HOUSTON – The Houston Texans finally figured out how to hold a lead.

With just one victory this season, they handled the injury-plagued Arizona Cardinals on Sunday for a 30-19 win. But the Texans may have jeopardized their chances of landing Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush in the draft if he leaves Southern California.

Funny thing was, the scoreboard in the $449 million Reliant Stadium wasn’t working properly for most of the second half and Houston wasn’t able to revel in seeing its lead in lights. Before Sunday, the Texans had seen three consecutive winnable games slip away in the final minute.

Players were jubilant about breaking a six-game losing streak and getting a win at home in December for the first time in team history, but some fans didn’t share the feeling. Late in the fourth quarter, a sad-looking young man held up a homemade sign reading “Bye Bye Bush.”

Houston (2-12) is now tied with San Francisco for the worst record in the NFL after the 49ers lost to Jacksonville 10-9 on Sunday. The Texans face San Francisco in the season finale on New Year’s Day.

The Texans only managed a pair of field goals in the second half after taking a 24-10 halftime lead. The Cardinals played with third-string quarterback John Navarre for the entire second half after Kurt Warner injured his knee in the second quarter and backup Josh McCown didn’t return after halftime because flulike symptoms.

Arizona (4-10), which entered the game with 13 players on injured reserve, struggled in the third quarter before making a late run, adding a field goal and a touchdown in the fourth quarter to cut the lead to eight.

But this time Houston finished the game, recovering an Arizona fumble and tacking on a field goal with less than a minute to go to put the game out of reach.

The Texans were without running back Domanick Davis, but backups Jonathan Wells and Vernand Morency filled in nicely, combining for three rushing touchdowns.

Houston took advantage of a fumble by Arizona on a kickoff return and an interception in the second quarter to push a 14-10 lead to a 24-10 halftime advantage.

Navarre saw his second NFL action and the first since starting one game more than a year ago. He was more than a little rusty but came on late to go 14-of-24 for 174 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

Warner was having a good day, going 10-of-10 for 115 yards and a touchdown, before injuring his knee. McCown replaced him in the second quarter and stayed one series, but it was long enough to throw an interception that led to a field goal by Houston.

Arizona led 10-7 in the second quarter after Warner threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Anquan Boldin. Boldin had eight receptions for 134 yards to set a franchise record for consecutive 100-yard games with five.

Houston took a 17-7 lead when Morency wriggled away from two defenders before using a nifty spin move to coast 25 yards for his first career touchdown.

Neil Rackers kicked field goals of 26- and 42-yards for the Cardinals to tie an NFL record for field goals in a season by a team with 39.

Houston’s league-worst rushing defense got a break against the poor running Cardinals and allowed a season-low 39-yards rushing. The unit also finished with six sacks, including four on Navarre.

AP-ES-12-18-05 1707EST