Yao was naturally the star for the noisy, sellout crowd of 17,000 at Wukesong Arena — the Beijing Olympics basketball venue_ even though he finished with only nine points and four rebounds.

After sitting out last season following surgery to repair a broken bone in his foot, he merely jogged back down the court while his teammates raced ahead, but there were also flashes of his soft touch, flicking the ball into the net above a swarm of defenders.

“We’re just trying to bring him along slowly but he’s gotten better every game. We’re very pleased with what’s happening,” Houston coach Rick Adelman said.

The Rockets have said they plan to limit Yao to 24 minutes per game this season, consulting with doctors as the season progresses to see if he can handle more.

Adelman acknowledged Yao was frustrated by the restriction, but said he planned to allow the center to play 24 minutes in one of their final two preseason games before their Oct. 26 season-opener against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Yao agreed that his limited playing time was for the best, though he admitted he was reluctantly getting used to it.

“Everything is geared toward letting me hold up longer,” he said. “Even little kids know, vegetables might not taste very good, but they’re good for you and healthy, that’s how it is.” Kevin Martin led Houston with 18 points and Aaron Brooks added 17.

Brook Lopez topscored for New Jersey with 22 points, while Terrence Williams came off the bench to add 20 and Devin Harris had 19.

Harris also had seven of the Nets’ 11 assists for the game.

“Our ball movement needs to improve,” coach Avery Johnson said. “We’re a team that takes pride on swinging the basketball and we didn’t swing it enough tonight.” The Rockets led for nearly the entire game. They jumped out to an early lead, finishing the first quarter ahead 33-23. The lead was by 11 at the half.

The Nets almost caught up in the third, using a 10-2 run to pull to 69-67 by the end of the quarter.

The game was originally slated to showcase a matchup between the two Chinese players in the NBA — Yao and Yi Jianlian, but the Nets traded the forward to the Washington Wizards in June.

The teams head to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou where they’ll play another preseason game on Saturday.