WHEN the final buzzer sounded Wednesday night at Toyota Center, it signaled the end of the regular season.

Next up: the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

For the rookies so integral to the Rockets’ success — Luis Scola, Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry — the regular season was like a series of 82 pop quizzes. But the NBA playoffs are more like final exams.

The younger players insist they’ve gotten enough schooling in the last few weeks to properly prepare them for the tough tests they will be taking over the upcoming weeks.

They feel that the jockeying for playoff seeding in the wild, wild Western Conference race has properly prepared them for the pressure of playoff basketball. To them, the Rockets have practically been in the playoffs anyway, with so many big games during the regular season’s dying days.

“That Utah game was a wake-up call for me,” said Landry, referring to Monday’s 105-96 loss in Salt Lake City. “Just knowing how hard teams come to play, how physical you need to be when you’re out there and how high your focus level has to be.”

“Rookie or not, it doesn’t matter when you come to play. I think everybody’s ready to play, but like I said, we’re going to play whoever’s helped us the most. And that’s the way it has to be,” Scola said.

(SD-Agencies)