His defense and conditioning need work. Good thing we have guys like Battier, Ron, Chuck, etc to disguise him a little bit. For the most part, he was solid.
don't care how he's playing now, as long as we're winning and he's 100% in the playoffs. seriously, if yao, mac, artest, shane, rafer needs a break now, give it to them cause the regular season doesn't mean much unless we're near the 8th seed which we're not. we should be fighting for homecourt without one or two of them sitting out for short stretches.
I rate him 6-10, his previous games this season was less than 5. He had some good assists, but his D was absent. Hope to see more from T-Mac... come on a few dunks and alley hoops.
he gets a D-, just bearly passing, cause I expected more from him when he said things like he'll be back to "vintage Mcgrady" and saying stuff like "kick me when I'm down but when I come back I'm going to the top!" We almost lost it at the end too. D-
a little harsh but the truth. he is one of the premier players in the league and should be playing like one, not like a role player.
Gotta give him some time to get into basketball shape (driving, etc) and find himself in the offense. The good thing he is ready to go.
I think he hustled more, played better D. he didn't attack the basket often, but he showed he was capable. he doesn't have to show it all at once, but to know he can do more than before is a relief. also, i don't think he really needs to average more than 20 points, we have so many weapons, spread the offense and make it harder on other teams. if you focus on stopping 1 big scorer it is easier than stopping 4 or 5 scorers, it will put a lot more pressure on opponent's defenses, but take over when necessary..all in all i'd say it was a decent comeback, it was nice to see him contest shots, his jump still isn't quite there yet, perhaps he'll continue to work out and will get it back by playoffs.
7/10 made some nice shots, penetrated a couple times, didn't force much, deferred to his hotter teammates, rightfully so. but still not as explosive as he used to be..sigh
I think his defense has always needed some work. Nothing new there and nothing new we should expect from there. I've seen too many people say he doesn't play defense to conserve ebergy for his offense. I'm not sure how true that is, but if there is any truth to it, he should be turning it up on the offensive end more. If his conditioning still needs work, then what were these last two weeks about? I don't know if he does or not, but if he still does, then it only further proves how much he did not do in the offseason to still be behind. I hope he continues to improve with each game. If he doesn't I can't see many people around being "shut up" by his $20 million 15 pt avg season. Good luck to him and to us. P.S. - He and Ron need to sit in some remedial classes to get it through their heds to stop going one on one in this offense. They seem to do it at the most inopportune times. I don't care if they do it near the end of the game to take over and sink a bucket when a play is called for them to do so, etc., but I keep seeing silly lapses on offense by these guys.
Considering how everyone on this board was ready to trade the guy 2 weeks ago, I don't see how you can't give him a 10. 6/14, didn't disrupt the offense, didn't get completely destroyed on defense (didn't do well either), didn't seem like his knee was bothering him, dished it out, got a few rebounds. If he has this exact game every outing, I'm fine with it. Don't get me wrong, I think he can do better, but we can win a title with the Tmac that played in yesterdays game.
You also have to consider that McGrady was going up against a very good and long defender in Tayshaun Prince. It looked to me that later in the game he found it a lot more difficult to get past him, and Prince's length makes it that much more difficult to shoot over the top. Artest had a much better offensive matchup since he seemed to have the quickness and strength advantage against anyone they tried to defend him with at the 4. The two encouraging signs for McGrady in this game were: 1. He didn't feel tired or weak at the end of the game. 2. He actually drove right with some authority very late in the game to score a key bucket. That's a good sign for his knee. Otherwise, this is to be expected. It is unrealistic to expect McGrady to return to his 25ppg days with a roster this deep, Ron Artest on the team and the balanced scoring that Adelman's system produces. Some days McGrady will have great nights and go off. Other days his numbers will be somewhat mortal and you'll have Artest and Scola going off. Somedays it will be the Yao show. Occasionally you might see the "big 3" all dominate simultaneously. That will be the exception rather than the rule. As long as McGrady is playing well within the flow of the offense and is a strong go-to option at the end of games, this team will be fine offensively. They'll need a few more weeks to gel together and get the chemistry they need. But they need to get their defensive mojo back. They're no slouches actually -- I believe they're still ranking fourth in the league in efficiency (which probably surprises people because of the somewhat increased team pace and the giving up 50% shooting every now and then). But they just don't have that edge they used to have ... they don't have it back yet. Hopefully they get it back soon. When they do, the rest of the NBA will officially be on notice.
what game were you guys watching, i thought he was phenomenal. HTML: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btl9i9uUcCw&feature=related
