They would prefer that he gets more touches, and Rockets coach Rick Adelman said there were times that Yao was open moving across the lane without getting the ball.

The attention paid to keeping the ball from Yao, however, opened shots around him. Luis Scola and Carl Landry combined for 29 points, hitting 13 of 22 shots between them, most with their defender instead helping on Yao.

"I don't think it matters who takes shots," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "Everybody gets caught up in that. We were up 11 at halftime and it didn't matter who took shots. They were playing a certain way and we were being effective. So I'm tired of that being brought up. The object is to win the game and that's what we did."

Scola led the Rockets with 19 points. He made 5 of 10 shots in Game 2, but though that was a good percentage, most of the shots were wide open. He got more (15 in 33 minutes) and made more (hitting nine, including a 17-footer with 1:03 left), and seemed to indicate that the Rockets can win without Yao leading them.

"We play as a team," Scola said. "So because of that, we can afford for Ron and Yao to have a bad night and we still win. And that's a good thing to have."

ROCKETS 86, TRAIL BLAZERS 83: The Rockets almost all night, and by as much as 17. But the Rockets have often been shaky with leads, even leads that large, and no team has been better at erasing them than the Trail Blazers. There was little surprise that the Trail Blazers came back, closing to within three in the final seconds. But even while the Trail Blazers stubbornly stuck in the game until the final seconds by hitting three 3-pointers in the final seconds, Luis Scola sank a jumper with 1:03 remaining, Shane Battier put in two free throws, and Aaron Brooks hit 4 of 6, grabbing the rebound of a miss with 2.7 seconds remaining to keep the ball away from the Trail Blazers before they could take one more shot to stay in the game. With Ron Artest and Yao Ming limited to 16 points between them, Scola led the Rockets with 19, with Battier adding 16. Most of all, the Rockets kept Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge in check, holding them to a combined 32 points on 12 of 33 shooting.