http://msn.foxsports.com/story/3324270 Rockets on the move ... finally Mike Monroe / Special to FOXSports.com Posted: 2 hours ago It shouldn't be a surprise that the Rockets, who travel to San Antonio on Saturday, have suddenly become the latest of the NBA's runnin'-and-gunnin' teams, having averaged 110.6 points through its last five games. Tracy McGrady is beginning to feel more comfortable in his new home, and its showing in his production. (Bill Baptist / GettyImages) After all, their offense is led by a guy who scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds the last time the Rockets played the Spurs at Toyota Center, back on Dec. 9. On Dec. 1 Tracy McGrady — he's the guy who scored the 13 points in 35 seconds — ranked 24th in the league in scoring. After Thursday's win over the Nets, McGrady was fifth, at 24.7 per game. It is no stretch to suggest McGrady will be solidly back in the hunt for a third straight scoring title by the time the All-Star break rolls around, especially with Kobe Bryant apparently on the shelf for a few weeks with his severely sprained ankle. What is a surprise is that the Rockets have jumped on the racehorse basketball bandwagon, what with Jeff Van Gundy still presiding over their bench. But Van Gundy seems to have embraced the notion his team can have an offensive identity, even as it continues to struggle to find the defensive identity for which his teams always have been known. The only thing worse than struggling to maintain an indentity, Van Gundy told a few of us earlier this season, is not having any identity at all. The Rockets scored 124 points against Dallas on Wednesday night, their most this season. They made a season-high 61 shots and, most telling of all, had 35 assists, a number that matched the high figure in the league this season. Over the past 14 games, the Rockets have averaged 101.6 points on 47 percent shooting. Before that stretch, the Rockets were averaging 86.9 points on 42.1 percent shooting through 22 games. The Rockets scored 100 points seven times in the last 13 games. They had 100 twice in the first 22 games. The offensive surge has developed since the Rockets added Jon Barry and David Wesley through separate trades, so give some of the credit to general manager Carroll Dawson. "I feel it's coming," McGrady recently told the Houston Chronicle. "Adding those two guys (Barry and Wesley), they're starting to get a great feel for this team. I definitely think we're starting to gel. Playing this inside-out game has been unbelievable for my part. Yao (Ming) is doing a great job getting great post position down there and opening things up for me and my teammates. "Yao is such a big force down there, it's hard to come off his body. You come off his body, he's going to score down there in the paint." While McGrady is the guy who makes the Rockets go offensively, Barry and Wesley have helped get them running. The Rockets' 12-6 surge over the last six weeks, that has gotten them to 19-17 as they prepare to face the Spurs again, also corresponds to Bob Sura's having discovered how to play effectively on a gimpy right knee that had to be drained on Tuesday. How does 35 points on 16 shots for Sura in Thursday's win over the Nets sound for efficient and effective? The Rockets have been more up-tempo and effective since the trades, but Sura's toughness has been downright inspiring. "As far as his (knee) injury, it's not something minor," Van Gundy said. "Very, very few other guys in this league would still be playing right now. He's got a toughness that's unique. It's not just physical, because that's part of it too, but his mental toughness to allow pain to not deter him. "He knows we're in dire straits. That's why Sura has great credibility as far as leading. Everybody knows what he's going through, and everybody sees how hard he's playing. So if he says, 'We've got to go play hard,' that's credible. If a guy says, 'We've got to play hard,' and he's the dog, it goes in one ear and out the other. So that's why, to me, Sura is credible, very credible. Because when he says energy and he says toughness, that's how he plays." If Sura holds up and McGrady keeps moving up the scoring list, the Rockets are going to be as formidable a team as a lot of us predicted they would be before the season began.
