"This is the other result of the lockout and the too-compressed, sometimes ridiculous schedule it left us.

There will be games like Tuesday's, when the Rockets played on wobbly legs and moved as if pushing a medicine ball through mud.

We had expected that, coming on the Rockets' fourth game in five days, sixth in eight days and ninth in 13 days. NBA basketball is not like baseball where you get to stand around in the outfield and chew sunflower seeds. Basketball was not made for that, or for schedules like this"