Rockets Vs. Nuggets: Denver Drills Houston, 101-86, Playoff Race Gets Even Hotter

The Houston Rockets and Denver Nuggets entered Sunday night's game at the Pepsi Center with identical 32-27 records, a 1-1 split in the season series, possession of the final two playoff spots in the Western Conference and a rematch in Houston looming on Monday night. The stakes were (and still are) high for both teams, as the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz are desperately trying to claw into the playoff bracket and benefit from the cannibalism of the home-and-home series. SB Nation's Tom Ziller set the stage for both matchups in the 2012 NBA Playoffs Enormous Consequences series:

In this case, the correct answer was to first trust Dragic and then switch loyalty to Lawson. The Rockets pushed the Nuggets hard in the first half, as Dragic, Chase Budinger and Luis Scola combined to score 38 of the team's first 49 points and sink 15 of Houston's 20 field goals. That trio masked the failure of nearly everyone else on the roster for 24 minutes, but when the Nuggets turned up the defensive intensity in the second half it all crumbled away. Denver outscored the Rockets 58-37 after the intermission, as Corey Brewer suffocated Dragic with tight defense and Ty Lawson turned up the tempo on offense to claim an important 101-86 win.

It looked like the contest would wind up a close one, at least judging by the opening two quarters. Dragic disrupted the Denver defense with slick drives, Scola operated adeptly in the post and Budinger sniped away from beyond the arc while the rest of the team stumbled. Things seriously changed in the second half, however. George Karl assigned Corey Brewer to Dragic in the second half, used Kenneth Faried to push Scola out of the paint and emphasized timely closeouts on Budinger. Take a look at the splits for the trio to find out why the offense sputtered in the final two periods:

When their three hottest players failed sustain the first half success, Houston imploded by scoring just six points in the paint after the break. Meanwhile, Andre Miller and Ty Lawson pushed the Nuggets into transition and helped to produce 32 of the team's 60 points in the paint during the second half. That's right, Denver scored more interior baskets in either half than Houston did all game. Poor shooting from the Rockets (12-37 FGs, 32.4 percent) allowed Denver to impose its preferred pace and take over the game through a 29-10 advantage in fast break points.

A big run sparked by Lawson's aggressiveness and Faried's athleticism and energy and at the end of the third turned a six-point halftime deficit into a 12-point lead for the Nuggets, and they never looked back. Five Denver players finished in double figures, as Faried (10 points and 11 rebounds), Danilo Gallinari (10 points, five rebounds), Afflalo (20 points), Lawson (20 points, five assists) and Brewer (14 points, four assists) all chipped in for the win. After the game, veteran forward Al Harrington sent some much-deserved praise Brewer's way for terrific defense on Dragic, saying: "He's the sheriff around here. We put him in there to lock people up." Their advantage ballooned to 23 at one moment in the final quarter, and Nuggets fans enjoyed a stress-free finish to an important victory.