Rockets Get Painful Lesson in Playoff Savvy

So it looks as if it was just a learning experience for the Rockets, after all.

And here’s what they have learned, or should have: They’re not good enough yet.

Sheer Laker star power beat them in Sunday’s pivotal Game 4, when the Lakers’ third option, Karl Malone, the No. 2 leading scorer of all time, carried them on his back.

Then, after they rolled off Malone’s back and the Rockets led by four points in the last 1:30 of overtime, sheer experience carried the Lakers through, as Kobe Bryant, who was five for 19 from the floor at that point, took over the game.

The Lakers won, 92-88. The Rockets were the young guys making the mistakes at the end of the game and complaining about the referees afterward.

“We haven’t played enough playoff games to be given some of the driving calls, similar to a Kobe Bryant, similar to a Karl Malone,” Steve Francis said.

“So we have to play through that, and it’s tough to play through that. I mean, it’s hard, it’s real, real hard ...

“There was a lot of things that I thought were taken away from us late, but closing ‘em out was definitely hard. Regardless of who it is, it’s hard to close those boys out.”

Said Coach Jeff Van Gundy: “It’s about finishing games and we didn’t do that” today or in Game 1.

The upset that might have been is now longer than a mere longshot. That may be disappointing for the Rockets but is how it usually goes for young teams at this level, even ones with some determined veterans and a hard-bitten, no-quarter-asked coach.

It was actually a fast turnaround from their last playoff appearance in 1999, the season they brought in aging Scottie Pippen to play with aging Hakeem Olajuwon and aging Charles Barkley.

That was the season owner Les Alexander, a bond trader from Florida who won titles in his first two seasons after buying the team, introduced Pippen as “a guy who can bring us a championship, many championships.”

Pippen lasted just that season when they were eliminated in the first round by the Lakers, after which he blasted Barkley for not being in shape. Barkley blasted him back and Pippen was traded to Portland.

Only one Rocket remains from that team, Cuttino Mobley, then a talented if erratic rookie point guard, now a shooting guard alongside the talented if erratic Francis.

Suggesting five years may not have been enough time for maturity to catch up to Mobley, when the Rockets lost the first two games, he sneered at the suggestion that they looked as if they weren’t ready for prime time.

“Who cares?” Mobley said. “The public can’t play basketball. They can’t coach. And they’re not us. So they can say what they want to say. They need to concentrate on their families, because I know they have more problems.”

He later apologized, while complaining about being misrepresented by the press.

The Rockets came back to win Game 3, making nine of 15 three-point shots. They even came back Sunday after the Lakers went up by 14 points late in the third quarter.

But what can you say when you’re up by four points late in overtime, you have two shots to make it six and Mobley misses both, Malone makes a three-point play and Bryant tips Jim Jackson’s pass away and takes it in to score and put the Lakers ahead?

“Good defensive play,” Jackson said.

Then, Bryant got another three-point play on a drive, and Francis, going hard to the hoop, let the ball come up too high on the dribble and lost it.

Nevertheless, this may be a rivalry to watch, with Yao Ming to contest Shaquille O’Neal and Van Gundy to bother Phil Jackson.

The coaches exchanged greetings on the floor during the Malone-Bostjan Nachbar talks, although Jackson denied that he had said anything.

“He yelled down at me his opinion of where I was on the floor,” Van Gundy said, “and I gave my opinion back about his opinion.”

Of course, this was the stuff everyone was really interested in, although Van Gundy discouraged further inquiry.

“Hey, it’s no news at all,” he said. “We ain’t smoking the peace pipe any time soon. That’s all right, but it’s not about us. It’s about our teams. He coaches his team great, and I’m trying to help my team.

“What you should never misunderstand is, in the heat of competition, things happen. I have great respect for their team, for him and their coaching staff.”

What the Rockets should never misunderstand is you pay a high price for lessons at this level, and school is close to letting out.