Before he left, Iverson accused Hollins of a lack of communication, saying Hollins has never spoken to him about his role coming off the bench as Iverson recovered from a partially torn hamstring sustained in preseason camp.

"I don't want to get into he said/she said with Allen Iverson," Hollins said. "Allen has his own interpretation of things. I know the truth. He knows the truth. And what I would like to do is let Allen handle his issues, make a decision on whether he's coming back or not and concentrate on what we have to do as a team, both if he's not here and if he's here.

"I don't want to -- 'He's a liar or I'm a liar.' You know, I don't want to do that. That's not who I am. And I can take the weight if everyone thinks whatever they want to think. I can take that weight. I can be criticized, I can be at fault.

"I can tell you I would never tell you what was said in that meeting that we had in Atlanta (when the Grizzlies met Iverson in late summer as he considered his free agent options). And I would tell you we are not naive to think that every aspect of Allen's past wasn't discussed.

"And go from there. I mean, people have indicated that we didn't tell him this and we didn't mention that and we didn't ask him this. Every detail that needed to be asked was asked."

ROCKETS 104, GRIZZLIES 79: The Grizzlies lost their seventh straight game on Wednesday, going from selfishness and lack of ball movement in Tuesday's loss against Portland, to laziness and a general lack of effort against the Rockets. Trailing by five points at the half, the Grizzlies went into their usual third quarter nosedive. Houston generally beat the Grizzlies down the floor with a rebound, three dribbles, an outlet pass and a lay-up.