which saw them sprint out to a double-digit lead thanks to a combination of quick hands and Laker sloppiness. Rafer Alston and Luis Scola spurred a 12-0 run as both players were at their pilfering best in the early going. Houston finished the first quarter with a whopping six steals (three courtesy of Scola) and held a 28-16 lead when the buzzer sounded.

But Los Angeles flipped the script in the second quarter with eight steals of their own as the Rockets responded by taking their turn being careless with the basketball. The end result: Before the game even reached halftime, L.A. had already climbed completely out of its hole and surged ahead of the Rockets – never to look back again. The Lakers were simply too tough on the boards, out-rebounding Houston 50-36, and the Rockets’ offense was simply too inept, scoring a measly 34 points in the second half.

Alston said the solution is relatively simple: Hard work and more energy.

“We’re not moving,” he said. “We’re just passing the ball to one guy and going one-on-one. We’re not cutting and we’re not playing with any energy on offense. We have to will ourselves. You have to understand: a hard cut may not make you the open guy, but it will get someone else open so you have to keep doing it. You’ve got to set harder screens and start doing work. And right now we’re not doing our work – we’re thinking things are going to come easy.”

Meanwhile, Yao Ming was even more direct in his assessment, saying, “I think it was the worst game we have ever had.”

It certainly marked the worst two-game stretch of Tracy McGrady’s career. The ailing superstar scored just 3 points on 1-of-11 shooting, making him 1-for-16 with just 5 total points during the Rockets' Los Angeles double dip.

“It is rough," said McGrady. "These were probably the worst two games of my career. Of course we are going to have some games like that, but unfortunately I had two in a row. It is a long season and I am not worried about it.”

Quotes:

Yao Ming on how the Lakers played tonight:

“They played well, but that was not the reason that we did not play well.”

Ron Artest on losing the lead they had in the first quarter:

“We were playing a little better because we found ourselves early. We just have to get a consistent game, and it is coming.”

(on his focus in tonight’s game)

“Tonight I was just playing the game. We played a team game. I was not really focused on him (Kobe Bryant). I really focused on playing a team defensive game.”

(on the way he played against the Lakers)

“Obviously we lose so nobody is happy. But I feel very very good and I feel very confident with the team.”

Tracy McGrady on how the game went tonight:

“It was awful. It was awful. I think they did a great job making it tough for me. Every time I posted up I had a couple of extra guys coming over. It was a tough game offensively.”

Aaron Brooks on how the Lakers look this season:

“They’re real good; the starters and the bench, it shows that they are a really good team. They are playing with tons of energy. Right now they are getting it done.”

Rick Adelman on his team’s effort:

“You have to play as a team and we did not play as a team. I’m sure you give them credit because they have been really good all year. We are better than that but we have to find answers.” 

on the Rockets having size issues when Yao goes off the court:

“We run into it all the time. We’re very undersized after Yao goes out. They have two guys that really hurt us and Odom is very active as a player. It is a good team we played but it is kind of disappointing the way they ran all over us in the 4th Quarter.”  

on whether the Lakers, at this point, are as good as they seem to be:

“Five games into it I guess they are. I mean they’ve won every game by 20 plus points. They are playing very well right now.” 

on what hurt the Rockets the most:

“Defensively they hurt us around the basket all night long. On the boards, obviously there was a problem. They got position on us inside. But I think offensively was probably the biggest problem we had.” 

on Tracy McGrady’s effort:

“Well, he was sick for the Clippers game and tonight I don’t think he was feeling all that good. He’s trying to come back, you know. He’s trying to come back. I thought he favored his knee tonight that was bothering him. We’ve got to keep working through it. He’s got to keep working through it.”

Lakers Andrew Bynum on Lakers Performance:

“We where able to hang in there and play some good defense in the second, third and, fourth quarter. Defense was definitely the reason we won the game no question about that. We started shooting quicker and we got a lot of rebounds in the second quarter we pushed the ball a lot and everyone contributed.

Lakers Jordan Farmar Lakers performance:

“We haven’t played for a few days so that was expected that we would play a little rusty. We were getting a good looks just not knocking down shots, and our defense was a step slow but we all put our head together and focused in on our defensive game.”

Lakers Jordan Farmar on Lakers coming back to take the lead

“ No lead is safe in this league I mean players are so talented that 20 points can be overcome in a matter of minutes. So its just matter of keep playing they got a early meet and a whole lot of basketball to play. It’s just a matter of us playing basketball and sitting down on the defensive end and locking it in getting it done. .”

Lakers Jordan Farmar on upcoming games

“ Its going to be like that all season long we are going to get presented with some kind of challenge hopefully we meet every time but there is always going to be another one after that every night there is a teammate that has the potential to beat you we have to continue to be professional and be ready to play and every night .”

Lakers Trevor Ariza on defense in the game

“There was definitely a need for energy at first we were sluggish and slow and by the second quarter .”

Lakers Pau Gasol on Lakers performance

“I was being very sharp, we as a team weren’t being very sharp it was a good wake-up call”

Lakers Pau Gasol on his performance

“I’m trying to be aggressive on the boards being the power forward gives me a better chance to get the rebounds a little farther out so there’s a better chance of positioning out there instead of having a big center in which you have to put a body on all the time and you have to sacrifice your rebounds. I’m just trying to do my job and be aggressive.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on tonight’s performance:

“Well after a suspicious beginning, I think we played well the last three quarters. A lot of things happened for us, foul trouble from guys like Ron Artest created situations for us to have an advantage. I think we played a much better game in the second half.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on their second half improvement:

“We had much more rhythm and spacing in the second half. We created more opportunities in the second half; we moved the ball better. We also had a good effort off the bench. Some of the offense was generated by steals and turnover which got us back into the ball game.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on the teams’ defensive effort:

“I thought Kobe played good solid defense as he got taken off Artest early in the second half but he kept Artest nullified. But both Vlade and Trevor individually played McGrady quite well by contesting his shots. But our defensive help was good also by not giving them opportunities to settle for shots.”

Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson on Lamar Odom’s role:

“I think he’s finding his way on picking his spots a little bit on how to contribute offensively. He has played a couple different roles running with the bench and the first unit so he is really finding his way a little bit but I thought he looked more comfortable out there tonight.”

Got a question for Rockets.com? Send it to Jason Friedman.