The NBA fined Avery Johnson $10,000 for failing to leave the court in a timely manner following Saturday's game. Johnson was yelling at ref Joey Crawford after the game ended. Game 2: Houston at Dallas (April 25) Houston scored the first 4 points of the game. Dallas was able to tie the game 3 times, but never took the lead, but Houston's lead got no larger than 5 points. Houston led 34-30 after 1. Dallas' big men suffered from foul trouble throughout the 1st quarter as Erick Dampier collected 2 fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game, his replacement Keith Van Horn collected 3 fouls in the next 2:15, and his replacement Shawn Bradley collected 2 fouls in the next 3 minutes. Yao Ming took full advantage of Dallas' foul problems and had 17 points on 5-5 FG and 7-7 FT in the quarter. Houston shot 13-13 FT and Dallas shot 6-7 FT in the quarter. After the teams traded buckets to open the 2nd quarter, Jon Barry hit a 3-pointer, Dirk Nowitzki hit a jumper, Barry drained a 3-pointer, Nowitzki converted a 3-point play, and Barry nailed another 3-pointer to give Houston a 46-37 lead with 9 minutes to go. But Houston's lead would get no larger as Jerry Stackhouse answered with a 3-pointer and Houston held a small lead over the next 5 minutes. Dallas managed to tie the game at 51-51 with 4 minutes left, and tied it 2 more times, but could not take the lead. David Wesley missed a jumper in the final seconds of the quarter, but Scott Padgett was able to get inside and tap in the miss. Houston led 60-56 at the half. Josh Howard and Nowitzki had 11 points each in the 2nd quarter. For the half, Dallas shot 48% (20-42) FG and 12-17 FT. Houston shot 50% (19-38) FG and 18-19 FT. The teams continued to shot well and the game stayed tight in the 3rd quarter. A 3-pointer by Jason Terry and dunk by Dampier off a feed from Terry opened the quarter and gave Dallas their first lead at 61-60 with 10:30 remaining. Houston did score the next 4 points to retake the lead. Dallas led 74-73 with 4:15 to go and went on an 8-2 run to go up 82-75 with 1:55 left, but their lead would get no larger. Mike James hit 2 free throws in the last second of the quarter. Dallas led 88-84 after 3. McGrady opened the scoring in the 4th quarter with a jumper. Stackhouse hit a 3-pointer and Devin Harris hit a 3-pointer to give Dallas their largest lead at 94-86 with 10:30 remaining. Dallas led 96-88 with 9:15 left and Houston scored the next 7 points, capped by a 3-pointer by Barry, to pull within 95-96 with 7:50 to go. Nowitzki then hit 2 jumpers and then fed Dampier for a dunk to give Dallas a 102-95 lead with 5:40 left. But after a timeout, McGrady came down and hit a clutch shot, Dampier hit 1-2 FT, Barry got a layup, and Howard committed a dumb turnover that resulted in a layup by James on the break to pull Houston within 101-103 with 4:25 remaining. Nowitzki hit 2 free throws and Bob Sura nailed a 3-pointer to make it a 1-point game with 3:50 to go. Terry missed on 2 attempts and Yao go a layup on the other end to put Houston up. Nowitzki answered with a jump hook inside, but Sura drained another 3-pointer to give Houston a 109-107 lead with 2:15 left. Terry hit a jumper and McGrady missed a jumper. Dallas got the ball to Nowitzki in the corner and he was doubled so he passed out to an open Van Horn, who refused to shoot and passed it back to Nowitzki, who was still being double-teamed. Nowitzki again passed it back to an open Van Horn and he again refused to shoot and turned the ball over as he went to pass it back to Nowitzki. Houston called timeout with 1:15 left and Van Horn got yelled at by his teammates for not taking the open shots. After the timeout, the defense collapsed on McGrady and he found an open Yao under the basket for the slam dunk to put Houston up 111-109 with 1:05 remaining. Terry missed a jumper with 51 seconds left and McGrady missed a jumper with 28 seconds left and Dallas called timeout. The Mavs got the ball into Nowitzki and he juked around trying to shed McGrady and then stepped back and nailed the fall away free throw jumper to tie the game with 10 seconds to go. Houston inbounded the ball without a timeout and McGrady brought it up, Yao set a pick to lose McGrady's defender, and the help defender Van Horn didn't get up on McGrady and McGrady rose and drained the long jumper over the out-stretched fingers of Van Horn with 2.2 seconds remaining. Dallas used their final timeout. Houston defended well on the inbounds and the Mavs couldn't get the ball into Nowitzki, so they went with the 2nd option and got it into Michael Finley and he took a couple of dribbles in, pumped faked, and then shot the fade away free throw jumper which bounced off the back of the rim. Houston won 113-111. If I wasn't so emotionally involved, I'd look back and say that this was a great, entertaining game. But I am emotionally involved and I keep thinking about Van Horn passing up those good looks and Nowitzki's poor play and why Damp wasn't in the game in the last minute and why the heck they kept leaving hot shooters open behind the arc and various other Mavs errors. It was a tight game throughout with the largest lead being just 8 points. Houston shot 11-16 FG including 3-4 3-pointers and Dallas shot 8-17 FG including 2-4 3-pointers in the 4th quarter and it just came down to which team made the last shot. And the teams were hot throughout as Houston shot 54.8% (40-73) FG including 9-18 3-pointers and Dallas shot 50% (41-82) FG including 10-15 3-pointers for the game. Free throws were again a problem for Dallas as they missed 7 in a 2-point loss. Dallas shot 19-26 FT and Houston shot 24-27 FT. Dallas did out-rebound Houston 41-29 including 14-6 offensive, but Houston was simply hitting their shots. Houston now is in command with a 2-0 lead and the next 2 games in Houston. Houston had 2 studs in this game. Not the high-man, but he has to be mentioned first as Tracy McGrady hit the key shot and had the all-around game. Again he had some shots that made you go "Wow". And there was no question as to who was going to take that final shot [which is why it was so annoying that Van Horn dropped down on him instead of getting up on him]. He had a near triple-double with 28 points, 8 rebounds, and 10 assists. He also had 3 steals and 3 blocks in playing all but the last 1:30 of the 2nd quarter. What more could you want? Yao Ming overcame his lackluster game 1 with a stellar game 2. He had a game high 33 points on an almost perfect 13-14 FG and 7-7 FT. He also had 8 rebounds in 36 minutes. Bob Sura and Jon Barry heralded the 3-point barrage with each making 4 3-pointers. Sura had 14 points including 4-5 3-pointers [the only shots he attempted] and Barry had 16 points including 4-6 3-pointers. Mike James chipped in 10 points. David Wesley was one of the few to struggle in shooting just 1-10 FG, but he did have 6 assists. Josh Howard was again the best player for Dallas. He had 17 points and 8 rebounds including 4 offensive. 3 times he had the ball with Yao trying to guard him and he blew by him for layups on all 3 [and then I got frustrated as Dallas didn't go back to it the next couple of times down]. And Dirk Nowitzki again struggled for Dallas. He did finally find his shooting touch and had 10 points in the 4th quarter, but it was not a solid game for him. He had 26 points on 8-21 FG and 10-12 FT. But he had just 2 rebounds, all in the 1st half. I don't know what has happened to his rebounding effort - he was not aggressive in going after rebounds in the last 2 games and it's not like he has to rush back on defense as Houston plays more of a half court game. Dallas needs a much better performances out of Nowitzki if they are going to climb out of this huge hole they're in. Erick Dampier did play well (when he wasn't sitting with foul trouble). He had 14 points including 6-7 FG and 9 rebounds including 5 offensive in 25 minutes. Jason Terry had 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists. Michael Finley's offense remained slight, but his rebounding remained good. He had 10 points on 4-9 FG, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Keith Van Horn actually played well until his blunders in the last 1:30 of the game. He had 13 points including 5-6 FG in 11 minutes. Jerry Stackhouse had 8 points, no rebounds, and 2 assists in 19 minutes. It was a poor officiating job that left both sides with plenty to complain about. Quotes [Van Gundy's, Johnson's, Yao's, McGrady's, and Nowitzki's quotes were transcribed by me] Jeff Van Gundy: "Yao obviously was tremendous - I thought everybody on both sides was tremendous. It was a great game and we feel very fortunate to have won. I'm very proud of our team. But Yao obviously had an unbelievable night. He just had a great performance. So I'm very proud of him." Van Gundy on Sura in the 4th: "They had done a great job - a great adjustment by Avery Johnson - sort of discounting Ryan, you know, like a lot of teams have when he's been on the floor - trapping off of him, doubling off of him. And we just felt at that time we needed a little more offense on the floor. And Tracy did a great job trusting his teammates and Bob obviously did a great job knicking it down. Like I said, I thought it was a tremendous game. I thought both teams played great basketball." Van Gundy on being 2-0: "Well, it's better than 1-1 or 0-2. We know we have a lot of work ahead of us. We know they've been a great road team all the way through. We also know why Clutch City became the moniker of the Rockets - started out 0-2 and then came back and won. So we all know the history, but that's not really important. What's important is that we stay humble, learn from this game, and know that your approach and your attitude towards the next game is always the most important thing and it's the only thing you can control. So our intensity has to stay high. Our awareness has to stay high." Van Gundy on Yao's play: "It was part that he was on the floor. Part good plays by others to get him the ball in position. And a whole lot of Yao being really good, catching it in the paint, and finishing plays." Van Gundy on McGrady's game winner: "We didn't want it to come down to that, but we had talked at the timeout that we were going to go without a timeout - I didn't tell the other guys because I didn't want them to think that they were going to score. But Nowitzki made a tremendous shot. And then we just felt we had a better chance scoring in the flow of the game. Tracy's made a number of those shots. I thought Finley got off a good look. Certainly we were just fortunate the ball bounced out." Van Gundy on Dallas not running a 2nd guy at McGrady: "Oh, they did. He went away from the 2nd guy. It wasn't anything they didn't do right. He just made a - sometimes you have to sit there and just appreciate a guy who makes a great play and he made a great play." Van Gundy on the bench: "Obviously, I thought Mike [James] had a couple of big steals. I think one cut it to either 4 or 2, I'm not really sure which one, but it was a big play. And then he had another one that they ended up knocking out. Barry made some timely shots after he started I think 0-3. So it goes down to guys like Padgett came in there for just a couple of minutes and did some good things. We need everybody. Certainly, we have the greatest respect for their team and their personal and their coaches and we feel fortunate enough to have won and getting on to getting ready for game 3." Van Gundy: "I think you have to give credit to Nowitzki. I thought he did a great job passing the ball out of the double-team. We had to alter what we were doing because he was hurting us so much with the pass. It wasn't necessarily assists, but maybe the pass that led to the pass or to free throws. So I give Nowitzki a lot of credit for the game he played. Ryan, one thing you know about Ryan, he's going to give you every single thing he's got. And then you have to live with the results. When a guy works as hard as he does, you don't have him focus on the results, you just let him play and he tries his best." Tracy McGrady on letting the game come to him: "Absolutely. What I wanted to do tonight coming into the game was get Yao going right away, try to establish a low post presence, put pressure on their defense, and have him open it up on the perimeter for us. And he got it rolling right away. And I know coming into the game those guys were going to try to get the ball out of my hands. So I wasn't really pressed on scoring, I was just trying to get my teammates involved." McGrady on his last shot: "When the game was tied, well we were down 2 and coach asked me in the huddle if those guys score what did I want to do: call a timeout or just take the ball out? And I told him, let's not call a timeout. And he told me, okay, what you do is go tell Yao to set a high screen for you. So I went over there and told Yao. Those guys scored. We got the ball out. The only thing I was thinking about was just winning the ball game. Yao set a great screen for me. I came off and knocked down the shot. And it was the game winner." McGrady on his game winner: "I was just feeling - it was a great feeling. It was a great feeling because I felt like we were going to come down the other end and lock them up those last 2 seconds and I was basically just saying we were going to be up 2-0. I can't really explain on how it felt. I've been in a situation like that before. It felt like the San Antonio game, honestly, when I knocked down all those 3s and hit that last shot. But it was a great feeling." McGrady on him getting an open look for the game winner: "I think they were surprised that we didn't call a timeout. They were scrambling on the defensive end. So I wasn't surprised at all. I think we shocked them a little bit without calling that timeout 'cause I'd seen guys - even my teammates, my teammates didn't even know. The only people that knew on the court was me and Yao and the coach. Some of my teammates were calling timeout and I was telling them, 'No, no, no!' But I saw those guys scrambling on the defensive end and once Yao set that screen, there was nobody else around - and I felt like I got fouled on the shot as well." McGrady on the game winner: "They tried to trap me in the back court, but I got away from them pretty easily and just got the ball up the court and when I came off - Yao set a great screen - and I realized I was by myself when I came off and just rose. You know what, let me be honest with you, I don't even know if there was someone else when I came off, I don't know. I was so zoned out. I knew there was one guy on my hip and Yao set the pick on him. So I don't know if there was another guy right there in front of me - I don't know, I don't care." McGrady on begin 2-0: "It's huge for us. We're definitely in the driver's seat. We have to stay grounded. We haven't done anything yet. These guys are a great road team and we know come Thursday - somebody's tape just stopped so you might want to put another tape in - they're going to come out Thursday pretty aggressive. But we're definitely in the driver's seat, but we're not going to get too comfortable." McGrady on if he's surprised Nowitzki is not scoring a lot: "Not necessarily. It's not about me and Dirk having a shootout, not at all. Obviously he's struggling on the offensive end a little bit, struggling with his shooting, but that just comes with Houston defense and I think we're going a great job defensively on him. It's not about us trying to have a shootout. I think he's trying to do everything in his will to get wins for his team and that's what I'm doing. So I'm not surprised at all." McGrady on getting Yao involved early: "Because he was in foul trouble in game 1 and in order for us to be successful in this series, Yao has to be effective. He has to put pressure on the defense on the low post. He has to get the ball down there 'cause they have to double and when they double, it opens up a lot, not only for myself, but for our other perimeter guys." McGrady on not giving the ball up for the last shot: "Oh no. Why would I? No, no. No, that's the time right there that I felt that we were either going to go into overtime or I'm going to win the game for us, but I'm not giving the ball up. That's not being selfish, I don't think. [laughs]" McGrady on Sura and Barry: "Oh, God. Especially in that 4th quarter when those guys were double-teaming me and I was finding Sura. He hit some key shots for us down the stretch, some big 3s. When guys want to take the ball out of my hands, supporting cast, they got to step up and knock down shots and make plays and, you know, I got to tip my hat off to my guys. They're definitely doing it. Without them, we definitely won't be up 2-0. So those guys are doing a great job. And I got to give credit to Ryan Bowen. He's not worrying about his offensive and just going out there and making it a miserable night for Dirk." McGrady on Magic Johnson saying that if Yao plays the way he did tonight Houston could go to the Finals and Yao say, 'I agree': "I agree. [laughs]" McGrady on his dunk on Bradley early in the game: "That's a poster for my kids. I was hoping he was going to jump. I didn't care what kind of contact I was going to get because I knew those guys were going to get physical tonight if I brought the ball to the hole." [note: if a question is asked in English, Yao will answer in English. If a question is asked in Chinese, Yao will answer in Chinese and his interpreter will translate the question and answer] Yao Ming [interpreter]: "We're just thinking about the 3rd game and making sure we focus on that and get that game. Not really thinking about other things. That's what we're really focused on now." Yao on the difference between game 1 and game 2 for him [interpreter]: "I got a lot of rest the 1st game." Yao on the 1st quarter: "Well, you know, coach gave us a great game plan. What we only needed to do was bring the heat [probably meant energy] into the game and early in the game. And like I said, we forced them to call the 1st timeout, not us. That's what we need to do." Yao on McGrady's last shot: "Before they made the game tied, we talked about it. He said if they make the shot, we're not [calling a] timeout and go pick-and-roll, give me a right side pick-and-roll, that's what he said. And, okay, we go. He hit a lot of shots a lot of time, same shot like tonight. I think that's the 1st option for us." Yao on if he felt like a superstar [interpreter]: "Real superstars are like Tracy. Everyday they can come out and control the game." Yao on shooting 13-14 FG [interpreter]: "Today I didn't think I'd shoot as well as I did today. But all the shots I got were shots that I'm accustomed to and used to getting. So I could have missed a few of those shots, but most of them are shots that I'm comfortable with." Yao on Magic Johnson saying that if Yao plays the way he did tonight Houston could go to the Finals: "I agree." Bob Sura on his 3s with 2 minutes left: "Jon Barry had been hitting 3s all night from the corner, so I knew they weren't going to come off of him. That's a shot I'm going to take every time whether it goes in or not. If it's wide open, you've got to shoot those kind of shots." Avery Johnson: "This was a very disappointing loss for us tonight. We thought the energy was good, which we've talked about over the past day or 2. I thought guys battled. And, hey, you know, McGrady just made some great plays down the end, down the stretch. Yao was really good tonight. We tried to wear him down, but he stayed strong pretty much throughout the game. Jon Barry hurt us. Bobby Sura, who you wouldn't call him a great 3-point shooter, but boy he made them tonight. And we scored enough points to win the game, but 113 points given up is not good enough and is unacceptable. So we'll come back and take a look at it tomorrow. We didn't do much yesterday in practice so I thought that helped our energy. I thought we relaxed a little bit more offensively. But it sure is not helping our defense, which we've been hanging our hat on, we've been hanging our hat on defense. This is a very disappointing loss, but we'll bounce back." Johnson on what's changed since the end of the regular season: "Right now, Tracy McGrady. He's causing a lot of problems - 28 [points] and 10 [assists] tonight - and he's making big shots. Our guys are working hard on him, but he's playing superstar basketball right now." Johnson on Nowitzki: "We've obviously seen him play better. But his shots will start falling. They haven't fallen as much as we'd like them to in the first 2 games." Johnson on if Nowitzki lost his aggressiveness in the 2nd half: "I don't want to say if he's lost it. I think their defense has been pretty good. They're really sagging a lot of guys on him. They're helping out with the 5 man a lot. We tried to run some stuff to exploit it. It worked a couple of times and a couple of times the shots didn't just go down." Johnson on Dampier's minutes: "Well the 1st half, it was foul trouble. Then the 2nd half, it was kind of matchups because when they go with that small lineup with Jon Barry at 4, it kind of forces Dirk to play one of those small guys, whether it's Jon Barry or Wesley, when they take Bowen out of the game. So the 1st half it was foul trouble, the 2nd half it was more or less matchups." Johnson on playing Daniels: "Well, we tried him a little bit in the 1st half. You can't play everybody in the playoffs. You've been to a playoff game before? Well, you can't play everybody in the playoffs. Got to play your guys. Stack's playing well. Thought Josh has been giving a lot of minutes, you know, 17 [points] and 8 [rebounds] tonight and he's working as hard as he can defensively. But we got 8 guys we like to play and our next 2 or 3 guys are kind of in our floating rotation." Johnson on McGrady's last play: "In those situations, we like to trap him. But we just forgot to do it. [question: You forgot?] Yeah, you know, yeah, we're in a situation where the shot clock is going down and in those situations we like to try to get the ball out of his hands is something that we've talked about quite a bit. But it just didn't happen and, you know, he made a big shot." Johnson on Dallas' last play: "Obviously Dirk is the first option and we tried to get him the ball. They sunk back on him with 2 guys, so the next thing was to get the ball to Fin and, you know, he had a good shot, his shot at the free throw line, and it just didn't go down." Johnson on if he thought about taking a 3 at the end: "No, I don't think in that situation - if it's there, that's why we had Keith in the game. If it was there, we'll take a look at it and it wasn't there." Dirk Nowitzki on McGrady's game winner: "Obviously we knew he was going to come off shooting. That high screen-and-roll gave us problems for the last 2 games. He's so good up there in making things happen for him and his teammates. I guess we were off him too much and he made big shots all game, he made big shots all last game. So we just should of contested a little more, I guess." Nowitzki on Houston not calling timeout prior to McGrady's game winner: "I think I looked over at Van Gundy and he called a timeout, but I don't know, I didn't see any of the players call anything, You know, they got the ball in and he made a heck of a play. He's a great player." Nowitzki on Dallas' last play: "I set a little screen, popped right back to the ball, and Ryan Bowen probably knew what was going to happen and he sunk right in front of me and so I wasn't really open. And so we did the next best thing. I think Mike had a good look at it. but that's not where we lost the game. I mean, they scored 113 points in our building. That's way too many." Nowitzki on being 0-2: "Obviously it's very disappointing right now. I don't really have a lot to say. Obviously everything went against us. That's not how we planned it, obviously, getting into the playoffs. So that's something we got to over come now. We've been a good road team all season long and obviously we have to have this 3rd game. I mean, if we get this 3rd game, I think we're in good shape. If we don't, we're going to be really in trouble." Nowitzki on what needs to be done for the 3rd game: "I don't know. We got to find a way to stop them. I don't think rebounding was a problem today. I don't think our offense was a problem - we scored 111 points. But we got to find a way to stop their offense a little bit. McGrady has his way up there with the high screen-and-roll. Yao had a good game today. But I think it's the other players. You know, last game was Mike James. This game was Sura shooting the 3 like I never seen him shoot it, Jon Barry making big plays. You know, you expect McGrady and Yao to have good games, but it's the other guys that come off the bench and have good games for them. I don't know. We got to find a way to stop them some how. We'll watch some film the next 2 days." Nowitzki: "We got pretty much what ever we wanted. Offensively, I don't think we need to change a lot. We scored enough points. But like I said, we just have to find a way to get things done defensively. I mean, obviously they have a lot of shooters out there and they can spread the floor, which makes it a lot easier for McGrady up there - if we double- or triple-team him, you know, they're really shooting the ball well. We'll see what happens next game. Hopefully they won't shoot like that." Nowitzki on Dallas' defense since the regular season ended: "I don't really know what to tell you. I mean, obviously McGrady made some tough plays. I mean, he made some shots last time we were all over him. This game again when we have 2 guys on him, he still rises up and makes unbelievable shots. He's a great player. I don't really know what to tell you. They can spread the floor. Sometimes they play with 4 smalls out there, but you have to double-team McGrady coming off the pick and then he's just picking his poison, playing to the open guy and they're making big plays for them. So I don't really know what to say, but we have to find a way to get it done. Nowitzki on what is wrong with his shooting: "I think they're doing a good job. Every time I come off a screen, they're sending another guy over. Their 5s are always coming over and double-teaming me and I just haven't really found my rhythm from the floor. And it's obviously a little disappointing, but all I got to do is keep on working, got to drive probably a little more, but they're doing a good job. But I think everybody else has been scoring well. Like I said, I don't think offensively is that big thing. We got to find a way to stop them." Nowitzki: "There was not a word said after the game. Everybody is in shock and really, really disappointed. But we got to over come that. They still got to win 2 more. So that's all we can hang our heads on and keep our chins up." Nowitzki on what Johnson said after the game: "Usually after the game is not the time to analyze things. Everybody is really emotional after the game. After the game is usually not the time to say stuff. We'll analyze stuff tomorrow after watching film. So after the game all we can say is the series is not over, let's get some rest, and have a good practice tomorrow." Michael Finley on Dallas coming back in the series: "It's possible. It's happened before. It's not like we have to win the lottery." Jerry Stackhouse: "They made great plays at the end. You've got to give them credit. They did a lot of good things out there tonight. When it came down to it, they just made plays. They stepped up and made tough shots. We had the momentum going our way and [McGrady] would come right down and jump over 2 people and make shots. Yao had a huge game. He started it all for them. He was just catching too deep and getting the ball and scoring inside. It's hard to beat any team when you allow guys to get that deep in the paint, but we did a lot of good things. We just have to try to go to Houston and do what they did to us. They came in here and stole 2 games and we've got to try to go down there and steal 2 games. We're still up, we're still confident. We felt like we played well enough to win the game. We've got to keep fighting." Stackhouse: "We put ourselves in a hole early by letting Yao get the ball so deep on us. He made 13 of 14 shots in there, and it's almost impossible to stop a team when that's happening. But with all that Yao did, we were hungry, we kept fighting, and we came back, and we had control." Stackhouse on McGrady: "He's a great player and was able to make great plays for his team. They made 1 more than we did." Stackhouse on the big men's fouls: "It was hard to play early on with the fouls. When Dampier didn't worry about his fouls, he did a good job on Yao on the defensive end." Stackhouse on McGrady: "We'll be fine. We've just got to dissect things a little more and come back with another game plan. Then we have to hope that he doesn't jump up again with more of those shots, that Yao doesn't jump up with another game in the middle, that those other guys don't make those big shots to keep things spread out. Last game it was James and Wesley. Tonight it was Barry and Sura. Mostly though, it was him. We made plays. They made plays, too. They made one more. He made it." Stackhouse on needing to win 4 of the next 5: "It will take an unbelievable effort, but we hope that those shots that [McGrady] jumped up and made tonight won't go down in the next game. We have to contain Yao a little better than we did tonight. We've just got to go back to doing what we do well. When we are at our best we're moving the ball around the horn quickly. We had a good game plan coming into tonight." Stackhouse: "We have to hope that Tracy doesn't go off at the end of games and make great shots like that. We have to hope that we can do something to stop Yao Ming from getting the ball in there so deep. We have to hope that they don't have other guys come in there and make a lot of jump shots like they've been doing so far." Keith Van Horn on McGrady's game winner: "I was really up on him. I almost thought I fouled him. I contested the shot. He hit a tough shot from about 22 feet out. We would have liked to have seen that ball miss, but there's a lot of other possessions where we needed to play much better." Van Horn on McGrady's game winner: "I was really up on him. I almost thought that I fouled him. He hit a tough shot and you have to give him credit for it." Van Horn on Houston not calling a timeout before McGrady's game winner: "In those situations you expect a timeout to be called. But obviously they were feeling good about how they were running the pick-and-roll with Tracy and Yao and thought they could get a good shot from there." Van Horn on his turnover (after passing up 2 good looks): "I was trying to drive Yao Ming. He was on me. ... They really sealed up the paint and I was trying to find an opening to get to the hoop. The ball just came loose." Van Horn on the loss: "It is unbelievably frustrating especially the lead we had going into the last few minutes and watching it disappear. It's a difficult loss, but the series isn't over and we have an opportunity to bounce back." Van Horn on Finley's last shot: "He did and was able to get a nice shot off, but all shots unfortunately don't all go in and that's just part of the game." Van Horn: "Defensively we need to do a much better job from a team as a whole. They are shooting way too high of a percentage. We've got to play better defense if we want to get back in the series." Josh Howard: "They ran the pick-and-roll great. That's all I could see. We had a good look [on the final shot] but, sometimes, games are like that." Game 2: Houston Rockets 113, Dallas Mavericks 111 at Dallas (April 25) 1st 2nd 3rd 4th - Final 2FG 3FG FG% FT% Houston 34 26 24 29 - 113 .564 .500 .548 .889 Dallas 30 26 32 23 - 111 .463 .667 .500 .731 Halftime: Houston 60-56 3rd Q: Dallas 88-84 Technicals: none Flagrants: Jason Terry 1:35 2nd Refs: Danny Crawford, Greg Willard, Mark Wunderlich Attendance: 20,884 (sellout) Houston Rockets REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK David Wesley 31 1-10 0-3 1-2 3 0-0 6 1 3 1 1 Bob Sura 28 4-5 4-5 2-2 14 0-2 1 2 2 1 0 Tracy McGrady 47 10-19 1-2 7-8 28 0-8 10 4 4 3 3 Ryan Bowen 29 2-6 0-0 1-2 5 3-4 1 1 4 2 0 Yao Ming 36 13-14 0-0 7-7 33 2-8 0 1 4 1 2 Jon Barry 28 6-11 4-6 0-0 16 0-3 2 2 1 1 0 Mike James 24 3-6 0-2 4-4 10 0-1 1 0 2 2 1 Dikembe Mutombo 12 0-0 0-0 2-2 2 0-1 1 0 2 1 0 Scott Padgett 4 1-2 0-0 0-0 2 1-2 0 0 1 0 0 Clarence Weatherspoon 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 1 0 0 Totals 48 40-73 9-18 24-27 113 6-29 22 12 24 12 7 Dallas Mavericks REB Player MIN FGM-FGA 3PM-3PA FTM-FTA PTS O-T AST TO PF STL BLK Michael Finley 39 4-9 2-3 0-0 10 2-7 4 1 1 1 0 Jason Terry 37 5-11 3-4 2-2 15 0-8 6 4 2 0 0 Dirk Nowitzki 42 8-21 0-1 10-12 26 1-2 3 3 1 2 1 Josh Howard 35 7-13 2-2 1-3 17 4-8 0 3 4 0 1 Erick Dampier 25 6-7 0-0 2-4 14 5-9 1 1 3 0 1 Jerry Stackhouse 19 3-8 2-3 0-0 8 0-0 2 1 4 0 0 Devin Harris 12 1-3 1-1 0-0 3 0-2 2 0 0 2 1 Keith Van_Horn 11 5-6 0-1 3-3 13 0-0 0 1 5 1 0 Marquis Daniels 9 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0-3 0 0 0 0 0 Shawn Bradley 7 2-2 0-0 1-2 5 2-2 0 0 2 0 0 Alan Henderson 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 Totals 48 41-82 10-15 19-26 111 14-41 18 14 22 6 4 patricia