Los Angeles  - The Houston Rockets had no problems passing their latest test against one of the league's best.

Yao Ming scored 28 points on 13-of-15 shooting, and the Rockets held the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers to a season-low point total en route to 93-74 victory on Thursday night.

"It is a big win," the Chinese superstar centre said. "We played against one of the best quality teams in this league. They have one of the top records and their quality is almost like playoffs. So, it is a really good test for us to see how far we can go."

Led by the 7-foot-6, Yao and a stellar defensive effort, the Rockets roared to their season-high sixth straight victory and ninth in a row at home.

"This probably is one of the best teams in the league, and we just wanted to see where we are at as a team," said Rockets guard Von Wafer, who contributed 19 points off the bench.

"We all know our roles, we just have to play off of Yao. If you want to be successful at the end of the day, you've got to play off of Yao and play really tough defence."

Yao scored 10 points in the third quarter, matching the Cavaliers' total, as the Rockets outscored their guests, 23-10, to turn a 45-40 halftime advantage into a commanding
68-50 cushion.

Houston (37-21) received 15 points from Ron Artest, who along with Shane Battier shadowed James. Argentine Luis Scola chipped in with 14 along with nine rebounds.

"I love to play defence, I always think defence first, but it's not going to be just me," Artest said. "Then, you have a guy like Shane that can give you a rest so it was definitely a team effort."

Mo Williams scored 21 points, James also had 21, but just one rebound and failed to record an assist for the first time in 497 regular-season and playoff games for Cleveland (44-12) which shot a season-low 34 per cent (27-of-80) from the floor.

"We just can't seem to get in a good flow against this Houston team," James said. "A lot of credit has to go to them as they are a very good team. Defensively, we played really well, but offensively, we couldn't make a shot."

Besides, having their five-game winning streak snapped, the Cavaliers lost defensive standout Ben Wallace, when the power forward/centre left at the 6:19 mark of the third quarter with a broken right leg after being unintentionally kicked by Yao fighting for a rebound in the second stanza.

"Yao kicked me, it was a freak accident," Wallace said. "I thought it was a calf bruise, and it would let up, but it never did. It is broke. I saw the white line in the X-ray.

The Cavaliers are projecting Wallace to miss four-to-six weeks.

"I definitely will be back for the playoffs, but hopefully before that," Wallace concluded. (dpa)