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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME FLOW
HOUSTON (AP) – Cuttino Mobley managed to ignore the pain in
his ankle during the fourth quarter Thursday as he led the Houston
Rockets to a 99-87 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.
|  | | Eric Piatkowski, center, tries to keep control of the ball between Rockets Cutino Mobley, left, and Shandon Anderson. |
Mobley missed two games last weekend while nursing his strained
right ankle. After three quarters Thursday, he had six points on
1-for-10 shooting, including an 0-for-4 third quarter.
The Rockets, who trailed by as many as 13 in the third, started
the fourth behind 76-67.
"I told Steve (Francis) before the quarter started that I knew
I had to help him out," Mobley said. "They were telling me to go
to the basket. The guys said, `You're a big-time player and you've
got to play big-time.'
"I was missing easy shots because of my ankle before that. They
were still sore in the fourth quarter, but when you need something
like that, you've got to look past the pain."
Mobley scored 16 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter, hitting
3-of-5 from the field and 10-of-10 free throws. Francis also had 22
points and a season-high 15 rebounds.
"Steve helped us come back," Mobley said. "I just finished it
off."
Francis just missed a triple double with eight assists.
"I think our whole team did a good job in the fourth quarter,"
Francis said. "Carlos (Rogers) sparked us with his rebounding and
we started getting it to Cuttino and he was hot."
It was the second straight night Houston had fought from behind,
rallying from 23 down to beat Atlanta 104-98 Wednesday.
"We can't keep that up," Francis said. "We're not in good
enough shape to overlook anybody."
Coach Rudy Tomjanovich agreed. "We hung in there and limited
them to 11 points in the fourth quarter," Tomjanovich said. "I'm
grateful for our young legs. We've been so good on back-to-back
games this year.
"But we've got to stop this. These kinds of games are hard on
coaches."
They are even harder on the Clippers.
"I thought Mobley played great, but really Francis controlled
the game," Clippers coach Alvin Gentry said. "He finds the open
guy like Mobley and made things happen for them.
"Obviously the fourth quarter killed us. It's just too bad we
went through that stretch for about five minutes where we just
could not score."
"We had a lot of good looks that we just missed," said Jeff
McInnis, who led the Clippers with 20 points. "Unfortunately at
the end we did not get some of the calls we should have got.
"We knew we were going to have to do a surgeon's job on (Mobley
and Francis). But we just came up a little short. They just
outplayed us in the fourth quarter and we couldn't make a shot."
Maurice Taylor, who had scored only 7 and 16 points in the
Rockets' two losses to his former team earlier this season, scored
21 points. Walt Williams added 11.
The Rockets matched last season's win total (34) and improved to
a season-best six games over the .500 mark. The win also left
Houston three games back of Phoenix for the last playoff spot in
the West.
Corey Maggette added 19 as the Clippers lost to the Rockets for
the first time in three tries this year. Michael Olowokandi had 11
points.
The Rockets took command early with a 16-4 run that netted an
18-10 lead midway through the first quarter. Taylor already had
eight points as Houston led 28-21 at the end of the period.
The Clippers went on a 12-0 run early in the second to take a
33-30 lead. They expanded that margin to as many as five as the
Rockets missed 11 of their first 13 shots in the period.
Los Angeles led 45-44 at the half as Maggette had 11 points.
Early in the third period, the Clippers outscored Houston 15-5
to move into a 60-51 lead. Olowokandi had eight points in the
period as the Clippers lead reached as many as 13 before taking a
76-67 lead into the final period.
Houston went on an 15-1 run to start the fourth quarter to take
an 82-77 lead with 5:54 remaining. The Clippers missed their first
11 field goal attempts and turned the ball over three times in that
span.
Eric Piatkowski hit the Clippers' first field goal of the
quarter with 4:13 to play and the Rockets up 84-79.
Houston hit 10-of-10 free throws the rest of the way to seal the
victory.
Game notes
Hakeem Olajuwon, sidelined with a right calf strain, missed
Thursday's game and has been ruled out of Saturday's game against
Golden State as well ... Lamar Odom began serving his five-game
suspension for violating the terms of the NBA/NBPA Anti-Drug
Program.
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ALSO SEE
NBA Scoreboard
LA Clippers Clubhouse
Houston Clubhouse
Olajuwon to miss two more games with strained calf
RECAPS
Charlotte 97
Orlando 84
San Antonio 93
Portland 79
Houston 99
LA Clippers 87
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