Rockets-Wizards: Houston's Pretenders Sleepwalk Against Rancid Washington

How many times must I write this article before the Houston Rockets take its message to heart? I may not have the sweetest baseline jumper in Texas, but I know what wins championships. What the Rockets did tonight--letting the 5-23 Washington Wizards whoop their asses back to the Kemah Boardwalk in a pathetic performance--is not it.

If one game summarizes why no one trusts this team to win a playoff series or a championship, this 89-87 loss is as good as any. And by good, I mean caustic, awful and dreadful.

There is little point in writing a verbose two-page piece filled with numbers. You can throw them all out the window. This is about heart, and getting romped by a team that should have lost 40 points.

The Rockets shot 33 percent at home and trailed 45-36 to the lowly Wizards at the half. The Rockets could have won or lost this game by 20. Nothing the team did in the second half would rectify what it did in the first.

In the second quarter, the team racked up more turnovers, 8, than field goals.

Championship teams do not lay these kinds of eggs, especially with all hands on deck.

The Rockets can hang miserable early-season losses to the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies on the absence of key players. Tracy McGrady missed seven games in row, Ron Artest sat out a few to rest his sore ankle and the revolving door of role players had Rick Adelman scratching his head and his game plans.

On what do they hang this embarrassment? In that first half, the Rockets scored two points in the paint to the Wizards 22. Two of the Wizards three All-Stars sat in street clothes, and yet the hapless Wizards were happy to look like the Boston Celtics.

This game says nothing about progress for the Wizards. Every NBA team has some talent and anyone can win on a given night. This is about how far the Rockets are from bringing another Larry O' Brien trophy to Houston.

The Rockets looked like they did not care. They slept through screens instead of fighting through them and allowed lay-up after lay-up. Shane Battier looked like a reeling player with a bad shoulder and foot. Tracy McGrady impressed no one with his crap shooting, and Ron Artest could not find a bucket if someone filled one with water and dumped it on him.

His inspired fourth quarter, in which he tallied 11 of his 20 points, afforded the Rockets a chance to steal the game they did not deserve to win. Yao Ming's last second turnaround, a high percentage shot, clanged and flew out of bounds.

Yao posted up defenseless Darius Songaila, Andray Blatche, Dominic McGuire and Etan Thomas and came up with bricks against all of them. Rafer Alston was Rafer Alston.

This was a night when Luis Scola, Aaron Brooks, Carl Landry and Brent Barry needed to energize the offense. Until making a fourth quarter run that closed the gap, they looked like bored comedians posing as basketball players. Does any other team in the title hunt play this poorly against god-awful teams?

A one-point loss to the Pacers at home, a double digit one to the Clippers, a 12-point mess against the Grizzlies and a similarly awful performance, still a win, against these same Wizards.

If the Rockets woke up and flicked even their index fingers, they'd have wiped the pesky Wizards off their windshield. Will they ever wake up and stay awake?

How long before the inconsistency and poor effort sinks them? If the Western Conference playoff picture is decided by a few games, these are the ones in which the Rockets will regret playing like squirrels.

These contests should never come down to game-winners. If the Rockets had handled this putrid team instead of playing to its level, many of the starters who gave away the game in the final minutes would have been sitting on the bench laughing.

Instead, they found themselves in a dogfight with a clawless team. Adelman has yet to enjoy a consistently healthy lineup. McGrady is not the same McGrady who won scoring titles and dazzled fans with his athleticism. Tonight, he heaved up jumpshots and played a blah game instead of one with bravado or bravery.

Even with a limp and reduced abilities, McGrady can still use his length to defend, and he can certainly make plays for his teammates. None of the passes he threw Monday night were crisp and the looks he created were poor and easy to defend.

Artest and Battier were repeatedly burned on defense by simple screens. Jamison gained confidence in the second and third quarters and drilled jumper after jumper. His 30-point night seemed like a 60-point one.

Yao allowed simple head fakes to lure him out of defensive position. His horrid interior defense was as responsible for the loss as any other repeated egregious error. All he had to do was step in front of Blatche and Nick Young and stick his arms straight up. If he did stick his arms up, it was to surrender an easy basket.

The Rockets necessary dominance in these mismatch games should begin with defense. A team that struggles to score 90 points, and that is playing without two of its three viable scorers, should be defended accordingly. Even with Caron Butler in uniform, this loss would have been inexcusable.

This game ended the minute the Wizards believed they had a chance to win. Sound familiar, Rockets fans? Danny Granger's game-winning tip-in for the Indiana Pacers comes to mind. A 77-75 loss to the Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker-less Spurs should ring a bell.

Championship teams do not stink like this. They have off shooting nights and lose a few squeakers. The Boston Celtics recent loss in Golden State and the Cleveland Cavaliers Christmas night struggle with the Wizards are examples.

The Celtics returned Sunday to trounce the Kings 108-63 and the Cavaliers roared back to edge the playoff-worthy Miami Heat to remain undefeated at home. Each Eastern Conference contender also boasts less than six losses.

The Rockets have been offered every opportunity to join that stratosphere, but woeful nights like this make such talk frivolous.

This is why the Rockets are not worthy of discussion amongst the NBA's elite. Wizards 89, Rockets 87. The 6-23 Wizards will get spanked by 20 in their next contest. Call it a safe prediction.

The Rockets are not championship material. Not when they play like this. They played with fire for 48 minutes and combusted in the end. If they are going to play such a lackadasical game against a team begging to be put out of misery, why get out of bed?

The Rockets sleepwalked somewhere in space tonight, and if they looked closely, they should have seen the championship trophy they ache to hold slipping away.