"We feel comfortable with Chuck on anybody," F Shane Battier said. "Three-fourths of the world is covered by water. The rest is covered by Chuck Hayes."

--After the Suns closed out the win by executing the way the Rockets could not down the stretch, the Rockets considered the loss part of the process of radically changing their style and the players that key their offense.

"It's an execution game," Shane Battier said. "We couldn't get stops when we needed them in the fourth quarter, and couldn't find a bucket there when we needed one.

"This is a youth loss. We're still in the emerging stages, trying to find out what's good for us, especially down the stretch. That's something we're going to have to go through. Look at this game, learn from our mistakes in the fourth quarter and grow."

QUOTE TO NOTE: "We need to close the games a little better. They hit a few shots at the end that were closer. They went to the line a lot of times. We couldn't execute on offense in the last minutes. We were right there. We played good. They close a little bit better." -- F Luis Scola on the Suns after the Rockets lost to Phoenix.