http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/2517963
Kobe scores 36 as Lakers go 2 up on Rockets
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
LOS ANGELES -- The Rockets' hearts were beating faster, filled with hope and
faith. Though they might have seen the trap coming, maybe they fell for a few
batted eyes. But it was a tease they could not resist.
They were dancing with the Lakers again, seduced by playoff possibilities.
They were following the pattern of so many games with the league's marquee
team, and this time the Rockets had Shaquille O'Neal in foul trouble and
every reason to believe they could take another game to its final deep
breaths.
The Lakers seemed to notice, too, and shifted into a level the Rockets had not
seen, leaving the Rockets brokenhearted and down 2-0 in the first-round
Western Conference playoff series after a 98-84 Lakers win Monday night. It
was, in the end, just a setup.
"If a girl gives you a wink, does that mean she likes you?" Cuttino Mobley
had asked the day before. "No, not at all. She's probably just friendly."
She was a heartbreaker.
"We stuck with them for a while," Mobley said. "Toward the end of the third
quarter, I thought we cracked as a team, and they capitalized."
When the Rockets were most certain this could be the one, Kobe Bryant soared
by on his way to 36 points and a 22-point second half. Karl Malone followed
his seven-point game on Saturday with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting.
Bryant made 16 of 17 free throws, routinely getting to the lane to draw fouls.
"I thought it was Kobe's birthday because of how generous they (the officials)
were to him out there," Rockets guard Steve Francis said. "That's what
opened the game up. We were aggressive out there, but we didn't keep the
same aggression the whole game."
The Rockets got a triple double -- their first in the postseason since Hakeem
Olajuwon's in 1990 -- from Steve Francis, who totaled 18 points, 12 assists
and 10 rebounds. Yao Ming added 21 points but did not score in the second
half until the Lakers' lead had reached 16.
The Lakers were not at their best until things seemed their worst. The
Rockets' margin was all of one point. But O'Neal had picked up his fourth
foul less than three minutes into the second half, and with O'Neal forced to
play carefully, Kelvin Cato chin-upped a dunk to give the Rockets the lead.
With that, however, the Lakers radically turned up the defense that so often
seems possible only to betray them. In the nearly six minutes that followed
Cato's dunk, the Rockets made just one of 10 shots, with the Lakers even
switching to a zone to dare the Rockets to beat them from the outside.
Along the way, Bryant had the most breathtaking moment of the series' first
two games, driving into Francis and Cato and hanging in the air as Francis'
hand on the ball spun Bryant around before Bryant flung in a shot over his
head and in. His three-point play regained the lead for the Lakers at 56-54.
Mobley answered with a drive to a slam. But by then, Bryant was back to
unstoppable.
Even a slip with 1:28 left in the quarter, when he fell into a split in front
of Jeff Van Gundy and Jack Nicholson did not stop him or the Lakers.
The Rockets last real chance came minutes later, when Francis took off down
the lane and went right at O'Neal. Looking for O'Neal's fifth foul, or at
least a pair of free throws. But O'Neal made only a touch of contact as
Francis flew by as his left-handed flip rolled out. Bryant immediately
knocked down a 3 to take the lead to 71-62, to that point the largest in the
series' first two games.
"If you think O'Neal's fouling out, you haven't been watching the NBA very
long," Van Gundy said. "He's not fouling out. One, he's a smart player. And
two, he's not fouling out. Yao may foul out, but O'Neal is not fouling out."
O'Neal played just 33 minutes, making three of nine shots for his seven
points. But the Lakers were able to keep him on the floor for 19 minutes in
the second half to shut down Yao.
"I don't know how Shaquille got behind the eight ball, but he did," Lakers
coach Phil Jackson said. "I played him three of four minutes (in the third
quarter) with four fouls. We just didn't have another alternative to Yao Ming
tonight. (Yao was a presence in the first half) when he had 14 points. We
couldn't let him be that much of a presence in the second half."
Francis got his next drive to go, but with Bryant racing the clock, Mobley
tried to take a foul to force the Lakers to inbounds again. Instead, he
fouled Bryant while shooting a 3-pointer with just two seconds left in the
third quarter. He made all three attempts as a matter of course, giving him a
17-point quarter and the Lakers a 10-point lead.
The Lakers took off from there. In the first four minutes of the fourth
quarter, Kareem Rush hit a pair of 3-pointers, Derek Fisher drove to a
three-point play and Bryant swooped in for a layup. That had taken the lead
to 16 with eight minutes still to play. The Rockets were never closer than 14
again.
But for half the night and until the second half, they were playing the
Lakers evenly.
Ten seconds before halftime, Lakers coach Phil Jackson admonished officials
Bennie Adams and Jo DeRosa by growling, "There's two teams in this game."
Who knew?
Having had their Game 1 fun, the Rockets were invited to become the Lakers'
roadkill, and the Lakers seemed to go at them from the start as if they could
win the game, maybe the series, with a few Bryant reverses and the return of
Karl Malone's jump shot.
The Lakers went for a first-round -- and if possible, first-punch -- knockout.
O'Neal blocked consecutive Yao attempts in the first possession of the game.
Malone slipped back in time, well past Saturday's 3-of-14 clanging exhibition,
to make the Lakers' first shot of the night and roll up a 10-point first half.
Bryant, after making four of 19 shots in Game 1 culminating with his most
effective airball of his career, immediately attacked. He had nine points in
the first 4:20 of the game with out taking an outside shot. He drew the first
two of Kelvin Cato's three first-quarter fouls, and seemed capable of getting
to the lane whenever the mood struck him.
The Rockets were no more subtle about their plans. They sent Yao directly at
O'Neal, and in 3 1/2 minutes he had already taken five shots, making just
one. But O'Neal fouled Yao on a move inside 4 1/2 minutes into the game, and
then fouled Yao again when Yao cut to the rim, taking a bullet from Francis
to a three-point play that sent O'Neal tot he bench with 5:55 still left in
the first quarter.
With O'Neal out, the Rockets closed the quarter within a point, then followed
the same formula in the second quarter with even better results.
Down by eight midway, Francis had his only field goal of the half to pull the
Rockets to within six with 4:48 left until halftime before O'Neal tried to
chase down a Bryant miss and instead turned himself into a dump truck rolling
downhill. He plowed into Mobley, driving both into the front row four seats
to Rockets owner Leslie Alexander's left.
O'Neal went out for the last 4:31 of the half with his third foul, and the
Rockets made another move. Yao took a pass from Francis to a fast break slam.
He hit a turnaround jumper. Jim Jackson sank a fast-break 3 and ended the
half with a jumper that put the Rockets ahead 46-44.
"When they put pressure on us, we can't break," Rockets forward Jim Jackson
said. "We broke, plain and simple. When they put pressure on us, we broke."
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Rockets summary
Let's get physical
The Rockets were more amused than offended at Lakers coach Phil Jackson's
notion that the Rockets and game officials had set a physical,
"mid-wrestling" tone for the Western Conference series.
Scott Padgett spent four seasons lined up opposite Karl Malone at Jazz
practices and said he still wears the scars.
"That's just something to talk about between games," Padgett said. "Are we a
physical team? This time of year, everybody needs to be if you want to win.
Karl is a hard worker. He doesn't practice all the time, but when he does
practice, he goes at you like it's a game.
"He was more physical offensively than any player other than Shaq (O'Neal).
He punished guys when he went to the hole. That has kind of slowed down.
He's not used here the way he was used in Utah. But he's still a strong dude.
He's still very, very physical."
Overall, however, the Rockets said Game 1 was not especially physical.
"I wouldn't have called it a physical game," Rockets forward Maurice Taylor
said. "I didn't think it was that physical at all. I got sent out in two
minutes of the first half for two touch fouls.
"They probably have the most physical four and five in the league. Just
having Shaq on your team will increase your physicality. I don't know how
they can talk about physical play. He's the most physical person in the
league."
Mobley not biting
Before the series and again after Game 1, Lakers coach Phil Jackson praised
the defensive efforts of Cuttino Mobley against Kobe Bryant.
"This has been tit for tat in this matchup with Mobley and Kobe," Jackson said.
Mobley, however, said Jackson tried to set a trap with his comments in an
effort to get him to talk about his play against Bryant and have Bryant catch
him boasting.
"He's so smart that," Mobley said. "For me to respond to that in so many
words, like `Oh yeah,' ... no.
"It's a way to set me up, like (luring him into saying) `I am a good
defender.' I'm not even going to get psyched up for that. That's not the
Cuttino Mobley I know. He's not going to butter me up. I'm definitely not
into that. Kobe watches tapes, just like I watched today. We're students of
the game. You really think he's going to shoot bad two in nights in a row?
"He gets his shot. Shaq (O'Neal) gets his shot. When you get your attempts up,
that's what it is, besides being the best all-around guard in the NBA."
Last resort
Rockets guard Steve Francis took it upon himself to intentionally foul
Shaquille O'Neal with 1:30 left in Game 1 and the Rockets holding a 71-69
lead. However, Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said he reserves "hack-a-Shaq" as
a defensive option but not as a strategy he favors.
"We're not fouling like that," Van Gundy said. "We may in some situations like
that, in a tie game. Not 94 feet from the basket, no. Maybe if it's late, and
you're down that pay can be a good play. That's one of those things we were
fortunate to withstand."
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