All of that improved in the fourth quarter, but in a game in which the Rockets cut a deficit that had reached 18 points to just four with 6:22 left, the Rockets knew they had fallen short long before they could not shoot well enough to complete their comeback.

“It’s very difficult when they play much better than you and they have a lot of confidence and you have to fight from behind,” forward Luis Scola said. “You have no margin for error. We played great for a stretch. We came back and we were still down four. Sooner or later they start making shots.

“We need to play from the first minute, which we didn’t today. That’s why we lost. It was a huge game for us. Today was big and we let it go.”

The game was bigger for the Jazz, and it showed. The Jazz were 1½ games out of a playoff spot, 2½ behind the Rockets coming in.

via Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle