As I watched Tracy McGrady the last two games against the Clippers and against the Magic, I noticed something that piqued my curiosity. As he was running back on defense, the opposing player would be trying to initiate a fastbreak. Tracy is positioned in the middle of the court and would point at the player advancing the ball down the right side. He would then also be yelling at his teamate who is on the farside (left side) of the court, who was also running back on defense, to pick up the ball handler. I don't rember the players involved in the Clippers game, but in the Magic game, Lowery was the player on the opposite side of the ball. As Tracy was running back pointing and yelling, Lowery scowled, pointed and yelled back as if to say that it was indeed Tracy's responsibility to pick up the ball. The same thing happened in the Clippers game the night before. Did anyone else notice what I saw on TV? Are the Rockets defending the fast break differently then they did Tracy played last year? Is Lowery confused as to what his responsibility is on defending the break? It seems to me that there might be confusion there. It is strictly my opinion, but it seemed to me that Tracy did not want to pick up the player advancing the ball. I might be that my interpretation of the sequence is off. God knows how people can all look at the same situation and have different interpretations of what happened.
..................the leftover residue of the Van Gundy era when McGrady was Mr. Primo and it was his teammates job to cover for him............... doesn't fit with Rick
I think it worked in the earlier part of Rick's day, too. Afterall, McGrady did play for Rick for quite a while before having that surgery. In Chris Ballard's book, "The Art of a Beautiful Game," the authord said that Battier was glad to have a defensive partner in Ron Artest, who was eager to take on the other team's best player. The author quoted Battier commenting about the difference between Ron and McGrady. Battier said something like "With McGrady, he would point at a guy all the way across the court, telling me to pick him up. And I'd have to run across the court to do it." With Ron, it's totally night and day." I am guessing Tracy was doing that pointing that Ballard described.
I hope so. People have said this is AB's team now instead of McGrady's. I say it's Adelman's team and needs to stay this way indefinitely. McGrady may be learning this. I can't wait until he's traded before February and we can close the book on this guy. JVG's biggest mistake here was allowing McGrady to be top man on the pole.
Tracy has played for Rick long enough to know how the team wants to defend the break though. Different philosophies aside, I've always been told that the first thing that needs to be done is pick up the player advancing the ball on the break. The only time I see that you don't want to commit too early is if you're the only one back on defense, 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 situations. If you have help, then the closest man picks up the ball correct?
Agreeing with someone is considered trolling? DD has more haters on this board than t-mac. t-mac fans are officially more annoying then YOF. which is saying something.
T-mac has to stop telling his team mates what to do on D - I agree on that one. I wonder why T-mac is still doing this - I would think RA would tell him how to defend the break and that getting more minutes is partly based on him making the right adjustments
Seriously though, this team relies so much on chemistry and hustle. That play running back on defense against the Magic is pretty much the antithesis of everything that this team stands for.
Yeah, that stuff isn't going to fly now as this is a true team with a monocle wearing dictator. Also, Tracy needs to forget about being embarrassed and attempt to manup ...even if he is far from 80%.
How about "It was terrible effort and terrible D to not put a hand up to contest Ryan Anderson's 3 point shot?" In any case, when McGrady was playing 40 mpg and carrying the offense almost exclusively, I get how you might want thim to have a break on D. But when you are playing 7-8 mpg? Seriously? You want the Lowrys and Battiers of the world to do you dirty work?
I saw that to, I think T-mac was definitely slacking to pick up his man on the fast break on those plays. Thinking that his offensive excellence and playmaking abilities should be excluding him from these roles is not going to work from his teamates anymore, they all have a different mentality of the team concept now. If he learns to commit more, I do feel he has great capabilities in the defensive area also. The question is if.
From what I was able to observe, his shot is there, but he is still missing his elevation and lateral quickness. If this is the case, then I don't see why he is complaining that he is not getting enough minutes. The Feigan blog: http://blogs.chron.com/nba/2009/12/magic_102_rockets_87_mcgrady_d.html states that Tracy feels that he is ready to have his minutes increased.
