Scanning the blogs and beats following the Lakers' 89-70 win over the Rockets in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals ...

Lakers Blog: "That breeze you feel isn't the wind or an overzealous air conditioning unit, but the collective sigh of the Laker Nation. Those hooves? Not from a TV replay of yesterday's Preakness, but from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping back to the heavens. All because the Lakers came out Sunday afternoon at Staples in Game 7 of their Western Conference Semifinals against the Houston Rockets, took care of business, and avoided a monumental upset. Final score: 89-70, in a game the Lakers dominated from start to finish. Today's game was all about defense. LA held the Rockets scoreless until the 6:53 mark of the first quarter and allowed only 31 points at halftime. Overall, it was the sort of focused, concentrated effort that would have ended this series a couple games earlier had the Lakers delivered."

The Dream Shake: "It's all over and done with. Your 2009 Houston Rockets have finally closed the curtain for good. I could be in a worse mood. I could be devastated. I could be angry. But I've accepted our end result. And I like this Rockets team too much to be mad at them.  This squad really, really tried. They did what they could. Unfortunately, they had a ceiling. So did the Los Angeles Lakers, but their ceiling was much higher. It's the depressing reality of the situation. Rooting for the Rockets has been a mental struggle all series long. Actually, let me re-phrase that: Believing in the Rockets has been a struggle.  We love our Rockets and what they bring to the table game in and game out. Rooting for them wasn't the issue. We had no reason to complain about this team. But we knew the odds, and the odds were slim. It was hard to believe in what we were rooting for."

Silver Screen and Roll: "The Houston Rockets entered this series with only about two-and-a-half ways to score points. One of those ways, and by far the most potent, broke his foot and played only three games. Somehow they MacGyvered their way to two victories sans Yao, but you can only go so far contriving solutions out of duct tape and gum wrappers. Today the Houston 'offense' found its natural level, which turns out to be 70 points scored over 48 minutes of play."

Ramona Shelburne, LA Daily News: "It's a strange feeling. To have watched someone play for more than a year and just now feel like you know them. Admit it. Before he rocked the Houston Rockets for 21 points and 18 rebounds in Sunday's 89-70 Game 7 victory, you hardly knew Pau Gasol(notes). Other than being the obscenely talented center the Lakers acquired in the middle of last season from Memphis, your impression of the splendid Spaniard was pretty limited. Great player, nice guy, scraggly beard. Sunday, with his howling, scowling effort in the Lakers' most important game of the season, Gasol finally put his stamp on this team. He growled. Fixed his jowl hard and fierce, and screamed into the purple-and-gold-colored afternoon."

Dime: "Sure Kobe might be the more compelling personality, but imagine if Spike Lee adapted the concept behind "Kobe Doin' Work" for tonight's Game 7 and applied it to Pau Gasol. There'd be 30 camera angles on his salty pout face and his awkward neck beard. But there'd also be a million different ways to watch him make Houston pay for their size disadvantage for the first time since Yao went down."

Jonathan Feigen, Houston Chronicle: "As nice as it was to have demonstrated the resilience and determination they had shown throughout their often rocky season, those watching closely along the way already knew that about them. It was only those that only started watching in the postseason that picked up on that when the Rockets pushed the Lakers. They did, however, gain something by playing 13 postseason games, something they lacked and desperately needed in those dozen seasons unable to get past the first round. The playoffs are when teams really learn what it takes to be more than their talent allows, when they learn about themselves and how they must play to be their best. It is a process and it's not easy, as the Rockets' Game 7 loss to the Lakers showed. In the end, to win big in the NBA requires stars, even superstars, and by the time the series ended, the Rockets did not have them. The Rockets had to ask Aaron Brooks(notes) to fill that role, and that was a bit much to expect."

The Baseline: "... what happens if this inconsistency and generally confounding play is the 'real' Lakers? Kobe himself called the team 'bipolar,' presumably as a joke that explained away some of the team's shockingly poor showings in this series. This Rockets series can be written off as complacency, or playing down to competition; that doesn't make them vulnerable — which implies some point of weakness — as it does erratic, a quality formerly associated with the Denver team they'll face in the next round. Maybe the issue isn't a lack of toughness on the Lakers (I'm certainly sick of typing that), but a team that simply doesn't know what direction it's going in on any given night."

Rockets Buzz: "From the outset, I noticed one move that Phil Jackson made that kept the Rockets from doing what they did in Game 6. He played off of Chuck Hayes(notes). Andrew Bynum(notes) carefully hung out in the paint, giving Hayes as much room as he needed outside 8 feet. Every time Brooks/Artest/ Scola brought it in the lane, Bynum was right there to get his hand on the ball and knock it out to one of his teammates. Now, it’s no use crying over spilled milk, but the best bet would have been to put Landry in the game immediately, and force Bynum to actually have to move out to his defender on defense. This momentum carried over smoothly for the Lakers on the offensive end, as they were able to get out on the break and get the shots they wanted, not the shots the Rockets wanted to make them take. Kobe Bryant(notes) found his way into the lane, Derek Fisher(notes) found his stroke, and Pau Gasol was there to clean up whatever 

Kevin Ding, OC Register: "It wasn’t just Trevor Ariza(notes) and Andrew Bynum among the Lakers' younger players — who had been so out of sorts in the losses to Houston — to walk away with a good feeling from this big game. Sasha Vujacic(notes) took advantage of the extended blowout time to find his shooting stroke again. Phil Jackson even brought Kobe Bryant back into the game for a stretch with 4:07 to play and an 84-58 lead, which helped Vujacic find more open rhythm jumpers. [...] Even as poorly as Vujacic shot [over the series], he did fine in his head-to-head matchup ... with former Laker Von Wafer(notes), who had many more opportunities for impact with the short-handed Rockets and again in Game 7 was unfocused and error-prone. Wafer, the Rockets’ leading scorer in the regular season against the Lakers, finished the series with 8.2 points per game on 42.4 percent shooting. He had nine assists against 11 turnovers."

Talk Hoops: "The Lakers won this series because they were better on the interior and they forced the Rockets to shoot a lot of three-pointers (which they didn't make that many). LA was dominated in the paint in Game 3 (a game they won) by losing out 50-32 in points in the paint and 56-43 in rebounding with a (19-10 offensive rebounding deficit). But if you take away that bad interior performance in which they won the game anyway, the Lakers won the PIP battle 44.6 to 36 and they won the rebounding battle 44.1 to 38.5 with a 12.3 to 9.5 win on offensive rebounding. They also out-shot the Rockets from three-point range 34.7% to 29.9% and took 33 fewer deep balls. With Yao Ming(notes) only playing in three of the seven games, the Lakers were able to control the paint, clean the glass, and force bad outside shots. THAT'S why they came away the victor."

Dave McMenamin, NBA.com: "If L.A. maintains that level — the level that held Houston to 36.8 percent shooting for the game and just 70 total points — then the Lakers fans should get a chance to sing 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye' again when their team takes care of Denver and once more at the end of The Finals. If they don't though, if the Lakers can't replicate that defensive intensity against very formidable foes from here on out, they'll be the team having that song directed at them."

Related: The Internets are alive, 2009 NBA Playoffs