http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2243351 As welcome as it is, for the Rockets it is not enough for Yao Ming to dominate. He can make every shot, control the game, fill the highlights, frustrate mere 7-footers reaching in vain to contest his shots. The key for the Rockets, however, is what comes next. For eight minutes of Friday's first quarter, Yao dominated. The Trail Blazers brought center Dale Davis some double-team help, but Yao took four shots and made four shots. Then the Blazers double-teamed Yao as if locking him in handcuffs. Already taking the ball out of Steve Francis' hands with traps on the perimeter, Portland dared the players surrounding Francis and Yao to beat them. For a while, they did. The Rockets had assists on seven of 11 first-quarter field goals and led by 13. But the longer the Trail Blazers kept Yao and Francis from shooting, the more the Rockets' offense bogged down. Yao seemed to have escaped his recent tendency to be too tentative shooting. But once trapped, he was slow and hesitant as a passer out of the double team. Once the ball reached the perimeter, it moved as if replaced by a cannonball. Instead of burning the Blazers for the attention placed on the Rockets' All- Stars and leading scorers, the Rockets' offense fizzled. "We're not as excited to see double-teaming defenses as we should be," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "If there's two on the ball, it's 4-on-3 on the weakside. We have to do a better job handling the ball on double teams." The Rockets have many other areas that will need improvement, starting with their tendency to give up unnecessary fouls, offensive rebounds and turnovers. But when pressured, their passing has often abandoned them. And they will be pressured as long as they begin their offense with a 7-6 center with a soft shooting touch, or a flash of a point guard with shooting range to beat defenses paying his quickness too much respect. "That's something we should be able to burn easily," Francis said. "If they're getting the ball out of my hands and getting the ball out of Yao's hands, it means other guys are open. That's a great opportunity to get easy looks and make some shots. We were doing that at first. Even when I was getting doubled, we were moving the ball. It just stopped and for a long time. That's when they took the lead." The Blazers' traps led to the worst scoring game of Francis' career. He matched his career low of four points only with an uncontested layup at the buzzer. But he and Van Gundy said they did not have too many objections with his decision -making -- he made just two of nine shots -- considering the Blazers' defense. "I only took nine shots," Francis said. "I'm not really worried. I did everything else, got everybody the ball in excellent shooting position. I'm not worried about only taking nine shots." Said Van Gundy, "They doubled him. I'm not as concerned with that. Anybody can take anybody out of a single play. But if you put two on the ball, you've got to hurt people on the weak side. Steve, I thought, did a good job moving the ball." But the Rockets did not move the ball as well throughout the game. After getting seven assists in the first quarter, they had 11 in the next three. After committing just three first-quarter turnovers, they finished with 17. The Rockets have shot well from beyond the 3-point arc this season -- making a healthy 38 percent -- but also have settled for 3-pointers when lanes to drive were open, turning up chances to create higher percentage shots. "We probably have to try to drive it a little bit more on reversal," Van Gundy said. "But we're a good 3-point-shooting team. But if they're going to double team, we have to make them pay. "In a loss, as a coach, you're going to critique every shot. In a win, those same shots, you're going to say, `Good ball movement, good shots.' " But as the defense tightened on Friday and in several games this season, the ball movement was not as good as earlier in the game, the shots much less acceptable. As with most things with the Rockets' offense, that began with Yao on Friday and promises to again. "In the key moments of the game, we couldn't move the ball as we should have," Yao said. "Of course, it's good (when teams double team). We just have to move the ball quicker and not have the ball sit in one place. "We have to move the ball around a lot. When we move the ball around, we control the game and we control the pace." Instea, the double teams have controlled the Rockets until stretches of dominance have been reduced to a mixed blessing. -- 有人願意翻這篇嗎?? --

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