Boston Herald: McGrady "I was a decoy tonight"

http://celtics.bostonherald.com/celtics/view.bg?articleid=66243

By Gus Martins
Tuesday, February 1, 2005

He was a two-time NBA scoring leader before the age of 25, but last night Tracy McGrady said a sore back left him in no condition to put up gaudy offensive numbers.
Instead, McGrady marveled at the fourth-quarter performance of teammate Jon Barry and felt reassured of his own contribution by guarding the red-hot Ricky Davis on the critical defensive stop of the night that gave the Rockets a 97-94 win over the Celtics at the FleetCenter.

``You just saw tonight I wasn't effective because of my back,'' he said. ``I was a liability tonight. I was a decoy tonight. But I took on the challenge of guarding Ricky Davis at the end when he missed that shot. He was rolling. I took on the challenge of guarding him on that last shot and I think I kind of (altered) his shot a little bit and he missed it and I think it was a key play during the last couple seconds of the fourth quarter.''

Davis (24 points) led all scorers in the fourth quarter with 17 points, while Barry had 15 for the Rockets in the same quarter. Yao Ming led the Rockets with 23 points in the game.

The Rockets ended a two-game losing streak. McGrady, who finished with 16 points on 5-of-14 shooting, admitted he didn't help much on the offensive end. But he was also heartened by the fact his team played strong mentally to win the game.

``I was just trying to find a way to play through it,'' he said. ``The other guys did a great job of picking up the slack for me and for the team. We came up with a big win. The Celtics did a great job of fighting their way back into the game, locking us down on the offensive end, making us rush our offense and getting us out of our offense. They were coming down and scoring and making shots.''

McGrady said Barry's contribution last night made the difference at a time when he was on the bench for the first four minutes of the final quarter.
``It meant a lot,'' he said. ``These guys are used to seeing me put 25-30 points on the board. Tonight, it just wasn't the night for me. For (Barry) to come off the bench and give us that spark, play with confidence and shoot the ball and get himself out of that funk he was in, hopefully he can continue to do that.''

While McGrady might have a reputation of heaving every shot he can muster, he said he now enjoys the fact that he doesn't have to have the ball in his hands all game, as was the case in Orlando, where he played the previous fourseasons.

``That took a toll on me,'' he said. ``I had the ball in my hands 95 percent of the time. Taking the majority of the shots and carrying the weight on my shoulder. That was really tough. It was a big burden on my shoulders. Now, I defer to Yao at times and he does the same.''

McGrady said he hopes the days of having to carry the load night in and night out are over.
``Everybody knows this team revolves around myself and Yao,'' he said. ``We are the keys to the team. But we all have roles on the team. I don't think me and Yao are fighting over whose team it is. We're all one unit. We're all on the same team. We go out and compete.''