Rockets Hope To Hold Back Clock

When Rudy Tomjanovich is retired and remembering his career as coach of the Houston Rockets, he’ll recall his 1996-97 club as one that could have won a third NBA title.

But it won’t be a pleasant memory.

“When I’m an old man sitting on the porch, I’ll say that this was a great team,” Tomjanovich said. “It will be a disappointment because I really thought we had the team to win it. We’ve won championships with less.”

The Rockets came close to getting another chance at the NBA Finals, but a devastating last-second shot by Utah’s John Stockton eliminated them from the Western Conference finals Thursday night.

The Rockets were accused of being old this season, and they’ll be a year older next season when they try to hold back the clock for another shot at the title with aging stars Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley, who hasn’t announced if he’ll return.

They’ll try to add youth to the roster, but they don’t plan any major changes.

“I think we’d get better even if we didn’t make changes,” Carroll Dawson, Houston’s executive vice president, said Friday. “Look at how long teams have to be together to win. You have to consider that.”

The blockbuster trade that brought Barkley to the Rockets last August was supposed to get the Rockets back to the NBA Finals.

But adding Barkley got the Rockets only one step closer than a year ago, when they were swept by the Seattle SuperSonics in the second round of the playoffs.

The Rockets beat the Sonics in a rugged seven-game semifinal series, only to run into the Jazz, who had the best record in the Western Conference.

And when Stockton went up for his game winner, Tomjanovich couldn’t bear to watch the end.

“As soon as I saw John Stockton get the ball, I turned away and didn’t look,” Tomjanovich said. “He makes that shot all the time.”

The Rockets were hounded by questions of age and injury throughout the season, and now it will increase.