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The schedule will finish where it began, but no longer does tonight's bookend game against the Jazz mean a last regular-season chance to measure everything between the opener at the Delta Center and the finale at EnergySolutions Arena.

Home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs will not be at stake tonight. It was clinched with the Rockets' 120-117 victory over Phoenix on Monday, and their first-round series against the Jazz will begin Saturday or Sunday at Toyota Center.

But rather than dismiss the game as meaningless, the Rockets see it as historic: the opener of what could be seen as an eight-game series.

"I don't know how many eight-game series there have been in NBA history, but we're about to play in one," said forward Shane Battier, suggesting Rockets-Jazz will go the distance. "We'll go up there and give it our best and try to get a feel for what they're about right now."

If one game does not lead directly to the next ¡ª as the Rockets must hope, having lost their April 1 game to Utah ¡ª a postseason prelude offers at least an intense practice.

"We're going to prepare ourselves for the playoffs," Rockets guard Tracy McGrady said. "There's no doubt about that. Everything is set. We know who we're playing. We know where we're playing. We're going to prepare like it's a playoff game (today). We're trying to win the ballgame regardless of who is out there.

"We've got to go up there and win the game."

In that respect, playing the Jazz tonight before playing the Jazz this weekend does not change things. With the Rockets bringing a five-game winning streak to Salt Lake City, they are on a roll they would like to maintain when the regular season makes way for the postseason.

"You always play to win," guard Rafer Alston said. "You don't want to look at the fact you're locked into the matchup. You want to play to win, sharpen up your skills, sharpen up the things you need to work on. For us, we're on a winning streak. We want to stay in rhythm. I think that's what we need to do ¡ª just stay in a basketball rhythm and a flow that we like."

Coach Jeff Van Gundy hadn't decided whether to sit or, to some degree, rest his regulars. Dallas and San Antonio have given players a few late-season nights off, but not against teams they were about to face in the playoffs.

With the Jazz struggling since beating the Rockets but coming off a home rout of Portland on Monday, Utah coach Jerry Sloan said he would play his usual rotation and play to win.

"Any time you go out there, you owe it to whoever you play in front of to play as hard and as well as you can," Van Gundy said. "I'm not a believer that one game affects the next. We have a lot of work to do, obviously. I don't think what happens in that game will have an impact on what happens in the series.

"We've got a lot of studying to do. We're going to have to play very well against a very good team. I feel like the team is going to play really hard."

Van Gundy said home-court advantage brings no guarantees, then emphasized that the idea is to be good enough to win and keep winning.

"As I'm trying to convey to the team, home-court advantage has no bearing until a possible seventh game," Van Gundy said. "You don't play seven at home. Home-court advantage is only in a deciding seventh game, and it means nothing if you don't play well. I think home-court advantage is sometimes a little misunderstood. When players say, 'Now we're going home; we've got our crowd,' that helps in the last three or four minutes.

"You have to play the whole 48. Then, I do believe if you're playing well, the crowd can help you over the last three or four minutes. I don't want to diminish it. But for so many guys who never had home-court advantage, it can be misunderstood. It's not about a crusade to win one series. You want to be a championship-caliber team. That's what we want to be."