On both, the Rockets ran Aaron Brooks past a Yao screen, bringing Brooks' and Yao's men with him. Brooks passed to Yao who quickly sent passes inside before the Spurs defense could rotate to Scola.

"Both times, the team went with Yao and I was wide open," Scola said. "When I saw the team going with him, I knew I had to go to the basket because it is a pass or offensive rebound. I wasn't expecting Yao to throw it. Fortunately, he passed it, I made it, we won."

On the first, Yao saw Scola all the way. On the second, he did not see Scola pop open until just before he took his own shot.

"I saw him at the last second," Yao said. "I was going to shoot. The ball was above my head when I found him."

--F Chuck Hayes has picked up much of the playing time left open when Carl Landry went out for one-to-three weeks after his gunshot wound last week.

He will not be expected to replace Landry's scoring, though he did made 2-of-3 shots against the Spurs on Sunday, his increased playing time comes with the Rockets playing the sort of high-scoring frontcourt players -- Tim Duncan and either Mehmet Okur or Carlos Boozer -- that Hayes would likely have been used to defend, anyway.

"He'd be playing against a lot of people who are high-scoring fours," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "The only thing that it does affect is the fact that both he and Deke (Mutombo) are not offensive players so I have to juggle that as far as having those two on the court together. That's not the best thing for us offensively. We just have to judge it and juggle it and see if we can't get a rotation where either Luis (Scola) or Yao (Ming) is on the floor, or you have Ron at the four spot."

QUOTE TO NOTE: "We know the standings change hourly, so it doesn't really mean much right now." -- Shane Battier, on the ephemeral nature of Houston's lead over San Antonio.