Unfortunately, by the end of a ridiculously messy outing, a 95-69 Jazz loss, nobody could remember what any of it was.

All the pregame hype hit the floor at the Toyota Center with a dull thud, thanks mostly to the uninspired Jazz, who played as though a win here was optional.

"It's disappointing," said Deron Williams. "We didn't match their intensity, or their energy level tonight."

When told one of his teammates had described the Jazz effort as "terrible," Williams said: "You get beat by 20 in a playoff game . . . there's no other way to put it."

Added Andrei Kirilenko: "Not a good effort. Not a good effort at all."

No, it was not. For most of the fifth game of this series, the Jazz set offensive basketball back 50 years. They made just 36 percent of their shots. They hit 56 percent of their free throws. They were outrebounded by eight. They handled the b8all like it was filled with dynamite.

They allowed Houston, for the first time, to get all snug with its offense. And they timidly sat back as Tracy McGrady went off on them, scoring 29 points.

"They kicked our butt," said Carlos Boozer.

Let's see if we can remind ourselves, then, why this game was going to be so compelling. Maybe we can remind the Jazz, too.

First, nothing says intrigue quite like a team, especially playing at home, that is facing elimination. The Rockets had their backs pressed tightly enough to the wall for them to start talking and taking desperate measures.

Rick Adelman initiated said matters, starting in with the I-can't-believe-what-they're-getting-away-with-against-my-star-player rhetoric after Game 4, insinuating that he would send tapes to the league office to investigate the dirty, rotten Machiavellian means by which the Jazz were defending poor McGrady.

They were diabolical. They were nasty. They were so. . . so. . . Jerry Sloan-like.

All the end-justifies-the-means talk, though, was punted away before the second quarter ended.

Adelman's comments accomplished what they were meant to accomplish, which was to give his own team an emotional cause around which to rally in Game 5, even if it was more than cooked up.

"We played all together," said Shane Battier. "With the season on the line, we gave it a great effort."

The Jazz supposedly had been knocking the Rockets silly, and McGrady himself said the Rox would no longer tolerate such underhanded methodology.

"We'll have to send a message," he said in the run-up to Tuesday night. He never elaborated what that message would be, but it manifested itself early, by way of a 17-point first-half lead.

The Rockets were more composed on offense than at any other time against the Jazz, shooting 47 percent. And their defense was sound.

The notion that the Rockets were going to get tough with the Jazz, to hit before they got hit, never really materialized. In fact, this game was probably the least physical of any in this series.

And that worked to the Jazz's disadvantage.

So did Utah's bricked quick shots.

"We need to work from the inside-out, and tonight we worked from the outside-in," Ronnie Brewer said.

The Jazz had admirably ignored all of McGrady's send-a-message talk, brushing off the whole thing, in much the same manner that Williams brushed off McGrady's disingenuous postgame comments the other night about the proper pronunciation of his name: Is it Der-ON or is it DER-on? What is it, anyway?

Puh-leeeaase, Tracy.

Dude's been schooling you the whole series. You know the name by now, and the game.

McGrady finally schooled back, at least for one night.

He made 13 of 26 shots, leading his team away from the brink of oblivion, and directly into momentum's flow.

So, those were some of the extracurriculars leading up to the Rockets' do-or-die predicament.

But, as it turned out, in the Rockets' minds, it was the predicament itself that was preeminent.

And they saved themselves for another few days by focusing on the work that needed attending to Tuesday night, not the shenanigans.

Sloan had said all along that he admired the resiliency of the Rockets, a trait that bubbled up repeatedly through this series, even in defeat.

Suddenly, it revealed itself in victory, the first win for the Rockets on their home floor in this postseason. And it left the Jazz reeling, looking for answers, as they headed home.

"It's not the end of the world," Williams said. "It's not the end of the series."

No, it's not. Not by a long shot. And that's the Jazz's problem now.

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* GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.