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Take out Yao Ming and the Houston Rockets not only were losing his scoring, but it seemed they would also lose the scoring that fell to those in his orbit. Instead, the Rockets' offense has soared, not only despite the loss of Yao, but, they said, because of the experience of playing off him for so long.

"It's a change of course," Luis Scola said. "He's a big part of our team. He's 60, 70 percent of our team. He's so big, so good. Everything is based on him. He changes the whole game. He is a 7-6 guy, so you change the whole defensive system. Now, everything changes. But what we've been talking about, what we've been working on the whole season is to make a real solid team so that whenever someone plays bad or gets an injury, we'll be able to win anyway. We've been doing that. When Tracy (McGrady) got injured, we won. When Yao, was injured, we won. Guys have a bad night and we win."

Specifically, they have continued to score, usually by playing off McGrady and the double teams and help defenses he draws, just as they had the double teams and fronting defenses that were sent to defend Yao.

Source: Houston Chronicle