What can Jazz do about Yao in playoff series?

They got away with it once, and in doing so the Jazz buoyed their bid for home-court advantage in a likely 4-5-seed opening-round NBA playoff matchup with the Houston Rockets.

But if Utah thinks it can survive a best-of-seven series while allowing Rockets center Yao Ming outings anything like his 35-point, 16-rebound double-double in Utah's 86-83 win at Houston on Sunday, it is sadly mistaken.

Fortunately for coach Jerry Sloan, though, the Jazz — who are off until visiting Portland on Wednesday night — do seem to know better.

Or at least they talked a good game Sunday, using the experience to ponder what can be done differently on the terrifically solid one-man wall from China.

Small forward Matt Harpring offered one suggestion, centered on trying to exploit Yao's weaknesses when the Rockets are playing defense.

"With a guy like that who can block shots you've got to go back in and not let him dictate what's going on in the paint," Harpring said.

"I think we did that in (Sunday's) fourth quarter," he added. "Perimeter post-ups certainly helped that out, because it gets Yao out (of the lane), and then if they double-down it should open up some shots for Memo (center Mehmet Okur) and (power forward Carlos) Boozer."

Not-quite-7-foot Jazz backup center Jarron Collins, who spent part of his night dealing with the 7-6 giant, had a couple of ideas.

One involved a call for help.

"The only thing we could maybe do just a couple of times just to change it up," Collins said, "is to double-team him on the catch.... Make his catches difficult, and then try to body up on him when he shoots the ball."

The other similarly involved attempting to make Yao work harder for his points.

"Try to wear him down," Collins said. "You've got to meet him early. If you let him just run down on the block and get his position, it's over."

That goes on both ends, Sloan suggested. "You still have to keep attacking, (not) let him just stand out there (on defense) and never move out of his tracks."

Also not-quite-7-foot Okur, assigned to Yao for much of the evening, pointed a finger squarely at himself to illustrate how there might indeed be ways to slow the big fellow.

"He's such a good player, obviously. He's got good moves. He's a strong player," Okur said. "I think I've got to do a better job.