Houston Rockets' Finish Hurts So Good

"Hurt so good, come on baby make it hurt so good, sometimes love don't feel like it should, you make it hurt so good."—John Mellencamp

This one stings.

Kobe Bryant bricked eight of 12 shots. The Los Angeles Lakers managed 89 points, nearly 30 below their highest scoring affair of these playoffs.

The Rockets fought hard as they had all series. They dove for loose balls and played gritty, stingy half-court defense.

The Lakers still whipped them, 89-70. A season's worth of troubles snakebit them in their most important game.

Yao Ming and Dikembe Mutombo sat out with serious leg injuries. Mutombo's ended his Hall of Fame-caliber career. Yao's left him blank and queasy.

With no seven-footers, the Rockets started 6'6" center Chuck Hayes. Size mattered.

Pau Gasol dominated the glass and the paint with 21 points and 18 rebounds. With his Herculean effort, at least for a Sunday afternoon, he cast aside a résumé brimming with epic, big-game failures.

Andrew Bynum played with a pulse and a clue, sending back two layups in the opening minutes and notching 14 points.

The Rockets could not rebound. The Lakers outboarded them by 22, 55-33.

The Rockets could not run anything that looked like an NBA offense. They connected on a paltry 37 percent of their shots and turned the ball over 16 times.

If the half-court defense proved spectacular, the turnovers and second shots yielded to the Lakers nullified it.

When the Rockets needed to muster an answer, they Hail Mary-ed the ball to the offensively inept Hayes at the end of the shot clock.

Ron Artest was dreadful, missing seven of 10 shots. Has he played a worse game in his career?

His supposed strength advantage in the low block was all for naught.

The prospect of venturing down there seemed to frighten him. His season-long habit of camping behind the arc like a lost Boy Scout reared its ugly head again.

Still, there is much for which to congratulate these Rockets. They validated a season that should qualify as one of the most tumultuous in NBA history.

Shane Battier missed all of November after foot surgery. Tracy McGrady missed 60 games and ended his campaign and maybe his career with microfracture surgery.

In many early season contests, the Rockets' melting pot of talent clashed instead of gelled.

A sprained ankle hampered Artest for several months. Pain pills and Pepcid replaced his usual pep.

They dealt away veteran guard Rafer Alston.

Carl Landry was shot in the leg mere blocks away from his home. Those criminals remain at large.

That he was dunking and dancing in this series instead of lying in a grave is a miracle.

Heck, this Rockets season is a miracle. There will be ample time to celebrate and cherish it.

But not in this article.

Not now.

The Houston Rockets must now return next season as the Lakers did for this one. Championship or bust. Win a title or go home shouldering a mountain of disappointment.

Only one of 29 teams gets to taste and toast that pinnacle each year. The Rockets proved with a 53-win season that extended farther than anyone thought it could that they can be that one franchise.

After 12 years of playoff futility and frustration, either missing the postseason or flailing in the first round, winning one series is no longer an acceptable finish.

They must grow like a beanstalk after this thorough defeat and find Larry, not Jack, on the other end. Larry O'Brien that is.

Too many seasons post-Hakeem Olajuwon have ended with unwelcome visits from Jack the Ripper.

The Rockets knocked him off with a vengeance—beating the feisty Portland Trail Blazers and taking the favored Lakers to the limit—and thank the basketball gods for that.

Now, they head into an offseason battling opposite emotions.

Artest and the Rockets want to extend their relationship, but how many years does he want, and will he accept lesser money than he believes he is due?

Aaron Brooks and Kyle Lowry did more with their inexperience than Rafer Alston ever could. Still, can these young guns be trusted to improve enough to be dead-eye shots on a champion?

In games four and six, Brooks played with the brilliance of Isiah Thomas and Tony Parker, with 34 points and 26 points, respectively.

In games five and seven, the deciding contests, he played with the stink of a landfill.

He's not ready yet. If they want to keep Yao Ming and Battier and Artest, all near-30-year-old veterans who cannot play for eternity, how long can they wait for their project speedster to develop?

Then there's the foundation. What will they do with Yao?

His contract expires in 2010, and they need to start thinking about whether their stated commitment to resign him is foolhardy.

How much longer can general manager Daryl Morey and owner Leslie Alexander bank the franchise's hopes and dreams on a charismatic, lovable guy with glass feet?

So far, Yao has taken them to the hospital more than the promised land.

Heart and selflessness matter, two qualities that define Yao, but so does durability.

When Yao's season ended again, his fourth major injury in four years, everyone prepared for a hasty funeral.

The Rockets awoke from the proverbial dead and gifted the city of Houston two wire-to-wire victories over a team with far superior talent. For two nights, the Toyota Center erupted as it had during the "Clutch City" years.

They clawed and competed as no one thought they could, and for that, they deserve an entire city's applause. Maybe next year, the fans will salute this run by not half-filling the Toyota Center's lower bowl at tip-off.

"Get Red" no more. It's championship or bust.

They came so far in so many ways but wanted so much more when it was over.

This one hurt so good.