The night started with rookie Rodney White suffering a sprained left ankle in warm-ups.
  How's that for ominous?
  It ended badly, too.
  Steve Francis, who scored 36 points, drove the length of the court with 13 seconds to go, danced into the lane and drained a running 8-footer with two-tenths of a second left to give the Rockets a 99-97 victory in a half-empty Compaq Center.
  "Hey, the guy made a tough shot," Coach Rick Carlisle said. "He's a great player and great players make big shots."