[FreeDarco.com] Nice words about T-Mac (Not a Rip McGrady Thread)

if funny how we were so destined to win this series i mean dont get my wrong i love my rockets but i always thought that the j*zz had so many players that could contribute much more than ours did. look at their team, they've got deron, okur, boozer, ak47 and harpring. any of those 4 guys can score at least 15 pts a night and can contribute some way to their team, while on our team we really only have tmac, yao and battier who would be able to contribute at least 15 points. in the end i think it really shows that we really need more depth because jho and head as the bench can't cut it.

 

When T-Mac came to Houston, I was at the press conference to welcome him. I have always loved the guy. But whatever T-Mac feels doesn't change my impression that he was capable of more in the playoffs. How many times in the playoffs did we see T-Mac's guy putting up an open shot as T-Mac jogged over belatedly? I'm tempted to say he played the worst defense of all our starters. On offense he should have taken it to the hole way more often. What's the point of saving your back in game 7 of the playoffs? Just waiting for someone with a good back to pull out the game 7 win next season? T-Mac blowing off the final shot of the half--in a playoff game when the Rockets are down--and just draining the clock at half court: mood too bad to shoot? Tear in the eye?

I was telling a friend that one reason I love the Rockets so much is that when T-Mac plays at his peak potential he does things like I've never seen before. Was it game two when he had three amazing offensive plays? Well game three was pretty much the last time I saw T-Mac shredding Utah that way.

I confess, before game 7 I felt deep in my heart that the Rockets were going to lose. I felt that because I didn't believe T-Mac (or Yao) was going to rip the game away from the Jazz. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that before game 7. I thought Boozer was going to rip it away from our guys, like one kid taking candy from another.

I don't really care that T-Mac cried or whatever, in terms of him being a great player or not. I've seen lots of people cry and never once was it because they gave it their all in game 7 of the playoffs. Just coz T-Mac cried doesn't say anything about what happened on the basketball court.

I'd rather have my guy crying after game 1 like Kirilenko, not game 7.

 

I'll tell you what made me uneasy going into Game 7. Aside from the fact that the Rockets barely won Game 5 on their home floor. It's that T-Mac said after Game 6 that Game 7 wasn't the biggest game of his career.

The wishful thinking part of me said he only made that comment strategically to take pressure off himself and his teammates. But after seeing how he and the rest of the Rockets came out and performed in the first half of Game 7(as well as most of the series), it's obvious he doesn't get what it takes to win in the playoffs.

Remember how Dream in his prime years would be a dominant player in the regular season and suddenly take it up another notch the minute the postseason started? Remember how during the championship years(particularly the 2nd title run) he got progressively better in each round? Dude turned it up about 5 notches by the time he faced off against David Robinson.

Obviously it's unfair to hold T-Mac to the standard of Dream both as an NBA player and a Houston icon, but my point is that I didn't see McGrady elevate his game in any way this postseason. Oh sure, he had stretches where he was brilliant. The 3rd quarter of Game 1 for example. But that followed a first half where he scored a single point. His shooting percentage went down. His 3-point shooting was awful. His free throw accuracy remained inconsistent(and was costly in Game 7). We never saw him get in any of his teammates' faces when they kept bricking open looks. I don't see the intensity in this guy that the great playoff performers have.

That's why while I felt bad for him following the Game 7 loss, I didn't feel sorry for him. He said he tried. But I didn't see him trying hard enough. His numbers were decent. But it's not just about numbers. It was his demeanor on the court. He looked lifeless out there at times. When he should've been getting pissed off(the 2nd half of Game 4 for example), he was coasting and settling for jumpers or yucking it up on the bench with teammates.

Maybe T-Mac is one of those guys that just needs to taste defeat a whole bunch of times before he takes that next step towards being a champion. But this is not like MJ needing to overcome great teams like the Celtics and Pistons who were standing in his path. This is a guy who's had 3-1, 2-0(coming home), and 2-0(with Game 7 at home) leads in his last 3 playoff series and he failed to close out any of them. At some point, we need to stop blaming the losses on drawing a tough first round opponent or having a coach who's the wrong fit and realize it might just be the alleged superstar the team was built around.

 

The man had 13 points, 7 assists and 3 rebounds by the half. What more do you expect from him? His shooting was off but he was creating for other people. Our bench performed woefully throughout the series, but honestly, you can only put so much on T-Mac and Yao.

 

look, i love tmac. he's my favorite player, and i DO feel really bad for him.

but i just get the feeling that he didn't take everything as seriously as he couldve. for example, i saw an interview with him in the beginning of the playoffs where he said he didn't read the scouting report, because 'i know what they're going to do already'. well, fine. but the jazz made their adjustments and came down from 0-2. did they read the scouting report? tmac's d is (other than his shot) what failed him most this series, and i have to think that a lot of it has to do with his attitude towards preperation. do you think kobe reads the scouting reports?

i obviously dont know here, but i just get the feeling that tmac needs to be the second star in order for him to advance--i don't think he'll ever be able to carry a team alone.

 

We lost because we didn't play with the best effort, most energy and dedication.

TMac played good overall, however, he didn't play at high level consistently for 48 minutes and for all 7 games. Crying doesn't make him strong

Yao played well below expectation (I guess he never played well in playoff). He dominated in the regular seasons by jump shoots, but his shoots didn't fall in this playoff series. What makes him look bad is that he was single covered by Okur.

Shane makes a lot of small things (not my words), however, he didn't contribute well offensively. He made impact in game 5 by making 5 3pointers.

Rafer is consistent that his shoots normally will not fall, and percentage is in 30s. I don't expect him to play better during more physical playoff.

Hynes played the best on the team, however, he is the guy making miminum wage, and he couldn't create his own shoots.

Our wonderful bench (JHoward, Head) is the biggest dsiappointment.

I would blame the bench first, then Yao, TMac, Shane.

As for coach, JVG is a very good coach, but one dimentional. What he sees is defense and defense. He didn't realize that a player pay more efforts to defense, he will have less energy for offense. The effort on both offense and defense do not bring back linear benefits. Initially the benefits will be huge, and gradually diminishing. He didn't realize it and find the balance point which would yield the best different in offense points - defensive points allowed.

 

people need to stop blaming our D like JVG ALWAYS does. no matter how good ur defense is, u need to score.

look at the jazz scoring at will right now and we held them to like 92-93ppg regularly on about 41-42% shooting. they scored on us in the latter part of the series but eventually they will b/c they're a great offensive team. they did shoot 47% during the season.

but look at how balanced the scoring is for all the teams still playing right now. baron davis is the best player of the playoffs and yet he doesn't have to carry all the load. look at boozer scoring without being first option on his team. they can afford to go to okur or hapring late and so on.

for us, we need yao/tmac to be SENSATIONAL all the time or we won't beat good teams. we rarely have 2 guys other than our stars step up consistently. our offense needs more work than anything.

the days of 2 superstars winning are closing b/c all the good teams now have multiple offensive players. when u have that, IT'S HARD TO KEY IN ON ONE PLAYER. utah keyed on yao early in the series in games 1 and 2. then keyed on tmac the rest of the series.

yet the role players still didn't step up.

 

i dont think this was CLOSE to his best offensive season. and i think the lack of an offseason last yr due to sitting down all day and ballooning up out of shape due to his back hurt him. he didn't go all out in the playoffs like he ALWAYS does.

tmac was not at his best this yr offensively. i think give him an offseason where he can train to work himself IN SHAPE as the season starts and has a rhythm to start the season, u see him less inconsistent.

yes, that was NOT the playoff tmac. i think tmac recognizes that. his jumper was god awful.

 

i agree he didn't take his game to "another" level this playoffs. but he always has in the past. and that was what disapointing to me.

again, LACK OF OFFSEASON. just unfortunate his jumper was bad during this stretch. just like a lot of stretches during the reg. season. the inconsistencies of his J killed him. again lack of offseason => no rhythm at all throughout the season.

 

dude NOBODY reads the scouting reports. except for yao or coaches. kobe doesn't read scouting reports and he admitted that. he sits by himself to watch videos on his computers to learn what he has to learn. tmac most likely watches videos too.

we all knew tmac wasn't at his best this yr offensively and this postseason. i think any normal person would know ihs J is off. give him an offseason. i can't emphasize that enough.

 

well said. its unfortunate others cannot grasp this simple concept. Also, really battier isnt even a good source for 15 pts a game. Chances are rafer would be the best bet to score over 15 a game after yao and tmac...thats not good.

 

I really feel that T-Mac's scoring ability might improve if it wasn't for the fact that the Rockets expect him to not only score his points but also create opportunities for everyone else, too. It's nice that he has the ability to rack up assists but that doesn't mean he ought to be the team's point guard game in and game out. That's not why they traded for him.

 

then GET another guy who can at least penetrate to draw double teams. kobe has odom. bron has hughes.

tmac has rafer and his floater. no one even comes close to pack the paint when rafer drives.

 

I don't think people are ignoring the theme of the thread. I think it's just that a lot of fans don't feel all that sorry for the guy. Sure, it sucks that he's never made it out of the first round.

But this isn't Kevin Garnett who was always the underdog in his first round matchups(with the exception of one season which not so coincidentally was his MVP year when they made it to the Conference Finals). T-Mac has blown 3 consecutive first round playoff series where he led 3-1, 2-0, and 2-0 respectively.

 

I'll cut him some slack on the Pistons loss. He shouldn't have opened his trap about making it to the 2nd round before actually making it to the 2nd round. But Orlando was the 8th seed, so it's not a shocker that Detroit came back from a 3-1 deficit once they started playing serious basketball(much like Phoenix and the Fakers a year ago).

Losing to Dallas was a choke job though. Not entirely his fault. Yao had a terrible series, in part due to the refs screwing him over, particularly in Game 4. But you can't absolve T-Mac of all the blame.

And this year he deserves a lot of the heat. Not just because he said it was on him if the Rockets didn't get out of the first round, but also because he frankly did not have a good series.

Let's look at the games the Rockets lost. T-Mac was terrific in the first 10 minutes of Game 3. He sucked the rest of the way. He was good in the first half of Game 4. He didn't show up(along with the rest of the team) for the 2nd half. He was decent through the first 3 quarters of Game 6 and was downright awful in the 4th, coughing up the ball twice in a row when the Rockets had a shot to take the lead. And he was terrible in the first quarter in Game 7 and no showed in the last half of the 4th quarter.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the good things about the players and the team as a whole. But when you fail to get out of the first round yet again and have now endured playoff futility for over a decade, looking at the glass as half full ain't gonna help. We need to look at the half that's empty and figure out how to fill it. T-Mac needing to play better is one aspect that can't be overlooked.

 

People can say what they want about Tmac doing all he could but they are wrong. This series was right there, ready to be taken if Tmac would have stepped up. Yeah, I know, it would have taken a superhuman effort to do it. Superhuman like Jordan did for over a decade, or Hakeem did for many years or what Wade did in last year's finals or even what Tmac has done in playoffs past.

The supporting cast faltered but they don't have the max deal, they didn't say "it's on me." Tmac was brought here to be THE GUY so stop letting him off the hook for "giving a good effort" or whatever some people are excusing him with.

This team would be playing Golden State right now if Tmac had seized the opportunity he is always crying about not having.

 

The Rckets Must get a distributor pg to take the pressure of mac and let him concentrate on what he does best and thats score the ball. it's almost unfair that he has to creat for others and score and play defense all the while he has the entier defense of the opposing team trying to shut him down with triple teams. get him a Real pg.