[CHRON] McGrady: Rockets' success hinges on team, not him

Unfortunately, this year, it is on him. We can't win if he plays like he has been lately.

 

Tracy McGrady has carried this team to this record, like it or not but he has done it along with other teammates.

What aparts from last season is that Rockets are much deeper at every position. There's shaggy Scola, lighty Brooks, powerful Landry and even Novak and Harris are here, improved Novak ofcourse. Along with that we can rely on playoff experienced Bobby Jackson and that is a an advantage.

But Rockets aren't what they were, Olajuwon era is over - to find another great like him could take decades and decades. Rockets gotta rely on what they have and they're pretty handicaped with lost of Yao Ming, Steve Francis and probably Rafer Alston in the playoffs.


It seems they can accomplish something big every year and they fall down with stupid games. But face it, Utah was better last year, from my stand of view they're pretty even now with us and are prety pesky away team and thats important to get the home games won and hca if it comes to seventh ball game.


They still gonna have to come to ... Houston

 

Ugh. McGrady : It's on me

"OH HE'S SO CONCEITED DUSNT NOOOO TEH TEAM CONCAPT.


FFS people this is ridiculous.

 

whatever happens, this is not the t-mac of past. That is both a good and a bad thing. Bad because he is a less effective scorer, good because he relies more on his teammates.

Tmac should not get the brunt of the blame for a first round exit, he should also not get the majority of the credit should we advanced. If you look at how this particular team has won this year, the entire team was playing at an incredible level.

Dear God, even rafer was looking like a borderline all-star for a stretch.

 

Looks like Tmac is for real. Dished 11 assists tonight and shot less. Way to go T.

 

last yr was the only yr that he had a legitimate shot of winning , shutup, 28 pts , 7, 6 48% game 7 plz dont bring choker up...the guy couldn't have done anything else...yao is the one that should take the blame along with rafer

 

If he couldnt have done anything else in game 7 of last year's playoffs, then we need to get rid of him this offseason.

Did you watch the game? Numbers arent everything. He put up good numbers, but he disappeared in the last few minutes.

When the game is on the line, the star players are supposed to step up. Tmac chose to defer to his teammates.

 

He actually scored or assisted on every bucket the Rockets had in the last 3 minutes of game 7.

They couldnt grab any rebounds and had a ridiculously low amount of possessions, and that's why they lost. Assistant coach should've put Deke in the game.

 

then i guess we should have traded yao a few years ago. he disappeared a few times completely v. the mavs. and he was not close to dominant v. the jazz

tmac assisted on all but 7 buckets in game 7. blame him for the road games where he didn't play well. but please, he DOMINATED like any star should in games 5 and 7.

 

Yes, cause Deke could have grabbed those long rebounds. Long rebounds are typically grabbed by the guards/wings. Deke also definitely would have helped offensively too during those few and crucial offensive possessions, cause 4 on 5 is a winning formula.

Besides not being able to make stops, the main culprit for the loss of game 7 was not being able to make Utah pay for being in the penalty early in the fourth.

 

What do you expect a person do when the rebounds don't bounce any where close to your way?

Fly towards the rebound superman style?

Seriously he was ALL of the offence in the 4th. When the game is on the line the superstar player (Yao, Mcgrady) are meant to get rebounds. Didn't happen either. Its all good and nice to pay out Mcgrady but it was the whole team not being able to pick up rebounds.

Honestly you guys are ridiculous. What do you expect Mcgrady to do? not talk to the media? Tell him to shutup? don't like what he says, don't listen. No one was asking you to listen. Half of you can't even understand what Yao says to the media, because its not even in your own language. Its all good and all to bag him out about what he says, it doesn't cover up the fact he was in a flawed system, noone was able to get a rebound and our mismatches were exploited throughly.

I don't understand why its so hard to understand his responding in his comments to the changes in the team. Is hate making you all too irrational to think? What he says is perfectly logical. Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean what he says is a excuse or a ridiculous statement.

 

besides not making the stops?

not making the stops were everything?? Why don't we trade Yao then, he let Boozer run wild all series. Didn't get many stops all series if you ask me.

 

To everyone who shares this sentiment:

How about he shuts the hell up about who it's on?

Just play the game T-Mac. You owe us a big playoff series - you decide what form that comes in. It's on YOU to figure if you need to score or pass, and it's on you to beat single coverage and hit your FT's. Just play like a Star.

Score efficiently when open or on single coverage (FG%, 3pt% and FT%), pass efficiently vs double teams (asst), don't turn it over (TO), and make sure you don't get burned by the weaker of the two swingmen (Battier picks up the tougher of the 2). Oh and don't change your gameplan if it's the end of the game - same thing.

 

McGrady can't stop Williams if he were to matchup with him. By your logic, let's trade him then. Because basically that's a similar matchup, a center guarding a power-forward. And not just any power-forward, their best offensive big man.

If you ask me, both McGrady and Yao had it bad in that series. McGrady didn't have to worry about defending their best perimeter offensive player. He was however heavily relied on to generate offense for himself and the role players. Yao on the other hand had to worry about both sides of the ball. Defend their best big and generate offense for himself and the role-players. Both had to contend with Utah's physical defense allowed by the refs.

 

First of all, as its been stated many times, yao will not be traded. Simply put, he generates too much money. The nba is a business, and it would be financially r****ded to trade him.

That being said, lets ignore the money and assume that yao is hypothetically tradeable. Ask yourself which is easier to obtain: an athletically gifted 6-8 swingman (that can score at will when he chooses to) whose work ethic and decision-making has constantly been questioned or a 7'6 center with a polished offensive game who will play so hard that his bones actually break.

Also, you said we should've traded yao after the mavs series. You do realize that in 2004, he was still a young player with lots of potential? I'm not sure its wise to judge a player based on playoff success/failures early in his career. In case you hadn't noticed, he's a much better player now.

Are you even reading what i'm writing? What good is it to play great for 44 minutes and then disappear for the last 4? Thats exactly what he did.

Name me any star who will disappear like tmac did. Honestly, it seemed like he didnt even want the ball.

 

Yao Ming is a strong, 7'6 center. He has advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include a naturally strong interior defensive presence and an ability to see and shoot over defenses. The disadvantages are that he is slow and lacks agility.

Do you understand?

He is not the type of player who can go get rebounds. If they're coming in his general direction, he'll fight for it, but if the rebound lands 6 feet from him, you cant seriously expect him to get it.

Last year, there were 2 ways to win game 7. Either better offense or better defense. Look at our forwards last year. Juwan Howard is only slightly more mobile than Yao, and chuck hayes might be the most undersized power forward in the league. So while we may dislike it, its understandable that we cant always get the defensive rebound. So then we look at offense. In the last few minutes, Tmac decided to take a break and let his teammates score the points. Theres absolutely no excuse for this.

Sure everything he says is logical. They can also be construed as preemptive excuses for future losses.

Also, actions speak louder than words. He should spend less time talking to the media and more time working on his free throws.

 

It's sad enough to see fools bash Tmac when we are ready to make a run in the playoffs. It's even more sad to see idiots like you to have to diss Yao in order to make a counter post. Why don't you "only-fan" fools just take the pen!s of your idol out of your mouth for one second and start supporting the whole team? You suck.

 

so you expect tmac to dominate every minute of every game? is that humanly possible?

there's a reason kobe can close out games when he played with shaq. there's a reason jordan started dominating and winning when he had pippen.

how the hell do you expect a guy to assist on basically all of the baskets and finish the game too? where was yao to finish the last 4 minutes? he had single coverage too. we went to him in those last 4 minutes you know that right?

yao was a superstar-like player last yr. what's wrong with going to yao? i don't get how you can pin game 7 on tmac when he was clearly did everything he could. he put up 29 and 13. yao got 6 rebounds. SIX.

we put up 99 points. that's our most in the entire series. so you still want to blame the offense?

we gave up 103 points dude. we lost on that end of the floor. tmac and the team did their job offensively. hell, tmac did a superb job. he had his best game that series and we had our best offensive game that series.

BUT yao only got 6 boards. boozer went crazy on him on offense. hell, yao got LESS blocks than tmac and he played in the freakin' paint (3 to 1).

how on earth do you expect to do more than 29 and 13? and yet you're satisfied with yao's limitations of getting 6 rebounds (you do know he averaged 11 rebounds before that game right, and in the biggest game he got SIX???)

yao could have done much much more in game 7. in fact, tmac did too much. yao should have finished what tmac did for most of the game.

 

it's not about that. i'm all for trading tmac after this series if he doesn't step up. i'm a rockets fan. i'd trade anyone on this team if it gives us a deep playoff run and a chance at a championship.

but as a rockets fan, what pisses me off is how posters on this board can try to pin everything on tmac by nit-picking the dumbest crap and not do the same thing. (what pisses me off is when posters said how tmac faked the knee injury and how he sat out too long -> yet landry was worse with his knee injury)

in my opinion, yao was to blame the most for our utah loss last yr. he had the easiest matchup (only one guy covered him most of hte time--okur while tmac faced 3-4 different guys that brought different challenges), yet yao never made any adjustments to have one truly breakout game. he didn't face a lot of double teams. he was our biggest advantage offensively. and yao choked more than anyone down the stretch in game 7 on both ends.

tmac was also to blame b/c he never showed up in any of the road games like he should have done. he was our best road player but he never played like it. he pissed me off in all the games we played in utah. but he at least put together 2 of the best games he could have in games 5 and 7 that were truly "dominant" games.

look man, it's obvious more posters on this board prefer to make tmac the scapegoat for everything wrong with the rockets. this year, it has to be him b/c he has played subpar in the reg. season. if he doesn't step up in the playoffs, i believe we should cut ties with him.

but what people need to realize is yao has not even come close to deliver what he should deliver. tmac has done more for this organization in his years here in terms of what he has brought to the table than yao has.

if it was me, if we lose, i'd trade both (if i could get a lot of young talent and a potential superstar in return).

but right now, i'm not even thinking about that. i'm focused on this team trying to do well. i want the young players to get experience. carl landry, brooks, and scola will really need this b/c i believe they are the core of the future.

 

It's this "only-fan" mentality like yours that really bothers me. So you fools find it necessary to stand up for your idol because of what some other fools have said. And you fools have to do that by dissing the other players on the team which you claim that you are a fan of. That just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Can you learn to love every player of the team, not just your idol?