Looking to climb back into the playoff race, Houston's hopes took a major hit as the Rockets fell to the lowly New Orleans Hornets 105-99 on Thursday night.
The Rockets are now on a six-game losing streak and have dropped from sixth place in the Western Conference to ninth, and they're falling farther away. The Hornets have the worst record in the West, but fought hard in their final home game, sending the locals home for the season happy.
The Rockets led 51-43 at halftime, but came out flat in the third quarter as the Hornets doubled-up Houston 26-13 in the quarter. The Rockets fought back and tied the game with less than three minutes to play in the fourth. Trailing by one with 15 seconds to play, Courtney Lee split a pair of free throws and the game went to overtime. New Orleans opened the half on a 9-2 run over the first four minutes to pull away. The Hornets went 7-for-10 from the free-throw line down the stretch to hold on.
Goran Dragic led Houston with 23 points and eight assists. Marcus Camby scored 14 points in the first half, but didn't score in the second half and finished with just 28 minutes while dealing with a back injury.
The Rockets moved to 12-20 on the road this season and now are a full game behind the Utah Jazz for the final spot in the playoffs with three games to play.
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