The Houston Chronicle reports: Last night, Steve Francis played 36 minutes with a sore lower back and now might have to sit out tonight's game against Memphis.

"I'm definitely going to look at that tonight and tomorrow and think about longevity instead of the short-term thing," Francis said after Friday's game.

Francis treated the back throughout the game, wearing a heating pad when he was out and during some timeouts. He had arrived at Compaq Center on Friday, his 26th birthday, at 2:30 p.m. for the 7 p.m. start and after hours of massage, decided he could play.

"It's pretty sore," Francis said. "I thought I could help my team. I'm not going to lie. I was definitely a couple steps slow tonight. Sometimes you have to play when you're hurt."

Please, by all means, bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
     
And while you're at it, bring your 7-foot-6, 300-pound centers, too.
     
By now it seems obvious Houston center Yao Ming ? the NBA's latest exotic import ? is as real as the Great Wall itself. Some believed he would be an instant sensation when drafted first overall last summer. Others were less optimistic. They believed he was a risk, considering the Rockets had their choice of any player in the draft.

One night after so much went so right for the Jazz, so much went so wrong.
     
On Tuesday, in an overtime win over the Houston Rockets, hero Matt Harpring was hitting a three-pointer to force the OT and Karl Malone was scoring 33 points despite breaking his nose, and 40-year-old John Stockton was practically pulling off a triple-double.

On Wednesday, in a 106-76 loss to the very same Rockets, Harpring couldn't hit a watermelon with a sledgehammer, and Malone mustered only 13 after getting bonked in the beak yet again and Stockton tallied his lowest assist total ? one ? since his rookie season.

The leads seemed safe. But the Rockets have been teased so many times by the Jazz that they just weren't sure.

The Rockets played with the sting of 11 consecutive losses in Utah and the bitterness of the blown late lead a night before to the Jazz. No matter how great their lead, the Rockets would not allow themselves to consider it enough.

During a 106-76 start-to-finish rout of Utah on Wednesday, the Rockets kept pushing, almost desperate to avoid glancing back, until they had their most lopsided win ever in 142 games against the Jazz.

Good thing we have seen all those highlights to prove that Houston's Yao Ming is an emerging superstar, because if we had to judge strictly on his Utah debut against the Jazz on Wednesday night, we might not believe it.
   
Yo, Yao?
   
That's Greg Ostertag and John Amaechi guarding you. Maybe something a little more, you know, spectacular?
   
Alas, the 7-foot-6 Chinese sensation had few dazzling moments in his first game at the Delta Center, though he did show an occasional flash while his Rockets exacted some two-fisted revenge for a heartbreaking loss the previous night with a 106-76 victory.

One night, Karl Malone gets belted in the nose. The next, he and his teammates get kicked in the stomach.
   
It was hard to tell which was more painful.
   
"I've never seen us play that selfish in a long time," Malone said after a disastrous Delta Center encore to Tuesday's thrilling victory in Houston. No heroics were called for this time -- the Jazz couldn't stop Steve Francis, couldn't make a jump shot and especially couldn't match their young opponent's energy, finally succumbing to the worst loss of their season, 106-76 to the Rockets.

As if facing the Houston Rockets twice in two nights wasn't enough, the Jazz wanted to play a few extra minutes Tuesday.

It didn't matter that Karl Malone had broken his nose, or that Andrei Kirilenko was whacked in the jaw, or that Matt Harpring's sore ribs were still a tad tender.
     
Down by three points in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter, the Jazz desperately desired to go another five.

They don't beat you down. They wear you down.

They don't drop a ton of bricks on your head. They sneak up and tie your shoelaces together so you trip over your own feet.

What the Jazz do to opponents is the worst kind of torture. So much more agonizing than the rack, more excruciating than the iron maiden, more unbearable than bamboo shoots under the fingernails.

The Rockets have felt the pain so many times. That never makes it hurt less.

For all the times the Rockets wanted to just forget everything and take a swing at Karl Malone, here was their chance.

Tackle him. Push him. Get in a three-point stance, rush him and sack dance over him. As much as the Rockets have yearned to do it all these years, this one time, it was just what was needed.

Instead, Yao Ming and Terence Morris, a pair of Rockets too young to have felt the pain Malone had inflicted over the years, let him go. Malone passed to Matt Harpring. Harpring launched a 3-pointer that barely touched the last twines of net with a tenth of a second left in regulation to tie the game at 95. And when the Rockets could not get their last-second shot in overtime to fall, the Jazz had a 103-101 win in their last game at Compaq Center.

Karl Malone's broken nose and Matt Harpring's sore ribs didn't matter in the end.

Malone scored 33 points, including 14 in a fourth-quarter comeback, and Harpring hit a big 3-point basket that forced overtime and led the Utah Jazz to a 103-101 victory over the Houston Rockets on Tuesday night.

Malone left the game briefly with 1:22 remaining in regulation after being smashed in the face by teammate Andrei Kirilenko.