"It's kind of weird out there playing against those guys," said Lowry, who exchanged uniform tops with Memphis' Rudy Gay after the game, "but it was definitely fun."

With the Grizzlies, Lowry's role varied from night to night, a situation that has changed nearly as much as his postseason aspirations with the move from Memphis to Houston.

"I went from a team just building up to a team playing for playoff positioning," Lowry said. "The first thing I did was get a call from Damon (Stoudamire, now a Memphis assistant coach). He told me, ?It's about winning. You have to change your mindset.' That's the first thing I did."

Busiest stretch begins

The win against the Grizzlies began the busiest week of the season - five games in seven days - with the Rockets very much aware of how important it will be to get any win possible. In their next four games, the Rockets face the teams that went into Sunday leading the Western Conference divisions - Denver, Los Angeles and San Antonio - and play at Charlotte against a Bobcats team with a six-game winning streak.

"We talked about how this is the first one this week," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "You go to Denver tomorrow, then you have the Lakers and then at Charlotte, who's been playing very well, and then we have San Antonio to finish it off.

"So this was an important game for us. We needed to get this win to start the week."