Well Said: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si...ffs/2007/04/open-letter-to-t-mac.html?cnn=yes The following is an open letter to Tracy McGrady Dear Tracy, Congratulations on winning the first two games of this series. Kudos, Tracy -- you deserve them. In amassing 54 points, 12 assists and 14 rebounds in Houston's victories, you are, arguably, the top playoff performer so far, someone worthy of prime real estate on SportsCenter and a headline in the Houston Chronicle. But please, Tracy, don't let up. Don't let your guard down the way you did in '03, when you effectively declared your Orlando Magic team ready for the second round when you were up 3-1, only to stumble and lose the series. You don't want egg on your face again. You know what it's like to win the first two games of a series then falter. You did it in 2005! Remember when you stole two games from the Mavericks on their home floor? Only to lose four of the next five games and get home well before the weather started to turn? You have become Mr. First Round, a tag not unlike a baseball player being anointed Mr. April. You are too good for that Tracy. That baseline jumper you made late in the fourth quarter Monday night, there aren't 10 players in this league that could make that shot. The way you kept battling despite a woeful (9-for-28) shooting performance was tremendous. The way you showed confidence in Yao Ming -- who wasn't having the best night himself -- proves you are developing into the type of team-first leader Houston has been craving. Just get through these next few games, Tracy. Don't expect Utah to just roll over. Jerry Sloan has been in far too many dogfights to do that. Don't expect Mehmet Okur to suffer through another 2-for-9 shooting night. Don't expect Carlos Boozer to stop taking it to Yao and the rest of the Rockets frontcourt. Clearly Carlos has exposed a hole in your interior defense. Maybe spend the next few days trying to shore that up, huh? I believe in you Tracy. You're a guy who deserves a break. You got a raw deal in Orlando (though I contend that if you never left Toronto your career might have gone in an entirely different direction). You deserve some playoff success. Just don't let anyone tell you that you have this series in the bank. Don't read the stories about how well you match up with Dallas in the second round. Pretend there is no second round. Pretend this is the last series of your career. Get it done, Tracy. Just once, get it done.
So Tracy needs to make sure that his teammates don't lose focus and play 'loose' in Utah AND start defending Carlos Boozer as well. I didn't know he was the coach. But OK. As long as he gets the blame when something goes wrong, he deserves all the credit when things go right. You can't have it both ways.
I agree with what he says about not getting too comfortable. All we've done is hold serve, this series hasn't even started yet. I don't mean to sound like DaDakota, but I just watched the post game press conference online and I don't like how comfortable Yao and T-Mac seemed. Maybe I'm digging too deep here and it's a GOOD thing that we're loose, but I would have liked to hear more about how we can't let up and we NEED to win Game 3 etc. I counted 2 times where T-Mac said "we're up 2-0." He just seemed too comfortable. Again, perhaps I'm digging too deep here.
I get what you mean, but I find it sort of funny when people use that saying. If the series doesn't start until someone wins on the road, then what happens afer game 7? Well they don't keep on playing...
I mostly agree with the article. My biggest gripe is the very last line. Do it "just once"??? F*** NO! Do it again, and again, and again, and AGAIN! All the way, baby... We all saw what happened with Kevin Garnett when he did it "just once". Agreed... Though we overcame somewhat poor officiating in both of the first two games of the series, and I know we could have done it again at home (that game was RIGHT there for the taking). I think we did let off the gas a little in those games... especially in the 4th quarter. I remember McGrady didn't even attempt very many FGs in the 4th for a couple games there, and I couldn't quite understand why. The other thing to consider is that we had ****ing Ryan Bowen starting for us over Juwan Howard... Having Howard alone could have made the difference for those two home games.
losing by 40 freaking points in a game 7 is not my definition of "getting screwed." that's a bonafide choke.
Got it, but I'm just saying that all we've done is what we're supposed to do. We still need a win in Utah and that ain't gonna be easy. The next 2 games will determine whether this is going to be a short series or a long series.
But not having to have a game 7 when we could've won game 5 because of finley's out of bounds knock out would be "getting screwed".
I appreciate the thought, but the sentiment of that open letter is way old by now. It's certainly not new to Tracy or true Rox fans, a mainstream kind of piece for the casual fan I guess. T-Mac knows the score.
