NBA PLAYOFFS : Spurs’ Home Is Rockets’ Cassell : West: Guard helps Olajuwon with 30 points and Houston continues road trend with 111-90 victory and 3-2 edge.

Next. Operation Mints On The Pillow failed in a big way Tuesday night, after the San Antonio Spurs, trying to simulate the road experience that has been so successful the last nine days, checked into a hotel in their own town and then came close to checking out of the Western Conference finals.

In other words, they didn’t get a per diem and they didn’t get a victory.

What the Spurs got instead was the wrong side of five-star play by Hakeem Olajuwon (42 points), as usual, and Sam Cassell (30), for a change. That added up to a 111-90 victory for the Rockets before 35,888 at the Alamodome, giving Houston a 3-2 series lead and moving them within one victory of a second consecutive trip to the championship round.

The road team has won every game, the first time that has happened over five contests of a playoff series since New Jersey and Philadelphia played in the first round in 1984.

Moreover, the last two outings have produced routs.

Spur Coach Bob Hill, confounded as anyone over these events, turned psychologist and tried to make Game 5 seem like a road game. At least it seemed like a good idea.

“This morning,” Hill said of Tuesday’s shoot-around, “we were alive and alert and ready to go.”

Then they played the game.

The Spurs settled into a half-court game, a style that Houston preferred, and the Rockets bolted to a 30-14 lead. It was 32-18 after the first quarter and San Antonio had committed eight of its 22 turnovers.

The hosts--such as they were on this night--got back into the game by halftime. Late in the third quarter, with 2:34 remaining, they caught the Spurs at 71-71.

Enter Cassell. After scoring 25 points in the first four games, shooting a dreadful 28.6% in the process, he scored 16 as the Rockets went on a 25-8 run to turn the tie into a blowout at 96-79 with 7:13 remaining.

“He got into a flow,” Houston Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “When he gets into a flow, he’s a special player.”

Said Cassell of his emergence from hibernation: “Opportunities. I took what they gave me. It’s as simple as that. They gave me the layup, I took the layup. They gave me the outside shot, I took the outside shot.”

So dominating was Cassell for the stretch that he even took what they didn’t give him.

For production, it only became two of his points, along with 12 assists, in 37 minutes off the bench. But for impact, it was huge, if not crippling.

It came with the Rockets leading, 92-79, but San Antonio trying to mount a challenge after having scored on three of its previous four possessions. The Spurs could have cut into the lead even more after Olajuwon missed a short fall-away.

At least they could have were it not for Cassell. At 6-3 and sandwiched between his man, Doc Rivers, and the world’s best rebounder, Dennis Rodman, he controlled the offensive board, then got fouled by Rivers while going up.

Cassell made both free throws with 7:52 left. That was the last the Spurs saw of a game.

“It’s tough,” David Robinson said after getting 22 points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots in the losing effort. “It takes the steam out of you when you’re scrambling and trying to get something going and they make a play like that.”

If that play or that player didn’t do it, Olajuwon did.

The only question was whether it was the 42 points on 19-of-30 shooting, many with the usual Olajuwon off-balance flair. Or the eight assists, which compensated for the sub-par showing of only nine rebounds. Or the five blocked shots.

“I think in some regard,” Hill said, “his performance broke our spirit.

“Hakeem seemed like he made every shot. He had a phenomenal performance. His performance broke our spirit. It shouldn’t break our spirit at home.”

If that’s where they were. Tough to tell from the Dennis Rodman Saga, since that will follow the Spurs anywhere.

This time, he arrived 35 minutes late to practice on Monday and was benched in favor of J.R. Reid the next night. The Rockets made their own move by starting the small lineup that has been so productive, switching Clyde Drexler to small forward and inserting Mario Elie at shooting guard.

Rodman entered to the usual huge ovation with 4:49 to play in the first quarter. He went 34 minutes in all, getting 12 rebounds, but only two on offense, where he had been so effective in Game 4.

Hill also put him on Drexler in the second half, a major reason Drexler made only two of six shots for eight points after intermission.