he hesitates way too much. as soon as he catches the ball he needs to go instead of letting guys set D and double teams come. he also makes too many moves and fakes. needs to go back to making 1 solid move and going/shooting. he shoots better in rhythm and flow. just catching the ball and going automatically brings fluidity to his game. other than that i love the guy and how much he brings to the table. am i just completely off or what yall think?
Well, that is one problem with his game. I think that problem is because he has absolutely no reservations about taking a fade way 19 footer when doubled. Getting to the rim is not a priority many times and you can see that when he has the ball. You can almost see him thinking: "I'll dribble around a bit, see if I can beat my guy and if he stops me I'll dish the ball to someone else or take a few hard dribbles right and shoot the fade away," That isn't a bad shot in his opinion.
I don't know why he doesn't drive. I know his lane was fairly clogged. But at the beginning of the season he was driving at will. I think he must be still banged up.
Driving makes sense if you have a solid jumpshot with which to bait your defender. The Jazz would rather have Tmac shoot than drive anyways, so they arent going to bite on fakes. Considering we are offensively challenged, Tmac is going to have to make those heat checks, bad as they are, or its 4-1. Scola used to make mid range jumpshots consistently ... this alone would would free tmac to drive some more ... sigh
Of course he has enough causes to hesitate. He has so many people telling him to shoot more, but he is only hitting like 40%. When he drives inside the lane, he either doesn't get calls or though he gets calls, he can't make fts. When he try to jump shot, he miss them too. He may has other people telling him to let the ball flow and let the team play instead of himself dominating the ball too much. But when he does pass to open teammates, they miss open shots badly. If I were him, I would be damn confused by now.
I didn't know where post this so I post it here, why there is no thread on Bobcats firing Sam Vincent?
the problem with mcgrady isn't with his game. it is with his head, his attitude. the "it's all on me" comment was silly, but it at least showed he had cared. now it's like "i don't care" and "it's all my fault". the guy doesn't have the drive to prove the world wrong any more. as gifted as he is, i'm just too freaking tired of his "i imposed my will (against the t-wolves or bobcats)", "i'm tired", "none of my teammates can create his own shots", "landry mistimed his jump", "bang with harparing and play 43 minutes, that's a lot" type of comments. it's one thing to not know how to speak properly in public, it's another when you always find excuses for yourself. this is not about which individual has or has not advanced past the 1st round. this is about helping the hardest working team succeed. i don't think mcgrady is the one who can help this team achieve that. not at all. i don't feel he's the one you'd want to go to war with, no matter how gifted he is.
There was a huge difference between his touches in Game 3 and the 1st quarter in Game 4. I noticed that he made his moves much quicker. He made a runner in the lane while driving to his right once, and on an ensuing play he posted and went left for a short fadeaway. Both were tough and aggressive shots. These are nice mid-range shots that make TMac TMac b/c not everyone can do this. We can only wonder why these types of runners and mid range shots disappear late in the game. Forget dunks and layups, those are few and far between especially against this team.
yes. that is my feeling. this year is the first time he doesn't care about all the criticism any more. i could be wrong, but to me it's evident. he has lost much of his drive.
Chiming in. I think he does care but not like he used to. I think his first year in Houston he was out to make a point, start forging a legacy of winning and get this team to a Championship. We all know he played one of the best 7 game series in league history. When the Rockets lost in game 7 to the Mavs I think he was even more fired up and you could tell that when he came back the next season looking like he had spent his entire summer lifting weights and working on his game. I'm telling you right now had the back issue not destroyed his season you would have seen him get the MVP and play the best ball of his career. Of course, it wasn't to be and the Rockets went to the lottery. Now that takes us to last season where he came into camp fat, slow, and obviously rusty to say the least. His morale was shot and the back issue was lingering and haunting him mentally. Then he found the witch doctor who fixed his back. He rounded into decent form and once again carried a team to the playoffs when Yao went down. There he did his best to get this team out of the first round but came up short and faded in the 4th quarter of game 7. He wasn't the player he had been before but he still gave the team everything he had. I have not seen anything close to fire and determination he had in his first few seasons here since the game 7 loss last season. I get the feeling he has decided what is important to him in his life and his basketball legacy isn't that high on his priority list anymore.
he doesn't care? 23.3, 8.5, 7.8, 2spg, 1bpg. you don't get all-around stats like that if you don't care. if he makes his fts and jumpers, you could be looking at 28-29 ppg right now. just b/c you're not making shots don't mean you're not caring. did you see the look of his eyes in game 1 and 2? did you see the shock in his eyes and frustration when the refs call that flop for ak? did you see his determination in game 3? did you see how badly he wanted to take over in game 4 but jsut coudln't get his shot to fall (he took 12 shots in the 3rd quarter alone)? if you want to see a player that doesn't care, watch carmelo anthony in game 3: no rebounds, no passing, no defense, not even looking to move on offense... i'm fine with you criticizing tmac about his pathetic shooting or his pathetic lack of focus to knock down fts, but please do not knock the man's wanting to win. that's the thing you just cannot knock. even barkley, magic, collins, and kenny smith all have said in a convincing tone that tmac is trying his hardest out there. but when your jumpshot sucks, you're just not gonna look as pretty. like i said, if he just makes 43-44% of his Js and 75% of his fts, he'd be averaging 28-29ppg right now. and you all would say he's the best plaeyr in the world PLAYING EXACTLY THE SAME WAY.
I honestly think 2 things stopped him from driving like early in the season: 1) No Yao Ming, this is obviously 1st and foremost. With Yao he had a lane cleared out and he had his bail out man in Yao. Landry/Scola/Deke are capable bail out men, but obviously not Yao Ming. 2) FT Shooting. I think he is scared of getting fouled and going to line, he is damn terrible at line and either he doesn't want to fix, doesn't care to fix, or can't fix. Either way, he knows and and we know it, so I'm sure Jazz know it and are ready to foul him, which scares him.
TMAC cares, but he's not as self motivated as he used to be. It really seems like he needs to feel disrespected by his opponent or the refs before he starts being aggressive. If he gets fouled hard and it's not called or if AK flops, then normally he comes back and attacks. He'll play and he'll try hard, but he won't get the "fire" by himself. I think TMAC's shot selection has gotten worse. The "hold the ball for 8 seconds, no dribble/1 dribble, 20 foot contested jumper" has got to go as does the "quick heat check 3". Actually, he should just stop taking 3's completely. We cringed whenever Bonzi took a 3 because we knew it wasn't a shot he could hit with regularity. Well, TMAC hasn't been much better. A sub-30% 3 PT shooter shouldn't be attempting 4.5 3's per game. Of the Rockets that have attempted at least 50 3's, he's been the worst. At some point you just have to realize that you're not making those shots and that you should probably stop looking for them. He's still a good shooter, the problem is that he's not getting (or working) for open shots. So he takes contested jumpers or takes shots that are out of his range. That's going to bring anyones shooting percentage down. He's still a great facilitator but I feel that sometimes he looks to pass when he has a shot and he shoots when he should look to pass. I also think that sometimes TMAC drives and looks for the foul instead of trying to finish. That's kind of stupid because 1)the refs haven't been calling that foul consistently and 2)he's turned into one crappy FT shooter.
he was 100% healthy in that series though. you can obviously see htat. he's probably around 70% right now. tmac's shot will be better if he's in better shape (b/c NBA uses their legs on their shot A LOT). he just needs to work his stamina/conditioning/endurance.
i am not saying he's not wanting to win. but wanting to win ain't equal drive and the "care" i was talking about. does he have the "care" to improve his poor ft's? all season long? of which aspects of his game has he improved this season? has he ever tried to pick up the leadership role when it is needed in the postseason? from "it's all on me" to "not passing the first round ain't gonna define who i am" - to me that is a big change. only this time a mental escape and dodging responsibility. a little harsh, but it truly is imo. and please, when talking about mcgrady, a great player and a nice person, don't bring in punks like camelo into the conversation.
yes, then and like his orlando days almost all of his jump shots were in a rhythm making his shooting motion fluid and smooth.
T-Mac's problem is his health. Nobody stays consistently hot shooting the jumper. The difference between T-Mac and guys like Kobe or LeBron is that when their jumper isn't falling they can finish around the basket. T-Mac can't. What's more his health is going to continue to deteriorate as time goes on. He's already showing the classic symptoms of wear and tear--problems with his joints and back.
