ROCKETS ELIMINATE BLAZERS WITH GAME SIX ROUT

The Houston Rockets defeated the Portland Trailblazers 92-76 on their home court Thursday night to win their opening round NBA playoff series in six games.  More importantly, the series win ended a run of postseason futility dating back to 1997—the last time that Houston made it out of the first round of the playoffs.  To put this streak into perspective, Yao Ming advances in the playoffs for the first time in his NBA career since he was drafted by the Rockets in 2002. 

For Portland, the die was cast when they blew home court advantage with a game one blowout loss.  The Blazers have now lost eight straight games in Houston, and will have to wait until next year at least to end their own run of postseason futility.  The loss to Houston represented the 5^th straight series loss for a franchise used to deep postseason runs.  The good news for the Blazers and their fans is that they’re the youngest team in the NBA—and will be back in the playoffs for many years to come.  After the game, Brandon Roy summed up the experience:

"This is a great experience for us. All our guys are happy that we had a great season, but they have a bad taste in their mouth because you felt like we could have played better this series."

Ron Artest led the Rockets with 27 points, while Yao Ming added 17 points and 10 rebounds for a ‘double/double’.  Aaron Brooks was the only other Houston player to score in double figures with 13 points.  In his postgame comments, Yao shared his joy at finally making it past the first round of the postseason:

"It's a big step for me. Even when the clock was running down, I'm still not believing that it's coming true. Obviously now that we know that feeling, we've got to keep moving forward."

The fiery Artest expanded on the theme of ‘moving forward’ in the playoffs:

"The fans were just so happy to get out of the first round and I'm like 'I'm just not happy to just be out of the first round. That's just not our goal here. That's not LA's goal, that's not Boston's goal, that is not Cleveland's goal. That is not our goal."

The Blazers were led by LaMarcus Aldridge with 26 points and Brandon Roy with 22, but were done in by a complete lack of support from their teammates.  With the exception of Travis Outlaw’s 9 points off the bench no other Portland player scored more than 5 points.  To put it another way, both Aldridge and Roy individually almost outscored the other 9 players on the Portland roster as they *combined* scored a total of 28 points. 

Houston now goes from the ‘frying pan into the fire’, as they head to Los Angeles to face the Lakers in the second round series beginning on Monday night at the Staples Center.  Statistically, things don’t look good for the Rockets as they lost all four games to the Lakers this season by an average margin of 13 points per game.