GAME 2 Lakers 111 Rockets 98

GAME 3 Lakers 108 - L.A. LEADS 2-1 - Rockets 94

GAME 4 Sunday

at Toyota Center

2:30 p.m.

TV/radio: ABC; 610 AM, 850 AM (Spanish)

GAME 5

Tuesday

at Los Angeles

9:30 p.m.

TV/radio: TNT; 610 AM, 850 AM (Spanish)

GAME 6 *

Thursday

at Toyota Center

TBD

TV/radio: ESPN; 610 AM, 850 AM (Spanish)

GAME 7 *

May 17

at Los Angeles

TBD

TV/radio: TBD; 610 AM, 850 AM (Spanish)

* - if necessary

The Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant stood at midcourt and froze. With every camera lens and every eye on him, he struck a pose and stood there, soaking in the moment and embracing every bit of derision aimed at him.

Bryant had made just two of his previous 12 shots when he nailed a long 3-pointer to end the third quarter, inspiring his mid-court performance art and offering a look at just the sort of play the Rockets could not match.

Bryant and the Lakers could not leave the Rockets behind as they had in Game 2, but they could hit the Rockets with bursts of scoring the Rockets could not match, sending them to a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference semifinals with a 108-94 win Friday night at Toyota Center.

"We threw up a clunker," Rockets forward Shane Battier said. "We just couldn't find ways to score in the third period. They were in control most of the game."

More troubling perhaps than even falling behind in the series, or wasting a night in which the Lakers made just 43.9 percent of their shots with Bryant hitting just 11 of 28, Yao Ming turned his left foot in the second quarter and finished the game limping.

Yao, who had 19 points and 14 rebounds, did not leave the game until the final minute, but was favoring the left foot that had kept him out of a practice before the series began.

"I remember it hurting in the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter, one for each quarter," Yao said. "There's different twists, one for each time."

Though the condition is not considered serious (he is undergoing a precautionary CT scan today), Yao's health is far from the Rockets' only concern.

With 43.6 seconds left and the Rockets clinging to a long-shot chance, trailing by eight, guard Ron Artest flattened the Lakers' Pau Gasol on a fast break, earning a flagrant-2 foul.

Artest awaits ruling

Artest was ejected with 25 points on 10-of-23 shooting, and will await a ruling from the NBA if his flagrant-2 deserves the one-game suspension Lakers guard Derek Fisher received after a flagrant-2 in Game 2.

"They told me that he hit (Gasol) in the head which I guess that's why they felt he had to be ejected," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "We'll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. It was a bang-bang play and sometimes in this league if you hit a guy in the wrong spot it can be a flagrant foul. Pau was going in pretty hard and it was just one of those things."

Even if Yao recovers and Artest's penalty is restricted to only the foul called on the court, the Rockets will also have to rehabilitate their offense in the quick turnaround before Sunday's day game.

They had rallied through the second quarter and were within two at halftime, defending well enough to make it the sort of tough, low-scoring game they wanted.

A quarter collapse

But in the third quarter, the offense collapsed in an avalanche of missed jumpers outside and dunks inside.

The Rockets made just 24 percent of their shots in the quarter, with Artest missing all four of the 3s he launched, Yao getting two attempts at dunks stuffed by Bryant, and no one shooting better than Artest's 2-of-8.

Still, the Rockets were within nine when the Lakers inbounded with 3.5 seconds left in the quarter. That was all the time Bryant needed to make a quick move to his right and drill a 3-pointer from 33 feet as the buzzer sounded, the fourth time he has beaten the clock to end a quarter in the past two games.

The Lakers pushed their lead to 13, but the Rockets had one run in them.

Von Wafer was blasted by Sasha Vujacic while shooting a 3-pointer. Wafer made all three of his free throws, and the Rockets began chipping away, until with 4:16 left, Yao drove to a slam and the Rockets were within six.

That's when the Rockets' offense betrayed them again. Artest missed shots at the rim and from a step inside the arc. After a Jordan Farmar jumper, Yao missed on the baseline before Bryant nailed a 3-pointer with the shot clock ringing, giving the Lakers a 95-84 lead with 2:21 left.

That was all the scoring the Lakers would need, with the Rockets never putting together the kind of offense that could catch them.

"We just didn't play well enough offensively to win this game," Adelman said. "We turned it over in the first half. They had 14 points off 11 turnovers.

Lakers feed on mistakes

"You can't do that against this team. We talked about from the very beginning that if you do that they get the open court, get easy baskets and they're a good offensive team anyways. If you do that you're feeding into them.

"Start of the third quarter I thought we got good opportunities but we didn't finish plays. And then we got impatient then and could never get it going."

Before long, they ran out of time, with little time before Game 4 to turn things around.

jonathan.feigen@chron