I think T-Mac's complete lack of effort isn't the only disappointing factor so far. I think we could actually survive a couple of bad games from T-Mac IF our freaking bench decided to show up for a game or 2 in this series. Am I the only one completely sick of seeing Juwan Howard clang jumper after jumper he was consistently hitting in the regular season? Or how about not being able to even consider running a decent offense without Rafer on the court? I really felt like today would be the role players' chance to come out and set the tone, and really have a good game collectively. Boy, was I wrong. So far, especially in the last 2 games, Utah's bench has out-defended ours, and out-executed ours. You take away the effectiveness of guys like Harpring, Giricek, and Millsap, and you take away a lot of the effectiveness of the Jazz. I understand that we are only going to go as far as T-Mac is willing to take us, but it's not COMPLETELY on him. Now, with that being said, it's clearly obvious that Tracy is against the idea of driving it into the paint for some reason. Whether it's out of fear of getting fouled hard, or he doesn't want to risk injury, or if he just thinks that he can outshoot the Jazz, I don't know. But there needs to be a change in his mentality....NOW....otherwise our season is going to be done a lot sooner than we all had hoped for.
This is true. Even if the Rockets don't get past the first round, I believe in Tmac... to take a pay cut so we can acquire someone that has more passion in the playoffs.
Tracy McGrady's name should be mentioned in the same breathe as Kobe Bryant. PPPPPPPPPFFFFFFTTTTTTTT!!!!!!
Just a suggestion... Some athletes make statements like T-mac did to fire themselves up AND to hopefully fire up their teammates. In this instance it hasn't worked for the teammates. McGrady came out shooting good in the first few minutes of game 3. When his teammates couldn't contribute at the same level it no doubt dampened his enthusiasm. Yao got stripped of the ball 3-4 times in a row in the first period of game 3. He made a questionable statement considering the cast of role players he has. Before this series started he said this was the best team he's been on and he thought they had a great change to get past the 1st round. Maybe the Suns game at the end of the season helped to exaggerate the personnel in his mind. But the Suns don't play tough physical defense like Utah. They know that can outscore you most nights -- who needs to put much in to defense? When he first said it I thought, "That says more about how bad those other teams he was on were and not how good this Rockets team is." T-mac is acutely aware of Rafer's shooting woes and the other team weaknesses that many posters here have pointed out. But was he going to go into this series mentioning that?? No. You do your best to encourage your teammates. But in the wake of reality setting in over the last two games it would be hard for ANYBODY to not have a discouraged body language. No. This isn't on T-mac and he should have never felt that way or said so. This is on the fact that even going back to the summer we all realized, there has to be a third scoring threat to make teams pay for smothering Yao and T-mac. The Rockets don't have that player. Everyone hoped it would be Mike James and then Bonzi Wells. The third scoring option can't be a collective "three point shooting gallery." That's great to have in your arsenal. But it's too unreliable. Look for them to struggle without that "third option."
You can not blame one single player for the lose of game, if rockets can not win Jazz in this first round there must be some more important reasons other than one player.
I didn't watch the game so this is just my wild guess: Tmac is still afraid of injury. He knows he will get hammered if he drives, but at least he will get calls at home. Here in Utah, he would have got a lot less calls. From the box score, Rockets lost because of a lot less free throws. At home, the stat would have been in reverse. So, Rocket will have a good chance to win game 5 and game 7 because of home-court advantageg.
Yao is drawing fouls,grabbing boars and scoring points keeping us in games...he is playing pretty decnet.If t mac would drive to the hole more everytime and only pull up when he has too we would be alot more effective..the team is not effective right now because t mac is playing way below the level of where he should be...I think he thinks it's just suppose to come easy.
It is unfair to blame solely on Tmac's play. We can't hit a three. Utah realized that they don't need to worry about leaving our shooters open when guarding Tmac. Therefore, there is no space for Tmac to operate, and part of what we saw was sheer frustration that there are always three people on him. However, he got to take a pay cut, so that we have the cap room to sign someone who can share the load on the perimeter.
I don't think anything you said is actually wrong....we do need a third scoring option, and if that hasn't been painfully obvious, I don't know what has. However, how would you explain us winning 52 games in a very crowded West....not to mention going 20-12 without one of our only 2 options? I really believe that McGrady has personally WILLED us to probably 4-5 games alone this season, just by his performances alone. The one thing that Yao's injury did was it allowed McGrady to see that he still had all of the skills and talent he had before his back injury, and it allowed him to be aggressive and take this team on his shoulders for a long stretch, and put his mark on it. The one thing I was truly afraid of after Yao came back was McGrady reverting back to his old timid ways because he didn't want to feel like he wasn't "deferring" to Yao. I really hated it when reporters would ask him if he would be ok with deferring to Yao once he came back, because that's the absolute worst way of looking at it. Deferring implies that you're taking a back seat and that you're handing over the reigns of the team.....thats the exact opposite of what we need right now. We need BOTH superstars driving this team TOGETHER.....if Yao is clicking, ride him as much as possible. If anything, that will make it easier for T-Mac to take it inside, and open up his game as well. And, on top of that, the MORE T-Mac drives, the MORE he opens up room for his jumpshot....so everything really goes hand in hand, and right now, there's no flow to any aspect of the game the Rockets are playing. It's time for JVG to show T-Mac footage of those games when Yao was out....show him what penetrating into the lane does for the rest of guys...how it opens up Luther's 3 pt shot, how it gives Juwan room to hit that mid-range jumper, and how it ultimately gives Yao a chance to dominate the paint.
Just imagine what it would be like if you put Yao and Kobe together, that's all. Tracy and Yao, you're talking about first round. Kobe and Yao, you're talking about Championship. I know some Kobe hater is going to hit me, but they got to admit it.
I can't, but Tmac said so himself. I believe AstroRocket could back me up on this. He said this series is ON HIM. Everyone was looking up for him for leadership.. in ANY possible way. With that kind of talk, you'd expect him to go Kobe on them or something. His teammates were looking for him to lead they way in offense. And of course he failed at that. Now the least he can do when he can't sink his jumpers is to lead with emotions. Show some passion. Given that I stopped watching midway through the 3rd, I don't recall seeing Tmac getting all revved up and pumping his teammates to show some more effort. He looked like a kid that just rolled out of bed with 3 hours of sleep and very upset that he has to go to school. When the Lakers lose, people blame Kobe. When the Cavs lose, people blame Lebron. When the Wizards lose, people blame Gilbert. That's just a part of being the superstar and leader of your team. When Tmac boldly made those silly claims that this series against the Spazz is on him, he basically opened the window for any blame to go on him if the team loses.
Tmac is shooting below 37% in this series. Unreal considering how any other 2guard would be owning the Jazz right now. I mean they gave up so many career games to players this yr. But Tmac just aint a superstar anymore
When both yao and tracy advance past this ropund and beyond, i hope you foolos will all be exposed. i still believe in both yao and tracy.
Benben It's not about this round or any round, the way they're playing right now, even if they're lucky to pass this round, they're just waiting to get their azz sweep in the next round.
You better believe Rafer, Luther, and Juwan can shoot the lights out. Otherwise, we are going no where.
