Much Like the Rockets, Results Are Getting Old

News flash: Rockets are old!

Having sold all their tickets, deposited the money and seen their season ended for them by a younger and patently better team, the Houston Rockets conceded Saturday that perhaps picturing themselves as contenders with two rookie guards and a front line that went 36, 36 and 33 years old was a tad optimistic.

“Well, guys,” said a weary Charles Barkley at the postgame news conference, “we got beat by a better team.”

“You really believe that?” a Houston media guy yelled.

“I really believe that,” Barkley said. “The Lakers just got a better team. I know around here, people like to make excuses and live in the past.”

The Rockets’ glorious past ended four years ago when they won the second of their back-to-back titles. Everything since has been pretense, ut that ebbed away Saturday, when their old gentlemen found themselves unable to come back from their big push in Game 3.

Barkley scored 20 points Saturday but took only seven shots after the first period, even with the offense going through him on the low post.

Scottie Pippen had another of those days, missing 17 of 23 shots, or in other words, $14 million just doesn’t buy what it used to.

Hakeem Olajuwon scored 19 points, but that just meant he was only outscored by Shaquille O’Neal by 18 in the game, and 65 (118-53) in the four-game series.

In perhaps the signature play of the season for the Rockets, Olajuwon drove through the lane late in the game, decided not to shoot, lest the Laker version of the Loch Ness Monster arise once again to devour his shot and passed off under the basket to . . .

Brent Price?

Yes, little Brent Price, who happened to be standing out of bounds, at that.

If it was time to say good night, and it was, at least Olajuwon did it graciously, praising O’Neal effusively and happily.

“Anyone who understands basketball--basketball is a game of advantage,” Olajuwon said. “Definitely when you’ve got the matchup of Shaq and myself, you can see the definite advantage of the size and the power, which is great trouble. . . .

“I can only contain him, make it difficult for him, but that’s all I can do.”

Even at 36, Olajuwon is generally considered one of the game’s top five centers, so this isn’t a concession he makes every day, or in fact, as he noted, ever before.

Of course, other Lakers did stuff, but after a week of running videotape of O’Neal backward and forward, and trying to devise new schemes to slow him down and keep Olajuwon out of foul trouble, and watching Shaq trample all their plans and players underfoot, the Rockets are in no doubt about who beat them. He’s 7 feet 1, weighs 330 pounds and has been appearing in their nightmares for a week.

“It sure feels like it,” Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “He made some shots. He’s a good passer too. He reads situations on the floor. If you send a certain guy down to double-team, he reads it.

“Hakeem made some great aggressive moves and Shaq made some great defensive plays. I hadn’t seen that often, especially when he blocked a jump hook so deep . . .

“It’s kind of a mirror image of the way we played during our championship years. You’ve got a force like that inside and [the opponent] can’t take it away . . . just try to knock down his efficiency.

“I like that philosophy. You have to have that philosophy when you have Hakeems and Shaqs. Good spacing. Work on the inside game. That’s hard to beat when it’s working.”

Here’s how old the Rockets are feeling: Barkley, who took a cut to $1 million this season to clear salary room for Pippen, in the sure knowledge the Rockets would pay him $14 million next season, isn’t sure he’ll come back to scoop it up.

“Old guys don’t get better,” Barkley said. “They get older. This ain’t golf. There’s no senior tour in basketball. If we can’t win a championship, I’m just stockpiling money. I’ve told you guys, I’ve got $30 million in the bank. If I spend all that, I deserve to be broke . . .

“Realistically, we’re going to be a year older next year.”

Well, it happens to everybody. It’ll happen to the Lakers too, but not in this century. Their future still lies ahead of them and the Rockets are just some nice, old codgers in their rear-view mirror.