The Rockets wanted a test. They had won all four games since limping home from the loss in Milwaukee, but other than the win against Dallas, they had beaten struggling teams.
The end of the homestand, however, seemed to offer a chance to measure themselves that the first four games could not. "The next two games are very important," Yao Ming said. "First of all is a home game against a good team. Portland is right ahead of us. The Cavaliers are a top team in this league. That will be a very good test for us. If we pass these two, then we talk about the home-court advantage (in the playoffs.)"
The Rockets passed the first team, and passed the Blazers in the standings. Next comes the home game against the Cavaliers, one of the teams along with the Rockets, Jazz and Lakers with league-best active five-game winning streaks.
They called the wins against Dallas and Portland "small steps." But they also believed that they are finally consistently going in the right direction.
"This win and the win against Dallas shows us that we're going in a good direction," Luis Scola said. "We still have to go this way. We're still making a lot of mistakes which is a good thing because we're winning games. We played good and we played hard."
ROCKETS 98, TRAIL BLAZERS 94: The Rockets led by 18 in the first half and by 15 in the fourth quarter and still could not quite put the Blazers away. It did not matter. In early November, they took a lead with eight-tenths of a second remaining and still could not beat the Blazers, with Brandon Roy hitting them with a catch-and-shoot game winner from 31 feet out. The Rockets never let it come to that again. They took a four-point lead with two minutes left and every time the Blazers scored the rest of the way, the Rockets answered to keep Portland at arm's length. Aaron Brooks hit a pair of free throws and Ron Artest hit four, with all six coming in the last minute.
