IMHO, this is a great summary/analysis about what happened on Monday night against the formidable Phoenix Suns, and Tracy McGrady's fragile mentality and leadership irregularities. I hope Jonathan Feigen is wrong in his analysis........and Tracy is just saving something in his tanks for the playoffs. Or else...............
i admit tmac did give in a lil. but let's be real, tmac has more responsbilities than anyone in the L b/c no one, i mean NO ONE, can create their own shot. even yao can't esp. against that suns D. tmac needs to rise up to this pressure. he can't wilt. again, i am disppointed in his play last night. the first game in a while i felt that way. in other games when he shot bad, u could still see that look like ima take over (cavs game). but v. the suns, looked horrible. kobe can give it to odom/walton to create shots for him/others. bron has hughes. wade has shaq. tmac well, has yao, but yao is not a refined passer yet. and well, rafer is a chump.
"Maybe things would be different if he played next to a strong-willed point guard — someone who would run the offense for him, especially when things are going badly — and execute plays that end with him in position to score, rather than McGrady starting with the ball on top and having to create so much for himself and everyone else." I sure as hell agree with this. Lately, Feigan has made stronger statements about the Rockets, the coach, and the players than I'm used to seeing from him, and I love it, even if I don't agree... and here I certainly agree. (and not alone, of course!) McGrady may also be having some soreness, however, from a tumble he took in the game before last. Having to go on the road for the second game of a back to back didn't help him, or Yao, for that matter. In my opinion, this was a real factor. I'm looking for a much better game from them both, and after reading this column from Feigan, look for Tracy to have a monster game against the Clippers.
I usually agree with most things that Jonathan Feigen has to say, but on this topic he is just way off questioning T-mac's leadership. What he did with Yao out is more then enough proof of how T-mac leads a team. I hate how he says that T-mac looked like he had gave up where Yao never seemed to be in the game.
I can. He was pathetic against the Suns. It's these games where he must "impose his will", which is a term Tracy likes to use about himself. I guess he didn't have the will to try his best to win the game. I sure hope this doesn't happen again.
Well, in this game with Phoenix Suns, he did threw in his towel long before the game was decided. As I've said, Yao Ming was double- or triple-teamed from start to finish, which means 1 to 2 of the Rockets were left free to roam. As Jonathan Feigen correctly pointed out, for as strong and powerful a player as Shawn Marion, who was assigned to guard Tracy McGrady, it should not be posing too much of a problem for him if he was determined to impose his will on this game, tried to mix up a bit on his game portfolio, do more penetration to score, or draw fouls or dish assists/passes to other team mates, insteads of hoisting his poorly selected long-range bricks after bricks in the paint or from beyond the arc................
that's weird isn't it? one game he shows leadership, the next he's not. players that are questioned like this are the ones like tmac who hasn't won. nash was a non-factor yesterday and im sure their writers claim he was instrumental. look guys, when tmac wins, all this crap will stop. same w/ yao. JUST WIN BABY. until then, expect a lot of this crap.
yao was NOT doubled from start to finish. yao was only doubled/tripled whenever thomas wasn't on the floor. when thomas was, it was straight up man coverage. but the suns packed the paint. whenever he drove, u have long/lanky guys like amare and marion and diaw there. hard to finish when 3 6'10+ guys are there.
Yea, McGrady is like that pretty girl who bats her eyes at you, but you know you should stay away from him. Wait, that's what Feigen wrote when he said we shouldn't trade Steve Francis for him.
I don't know how to link single posts, but that was how I described the whole Rockets team against the Suns in the game thread. Maybe the team effort can get traced back to one guy in McGrady but it showed end of first quarter that it probably "wasn't going to happen" that night. Yao gets only slightly less a pass. I can't imagine the Shaq/Kobe Lakers that Shaq would go 1-9 from the field but only Kobe gets all the blame for not leading or creating. But if Lebron can get knocked for not bringing 'it' off his 27-7-7 a night, I suppose everyone's open for critique.
McGrady was disgracefull. no denying the Obvious. yao is not at fault. it was he's 4 or 5th game back and the suns were clearly focusing there defense on yao. thats when McGrady has to exploite the suns for tripling yao. McGrady as our best player and capitan was real dissapointing. he has kept us alive single-handedly this season, but the Suns game is probaly he's worst game as a rocket. he was horrendus.
I'll take T-Mac over any other swing man in the league RIGHT now! Yeah T-Mac was aweful but the Rox were coming off another back to back situation, on the road while the Suns have been resting at home since Friday or Sat. There won't be those situations in the playoffs! I believe in T-Mac's greatness.
He did appear to throw in the towel in the final 4min. Esp when he launched a pair of 30 footers. One fell thru and he smiled with a look like, "If that could hit, why not all the other **** we threw up."
I didn't watch the game Monday but I was listening, and I could tell T-Mac was not aggressive at all. He did shoot a lot but there is a big difference between being aggressive and taking what the defense gives you, and he played right into Marion's hands. McGrady has never had that constant fire or the will to dominate. I just believe it's his demeanor. The majority of games he'll come out and just will his team to a win, but there are nights when he'll wilt. I'm confident though that won't happen in the playoff's. I'm also confident that this happens partly because of his frustration with his teammates inability to make their own shots. Oh, and I'm sure Rafer pisses him off more than any other player on this team. Not throwing this season away but I'd definetely do all I could to try and get Billups here if he opts out of his contract. Add him and this team is tops in the league, no doubt. On a side note. Not sure why McGrady and Yao didn't do a high pick and roll and get Yao some free throw jumpers to try to get him in some kind of rythm. If they are packing the paint then you have to draw them out, and we all know Yao has that kind of range.
what I want to know is how come our team always seem to get blown out by the Suns.. except the game before last w/out Tmac and Yao.
Yao is by far the most dominant big man in the game and also the best passer among bigs. Before his injury he was a candidate for MVP and head an shoulders a better option than Shaq. So would you like to retract that statement are do you want to go on record as sounding like an idiot.
Agree the high pick and roll, actually I think most here would like to see that once in a while, guess JVG is not however. Try to run something like this: Yao sets a screen for Tmac right at the 3 point line, and you can almost conclude that the opponent big guy will not come out (due to the fact that Yao will not shoot a 3); Tmac drives in and dashes back to Yao, meanwhile set a screen right in front of the opponent center, as the center naturally wants to block Tmac anyway, now it is Yao at around the FT line and all the other team has is a bunch of small players to guard him, go figure... Wonder why JVG is not doing it.
Right, it's all T-mac's fault we're not champions. Nevermind we have the worst starting point guard in the league.
yao right now is a more dominant offensive scoring option than shaq. but not a better passer. look at what shaq has done w/ miami WITHOUT wade. their team is built in the same way as ours. eerily similar. shaq can't score at the same pace as yao now, but he knows how to use his teammates more than yao. just watch his recent 8 or 9 assists game without wade.
