Before last night’s game seven between the Utah Jazz and Houston Rockets, the home team had won all six games in the series. But in the biggest game of them all, the Houston Rockets choked. Despite a solid 28-13 home record and three wins in Houston during the series, the Rockets fell to the Jazz 103-99.

Much of the hype before the series was centered around Tracy McGrady. T-Mac has been one of the league’s most prolific players but he’s been infamous for losing in the playoffs. That was supposed to change this series. It didn’t, leaving T-Mac’s playoff record at a dissappointing 0-6. But he’s not to blame here. He scored 29 points and dished out 13 assists last night. He averaged 25 points a game in the series. If you’re looking for people to blame here, it’s not Tracy McGrady.

I’m going to point a finger at Rockets freak Yao Ming. Despite developing a strong offensive(25 PPG in the series), the Rockets lost this series because Yao was abused like a stepchild inside. Despite having a good 9-10 inches on Carlos Boozer, Yao let the former Duke star drop 35 points and 14 rebounds on him. Duke stars are supposed to fade late, not come up huge in game sevens. When the game was on the line, Yao was outhustled by Boozer and outshot by Mehmet Okur. Unacceptable.

So now we have all four playoff semifinal matchups and without a doubt, the most intriguing and surprising is the matchup between Utah and Golden State. For once, there’s some parody in the NBA Playoffs and I’m happy to see it. Phoenix and San Antonio may have better teams, but this series has better stories. Under Jerry Sloan, the Jazz are showing signs of returning to past glory with another guard-forward combo: Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. And we shouldn’t have to mention the Warriors’ performance so far.