--With the Bucks hitting 52.8 percent of their shots, it was the fifth game in eight in which opponents have hit better than 45 percent of their shots against the Rockets.
"We can sit here and pretty much talk about what we talked about a couple days ago after the game -- defense," Tracy McGrady said. "We don't know how to play. We don't execute defensively. We're just right now a team that doesn't know how to play defense. The first quarter, second quarter, third quarter -- they got whatever they wanted. You're not going to win that way." --G Aaron Brooks came back from his battle with the flu to lead the Rockets in scoring with 23 points. Brooks had scored 22 and 18 points in consecutive games before he was out against Memphis and limited to nine minutes against Minnesota because of an upset stomach.
He said he felt fine Monday but had lost 10 pounds, reducing him to just 158 pounds.
"When I get to running up and down, I can feel it," the 6-foot Brooks said. "I was struggling, then had two good games, then I was out. That's the way it happens sometimes."
QUOTE TO NOTE: "We don't try to play 'D.' That's just the bottom line. It's coming to the point, we're not even trying. Then we have the audacity on offense to race the ball up the court. The mind-boggling thing is how do you race around on offense and walk around on defense? To me, that's not even trying. It's embarrassing." -- G Rafer Alston.
