Sam Smith

The team with the most consecutive regular season wins in NBA history featured three Hall of Famers in Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West (generally acknowledged to be among the top 10 players in NBA history), and Gail Goodrich. And those 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers started the season with four Hall of Famers before Elgin Baylor retired.

The team that is now third with the most consecutive regular season wins, the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks, featured two Hall of Famers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Roberston, on many lists among the top five players in NBA history.

The No. 2 team in the mix is the 2007-08 Houston Rockets, who saw their streak end at 22 games Tuesday night against Boston. These plucky Rockets don't have a single top 50 all-time player, don't have a single playoff series win from either of its top two current players (Tracy McGrady and Shane Battier), don't have a player who's ever played on a championship team, and start a 27-year-old rookie and 41-year-old center.

Yes, the Houston Rockets are the worst best team ever.

And the NBA better watch out for them because what you don't understand can definitely hurt you.

Their streak included nine straight wins after All-Star center Yao Ming went out for the season with a stress fracture. And, yes, we know all the downside and the excuses from the detractors: Two few opponents with winning records. The Rockets didn't beat a division leader. Dirk Nowitzki was suspended when they played the Mavericks. Most of the games came at home. No one yelled "jinx" when they shot.

It's obvious these Rockets hardly line up in talent with the best teams in league history.

They don't even rival the best teams in Rockets history.

Without Yao, they don't appear to be among the best teams in the Western Conference.

At least that was what everyone thought when Yao went out for the season.

But — and now picture me as a song and dance man with a top hat and cane — you've got to have heart.

That's a bad cliché that we put on athletes too often these days, and a great dance number from the old Damn Yankees musical. Sorry, my best references are a half century old.

But I know a good basketball team when I see it, and that's why we should come to praise the Rockets and not bury them. OK, some of my references are 400 years old.

It's also old basketball the Rockets play.

Yes, McGrady has been terrific, and in some respects the perfect formula for regular season success in the NBA, if not immortality.

You take a group of hard working, unselfish role players who'll cover for one another and contribute relatively equally and have one star, an All-Star if not transcendent as McGrady basically is, and it's a pretty good recipe for success. Even though it was their sloppiest win of the streak, that amalgam was on display against the Hawks.

As the Rockets slogged through an atrocious shooting game last Wednesday, McGrady finally got hot with double figure scoring in the third quarter to give the Rockets some room and then a bit more later to help them pull away.

There's nothing like having a finisher and someone who can make plays, and McGrady has done that in the streak when necessary, getting 41 to beat the Hornets and 31 to win in Dallas, though his scoring has not been astronomical during the run.

Not that the Rockets are better without Yao. They aren't, and they figure to have big playoff problems without Yao, with a potential first-round defeat once again a possibility. There are seven teams that have won at least 18 straight regular season games. Only the 1982 Celtics, the defending champions that year, didn't win a title, losing in seven games in the conference finals.

But without Yao, they do have some more freedom of movement on offense. Coach Rick Adelman plays more out of the high post and had to adjust to Yao's discomfort there and McGrady's preference for half court play. It's one reason the Rockets started slowly. Though the Rockets lose Yao's post presence, they get more back cuts and movement across the lane.

Still, if you were told before the season that a team would win 22 straight, and even if you didn't know Yao would be out, how many teams would you have picked ahead of the Rockets? Certainly at least a half dozen.

It helped to move Bonzi Wells and Mike James — who could be distractions and weren't the most committed defensively — for Bobby Jackson. They weren't even sure they'd keep second rounder Carl Landry, and he has been terrific until going out recently with knee problems. So Chuck Hayes returns and does well and they bring back someone named Mike Harris and he's grabbing four rebounds in seven minutes against the Hawks. Yes, Dikembe Mutombo starts. And gives them something.

This is as unlikely a successful team as anyone ever has seen in the NBA.

Remember, McGrady's critics say he continues to be called by tissue paper companies who want him to be their spokesman.

But this is the Rockets' secret and why they should be admired and not discounted.

It's the most amorphous concept in sports, teamwork and chemistry. Like the Justice Potter Stewart's remark about pornography that "I know it when I see it," it's often difficult to describe that ideal chemistry, but you know it when you see it. And you see it now with the Rockets.

They are the classic group greater than the sum of their parts.

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And it's on defense where a team reveals itself. Red Holzman used to say there was just one ball, but on defense everyone could play. Great defense is knowing your assignment, knowing the game plan and helping.

The Rockets, though they haven't had the ultimate NBA success, have winning type players like Luis Scola from the Argentinian Olympic team and Shane Battier from Duke. They've managed to get Rafer Alston, a famed street ball legend, to play under control.

And it's a wonderful thing to watch. They help on assignments, cover from the weak side, double out or switch the pick and roll. No one but McGrady can truly make a play, but everyone can help thwart a play. They got a good foundation built by Jeff Van Gundy and Adelman has continued while also bringing his positive, player-first style of coaching with him, which the players have embraced.

The Rockets' winning streak is a shock. But it's no fluke.

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