"Of all the losses to begin the Rockets' season, this one was the most impressive, most remarkable and in its own way, the most excruciating.

Aaron Brooks had been carried to the locker room at halftime, his left ankle painfully sprained.

Kevin Martin had limped to the locker room with a turned left ankle. Yao Ming was on the bench in street clothes, sitting out the first half of the back-to-back.

With the Rockets winless and wounded, the Spurs went for the knockout and hit hard, pushing the lead to as much as 14, when the Rockets who were left made their unlikely bid for the season's first win.

The Rockets gave chase until the final seconds, when their hopes for the breakthrough finally bounced away as Shane Battier, Courtney Lee and Luis Scola missed 3-pointers and the Spurs emerged with a 124-121 overtime win Saturday night at AT&T Center.

"I really felt, for the first time, we laid it out on the line," Battier said. "We invested our full spirit into the game. We fell back when things were tough and had a chance to beat a contender on the road. Didn't make enough plays. If we play like that every night, we'll be fine the rest of the way."

Stunning as the comeback was — begun with Scola's foul trouble taking him from the game along with Brooks, Martin and Yao — the Rockets left lamenting the plays they let slip away. "