As was said before many times by many posters, the return of Battier has given our team that balance. And opposing Wings are having fits about having two different looks in Ron Artest and Battier
Who said T-Mac put up those numbers against subpar teams? Didn't we beat the Nuggets a few days ago for Christ's sake? Anyhow, it is encouraging to see he's been playing well since his return. You can just tell by watching him he's feeling more comfortable out there. With a little polish he can be something close to old school T-Mac I think... close enough anyhow. Hope those numbers keep improving and he can stay healthy. Finally, it's just a matter of time before Artest becomes a more pronounced force on this team-whether it is coming off the bench or not. I have no doubt he'll continue to adjust and get better as the season progresses.
I LOVE the way Tmac is playing now. Earlier in the year he was chucking TOO much, now he is distributing. If we can get Tmac the distributor all year, this team has no limits. DD
Those aren't the most important McGrady stats to me. My favorite McGrady stats to look at are... FTA, 3PTA, FG%, ORPG He has looked great though, that 2-man game with Yao is coming back. Once he gets that first step and confidence back the pick n roll will once again devastate the opposition.
Excatly. We know he can score every time he wants, but if you double team him he is gonna make sure the open guy will get the basketball.
I was surprised to see TMac is shooting 43% from beyond the arc this season But only 41% overall. Still, pretty good considering he looks less than fully healthy.
He's actually shooting MORE though. The biggest difference in his game is not mental, it's physical. He has said he has nowhere near the pain in his knee he had at the beginning of the season and it shows. Since he's been back he has actually been able to get by his man (something he wasn't able to do earlier in the season) and that allows him to be more of a playmaker. It also opens up his jumper because guys can't play him so close.
Yeah, that is ideally McGrady's role on this team. We don't need, or perhaps even want, him to be the man the entire offense runs through-he doesn't need to be 35pts a night McGrady like when he was the only offense in Orlando. He is best suited as a playmaker, someone to keep the defense honest, then dish it out for the assist when he draws the double-while still scoring in the area of 20-25 a night. Yao is the focal point of the offense now, and that's something McGrady can work well with. But believe me, McGrady, if and when he wants, can become the scorer/game taker over he used to be; only in limited instances-i.e. important games, playoffs, etc. Just wait til he drops 43/10/12 to get us past the Lakers in game 7 of the western conference finals!
you can still see he's not healthy enough yet to resume all of his duties. as you can see when the shot clock winds down to end the quarter, the ball is rarely in tracy's hands. he's still not there physically. right now we are dependent on yao and he's delivering. but once tracy is healthier, he'll get more play calls. but yes, playmaking should be his primary role. he's arguably a top 5 playmaker regardless of position. but yes, he's putting up these stats now playing controlled and not fully healthy. i'm eagerly waiting what he can do when he's near full health.
Oh yeah, I definitely agree... as he gets healthier and more polished he's gonna get better and better. Let's just pray he doesn't get re-injured for more than a game or two-if at all.
I'm still concerned as to why he started playing like this in the first place. I know it shouldn't matter, but guys like wade and lebron are putting up similar numbers because they WANT to. It seems to me Tmac is doing it in response to the critics and also because he sees someone like Wade puttingt up a crazy stat line every night. He did this last year as well and then kinda faded back to jump shooting Tmac. In the playoffs he kind of went back to do it all Tmac, but the effort was wasted because of injuries...i just hope he realizes that even though it seems he's doing it all (he always says he cant do everything himself), he needs to take that approach for others to feed off of him. He is the highest paid player on the team afterall, a co-leader and co-best player. He needs to go out and TRY to do it all. It doesn't mean he'll have to, but trying pumps everyone else up, look at Brooks getting 9 boards, landry 11 in 20 mins, guys are following his example.
maybe b/c he's feeling healthier. last yr, he wasn't healthy at all. he needed painkiller injections just to play in the playoffs.
