The Rockets had spent much of the season defending with the sustained tenacity of a traffic cone. And for most of Monday's first half, they let the Wizards click as if still cruising through pregame warm-ups against the ballboys.

Then the Rockets applied clamps they rarely have shown. The Wizards were stunned. Michael Jordan discovered he isn't 38 anymore. And the Rockets came back from an 11-point first-half hole to an easy 102-89 win before a sold-out MCI Center crowd of 20,567.

"The whole thing is, defense will win games," Rockets forward Kenny Thomas said. "Without defense, you're not going to win, because you're not going to shoot 50 percent every night."