Artest has come a long way in the almost 4 1/2 years since the infamous brawl in Detroit that earned him the longest suspension for a fight in NBA history.

In his first year with the Houston Rockets, the former poster boy for everything that was wrong with the NBA has cleaned up his act and image and helped his team to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 12 seasons.

"Well, uh, I've been in the stands before," Artest joked after scoring 27 points to lead give Houston a first-round series win over Portland on Sunday.

That brought delighted guffaws from Yao Ming, who noted: "But this time it was home court."

It was in that moment that Artest had come full circle. Once the league's pariah, the 29-year-old has become a fan favorite. Once thought of as poison on a roster, he's been heralded as a wonderful teammate since arriving in Houston.

"I wanted to soak it in," Artest said. "I had to sit down. Actually a guy offered me some beer. When he did that I was like, 'You know what, I'm going to sit down and enjoy this. He's not throwing it at me."'

Much has changed for Artest since he and several Indiana teammates fought with fans near the end of a game against Detroit in 2004. He served a 73-game suspension, then alienated teammates by requesting a trade from the Pacers. He was traded to Sacramento and spent 2 1/2 mostly unremarkable seasons there before another trade brought him to the Rockets this offseason.

He's been key to the success of a team that was all but written off when Tracy McGrady had season-ending knee surgery in February.

"I think his competitive fire has lifted our guys up," Shane Battier said. "There's no question that Ron wants to win and he'll tell you so. If you don't like it you better match his level or you better get out of the gym. I don't think there's a better competitor in the league than Ron."

So what brought on this metamorphosis?

"This definitely is the most relaxed I've been because I'm more mature now," he said.

Artest said in the early years of his career he couldn't deal with losing, recounting tales of tearing up locker rooms and throwing things after defeats.

"It was hard for me to deal with, I guess, adversity," he said. "But now I'm able to deal with everything. Even throughout the game it was hard for me to deal with the ups and downs. When we're up, then (in the) second quarter we're down, my emotion (would go) from high to low back when I was younger."

It was a cycle that would lead to unreasonable and out-of-control anger toward his teammates and coaches. He worked through it in a trial-and-error fashion. Now he hopes to show younger teammates a better way to handle the pressure cooker of the NBA, even as he still struggles with it.

"(There were) a lot of years of mistakes," he said. "A lot of years of immaturity. A lot of years of stress - just on-the-court stress. And I've been through so much and now I'm to a point where I can deal with more."

The next test for one of Houston's toughest defenders is dealing with the Lakers and star Kobe Bryant when the second-round series opens Monday night. Though Artest is a kinder, gentler version of himself these days, that doesn't mean he's above using trash-talk or other annoying tactics in dealing with Bryant.

Artest's jabbering seemed to fuel Bryant instead of distracting him in an L.A. win in March where he scored 37 points. So he'll probably try something different this time.

"I think that first game I'll just be having fun," Artest said. "There's different forms of fun, but I don't think I'm going to have that type of fun. It depends how the game is going, what's happening, but my team is way too important to get too personal."

He insists he and Rockets aren't singularly focused on Bryant, instead worrying playing well overall.

"If you thought about Kobe every day of your life, you wouldn't be able to focus on what you have to do as a team," Artest said.

In between thinking about Bryant and ways to help the Rockets, Artest hasn't had a lot of time to reminisce on his checkered past. In those rare moments when he does think about the winding road that brought him to Houston it is not an exercise in regret, anger or what-ifs.

"I'm having a joyful time," he said. "I have nothing to be upset about. Everything that happened in my life is the reason why I'm here in Houston today."