They kept missing and kept shooting, until suddenly, just as Tracy McGrady had turned around his misfiring night on Saturday, they all did Monday, getting another second-half surge of offense to turn the game around, and send them to a 98-90 win and a 2-0 lead in their first-round series.

While the Jazz are heading home having lost 16 of their past 17 playoff road games, the Rockets are 7-1 when leading a playoff series 2-0. However, they lost their last series when they returned home from Dallas with a 2-0 lead.

But for the second-consecutive game, they had turned around their struggles with enough of a run to take control of the game. McGrady finished with 31 points and 10 rebounds. Yao Ming added 27 points, and Chuck Hayes made all five of his shots to finish with 12 points and 12 rebounds, and the Rockets did just enough to offset Carlos Boozer's career-high 41 points.

After spending so much of the night unable to get much of anything going because of their inability to hit an outside shot, the Rockets did begin to build a bit of a lead, 62-58, on a 12-4 run late in the third quarter.

Rafer Alston completed that brief surge with a fast-break drive past Deron Williams for a three-point play.

The Jazz quickly put in a Matt Harpring reverse and Boozer jumper. But with a minute remaining before the fourth quarter, McGrady nailed a 3-pointer, the first outside shot the Rockets hit in the second half. With Dikembe Mutombo putting in a pair of free throws, the Rockets took their largest lead of the night, 67-62, into the fourth quarter.

Searching all night for their offense, when it showed up, the Rockets flew into the fourth quarter, outscoring the Jazz 9-2 in a 14-2 run to end the third and start the fourth. Alston pulled up on a break for a 76-64 lead with 9:17 left and after missing 14 consecutive jumpers, the Rockets had made four straight.

As quickly as the Rockets had surged, the Jazz answered, scoring the next six points to cut the lead in half with eight minutes remaining.

With 5 1/2 minutes left, the Rockets held an eight-point lead when Shane Battier and Williams collided, with Battier's right shoulder driving into the left side of Williams' face and sending him to the floor where he remained in obvious pain.

Williams stayed in the game, and after McGrady and Yao missed in the lane, Mehmet Okur sank a jumper. Alston missed a layup, and Boozer knocked down a fadeaway to reduce the lead to four.

This time, the Rockets made sure, with McGrady sending a lob to Yao for a slam. With that, the Rockets kept making sure. McGrady made two free throws. Yao made two more. When Yao had a shot blocked, Hayes put it in, giving the Rockets a 90-80 lead with 2:11 remaining.

That was not enough to make things easy. Williams fired a pass just through the Rockets' defense to a Boozer dunk. After McGrady missed, Boozer drove to a 10-footer to give him 39 points and pull the Jazz within 90-83 with 1:18 remaining.

McGrady, struggling with his jumper most of the night, hit the hit toughest, a pullup fadeaway on the baseline with Gordan Giricek almost wearing the same shirt. Harpring scored quickly for the Jazz, but with Battier sinking two free throws with 28 seconds left the Rockets had reduced the game to free-throw shooting.

After Boozer scored to cut the lead with eight with 21.8 seconds left, Alston was fouled with 14.5 seconds remaining, making his second attempt for a seven-point lead. Boozer turned it over and with two Yao free throws, the Rockets matched Saturday's nine-point win with a nine-point lead.

With that, the Rockets had done just enough to overcome the Jazz and their own shooting struggles.

They had sent the night searching for just a few hot-shooting minutes.

When the Rockets finally hit their second 3-pointer of the first half, after 13 tries, they also finally climbed their way out of the nine-point deficit the Jazz had built when Boozer was dominating the first quarter and the Jazz were hitting 60 percent of their shots.

The Jazz were trapping McGrady on screens as they had in Game 1, but in the first half Monday, when Yao was not there in the middle, the Rockets happily launched 3-pointers, rarely hitting. Yao made 5 of his 12 shots to score 12 in the half, but was limited to just 16 minutes by foul trouble.

So Battier drained a corner 3 with 1:55 left in the first half, tying the game at 39-39, the Rockets were so happy with that breakthrough they finished the half by launching four more 3-pointers, missing them all and ending the half 2-of-17 from beyond the arc.

McGrady did finish a few drives, but he also took five 3-pointers in the first half, missing every one. And while the Rockets were firing away as if trying to win a game of H-O-R-S-E, the Jazz worked their offense to Boozer inside and for mid-range jumpers.

After scoring 11 points with four field goals in Game 1, Boozer had 19, making seven of 14 shots in the first half of Game 2. With Derek Fisher driving to a layup, the Jazz took a 41-39 lead at halftime.

Yao began the second half with a layup and a three-point play that gave the Rockets their first lead. Then McGrady put up another 3 and a baseline jumper, and the first-half pattern continued, with Boozer hitting jumpers on one end, and the Rockets missing them on the other.

But on Saturday, the Rockets rode one third-quarter burst far enough into the fourth quarter to build a 15-point lead.