Houston's Rockets Falling Down: Toyota Center Skid Hits Three Games

Watching Rick Adelman’s Houston Rockets on Wednesday night, it appeared as though the team’s two-game home court losing streak would soon be coming to an end after the good guys took a 31-16 lead after one quarter.

Unfortunately for Houston, their offensive outburst soon faded as the Denver Nuggets pulled a 360 in the second quarter with the Rockets holding on to just a slim lead at halftime, 51-50.

“The guys played hard, we just had a drought again in the second quarter where we couldn’t make a shot,” Adelman told Rockets.com staff writer Jason Friedman. “It was back and forth from there and they got the run in the fourth quarter. We just have to stay with it.”

The second half was all Denver (even without Carmelo Anthony), and although a 9-2 Houston run to end the third quarter kept the Rockets in front 74-72, the Nuggets spurted to life in the fourth and final quarter of play.

“The flow of the game just stopped because we put them on the line so much,” Shane Battier told Friedman following Houston’s third straight loss. “I don’t know how many free throws they shot in the second quarter, a lot, but we were really aggressive in attacking in the first quarter but we just couldn't get anything going early in the clock because they were shooting free throws.”

Outscoring Houston 25-18 in the fourth and sparked by a 16-1 Denver run with 5:40 left in the game (at that time, the Rockets were shooting a measly 16-percent from the field in draining just two shots out of 11 attempts), the Nuggets cruised to a 97-92 victory on Wednesday evening at Toyota Center.

“Tonight we didn’t play very well,” Battier said. “We couldn’t keep them off the free throw line. They shot 40 free throws and they shot 44 percent [from the field]. That really slowed us down after we played really well in the first quarter. We’ve got to turn it around, come back to work tomorrow and figure it out and get better.”

Get better is exactly right, especially in a powerful Western Conference that quickly leaves the slackers in the cellar.

But Houston’s Luis Scola believes there were some positives to take from Wednesday’s loss to Denver.

“I believe there were good things in this game,” Scola said. “There are things that we can feel good about ourselves about but we’re still having our problems and we need to fix them. We know we’re not going to win a lot of games regardless of whether we play here or who we play. If we don’t fix what is making us be so up and down the whole season we’re not going to win.”

The Rockets don’t have a whole lot of time to figure things out, as Houston returns to the hardwood tomorrow night at home against Portland before hosting Phoenix on Sunday evening to close out the week.

“We talked about this all year long about having people to go to,” Adelman said. “Carl [Landry] is struggling a little bit, Aaron [Brooks] played the fourth quarter but that’s about it, so we have to find people to step up when the game’s on the line. Tonight they did a better job in the fourth quarter than we did.”

Hopefully come Friday night in the Lone Star State, Adelman’s Rockets can begin winning fourth quarters and can regain that momentum that sparked such a remarkable rally to start the NBA season.

Houston has plenty of time to turn things around and salvage their season, but they need to begin picking up wins immediately—especially at home.

Denton Ramsey may be reached via email at [e-mail]