Rockets Bruised, Battered by Jazz

Matt Maloney of the Houston Rockets was the Houston Rockets in the fourth quarter. A stream of blood down his right shin. A small trail, about two inches, just below the left knee. Blood visible at the edge of his nostrils, the result of an inadvertent elbow from John Stockton.

Beat up, and beaten. Such is life as a Rocket, or whatever remains of one in these Western Conference finals now controlled by the Utah Jazz, 104-92 winners Wednesday night before 19,911 at the Delta Center.

Stockton had 26 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds as the Jazz took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series that moves to the Summit for games on Friday and Sunday.

The Jazz either has history on its side or the odds stacked against. Only 12 teams have come back from a 0-2 deficit--but it was the Rockets who had done it twice in the three previous playoffs runs, in 1994 and ’95 against the Phoenix Suns in the conference semifinals.

There is, of course, the difference. The Jazz is not the Suns, a team that even questioned their heart in situations with such gravity.

The Jazz is in control without the benefit of a dominating offensive showing from league MVP Karl Malone, who had 24 points and 15 rebounds in Game 2, but made only nine of 21 shots and is 15 of 37 in the series.

The Jazz is 28-2 in the last 10 weeks, losing only to the Lakers.

And the Jazz is 40-5 at home, counting the playoffs. To lose this series, it might take two consecutive Delta Center defeats.

“I don’t get concerned,” said Rocket Charles Barkley, who had 12 rebounds but again struggled offensively against Malone, making five of 12 shots and finishing with 16 points. “If we lose, I go on vacation.”

That simple.

Actually, maybe this simple:

“I won’t be concerned unless we lose one of the next two games,” Barkley said. “Then I’ll be concerned.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with starting now. The Jazz, of course, is conceding even less, aware that the momentum could swing in two days.

The Jazz is also angry. Some of the players, at least, upset at comments the day before by Rocket center Hakeem Olajuwon, to the Houston Chronicle and carried in the Salt Lake Tribune, that “they’re a dirty team. They want to appear like they’re good guys. They want the world to call them good guys. But they are not. They are bad guys, the way they play the game.”

For originality, this hardly rates as a stunning pronouncement, several such claims having been labeled against the likes of Stockton before.

But for motivation, because it is the middle of a conference final, maybe it’s worth something.

“Some of their guys talk a lot of [stuff] about us being dirty,” said Bryon Russell, Utah’s starting small forward. “Kevin Willis is the main one. Cheap shots is all he ever does now. That is ridiculous. I was ready to come to blows with him.

“They’re the dirty ones. Kevin Willis, he must want somebody to fight him.”

Russell and all the Jazz players resisted the temptation, going with the hard-fought, physical approach instead of the fight. So Barkley got flattened by a Russell pick just as a Utah fastbreak began to develop. Maloney was bloodied, so bad that it had to be impossible for the officials not to notice, but he was not removed to get the cuts cleaned up as mandated by the rules.

The Jazz didn’t escape, either. Stockton, a cutter along the baseline, got drilled by an elbow from Barkley, resulting in a flagrant foul.

“Obviously, the referees are not going to do their jobs with the moving screens,” Barkley said. “I was trying to separate his shoulder or break a rib.”

The assembled media corps chuckled.

“I was series,” Barkley shot back, straight-faced.

Then it was another failure to execute by the Rockets. They shot 34.1% in the first half, but trailed by only six points because they also committed only two turnovers, then 36% in the third quarter. That’s when the Jazz pulled away for good, using a 15-2 run over the final 3:28, with five different players accounting for points and Houston managing only two free throws.

It was good for an 83-68 cushion. The lead reached 19 points early in the fourth quarter, before the Rockets cut it to nine with 2:35 remaining. It was then the comeback stalled. The trick now is to make sure the season doesn’t do the same.