| Second Round In Sight Authored by Derek Flack - March 20, 2009 - 6:41 pm
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McGrady’s playoff success is well documented; he’s had none. McGrady has never made it out of the first round of the playoffs, not once. Not in Toronto, not in Orlando, and not with his current team, the Rockets. However, this season is turning out to be a great success and Houston fans are sanguine that this may be the year that they finally make a push past the first round of the playoffs, and McGrady might just be the main reason for this sudden rush of optimism.
McGrady, who has never played all 82 regular season games in a season, is injured again, this time for the remainder of the season. He has been out since the Rockets 112-124 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on February 9th.
To this point in the season, Houston has played 35 games with McGrady and 35 without him. With T-Mac in the line up Houston had a pedestrian 57% winning record, going 20-15 in those games. Without McGrady, who has been one of the most talented NBA players over the last 10 years, the Rockets are a superb 25-10, winning 71% of the games they have played without their starting two-guard.
One reason Houston has played better without him is because McGrady was having one of worst seasons ever as a professional basketball player. He was shooting at an atrocious rate of 38%, the lowest field goal percentage of his career. He was scoring just 15.6 points a night, which is the lowest amount of points per game for him since his third year in the league with the Raptors. This was a very subpar year for a player making over $21 million dollars. He was not playing like a superstar.
Possibily a more important reason why the Rockets are better without him, however, is because Houston has been forced to play as a team and develop better team chemistry. Without him in the lineup Yao Ming gets additional touches in the post, which helps open up the floor for players to cut to the basket and also creates open looks for the rest of the team on the perimeter.
When McGrady is in the lineup, things usually slowed down for the Rockets as his teammates stood around on the perimeter and watched as T-Mac isolated, trying to turn the offensive possession into a one-on-one game. Isolation play takes up a lot of time on the shot clock and often times results in a heave towards the basket before the 24 second clock expires. Isolation is a great option at the end of games when there is great scorer like McGrady on the floor, but often times Tracy tried to play this way throughout the entire game.
Houston, who has won seven of their past 10 games, is currently sitting in third place in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. Initially, most NBA heads thought Houston would fall out of the Conference playoff race when McGrady opted to undergo season ending surgery, but the exact opposite has occurred as they have fought to maintain their position as one of the tops teams in the west. Nevertheless, Houston must continue to win and get better because even though they are in third place and only trail the San Antonio Spurs by 1½ games for second place in the conference, they are still only 3½ games ahead of the eigth place Dallas Mavericks.
With the Rockets playing better as a team and winning with greater frequency, this could finally be the year that Houston avoids another first round exit. If it happens it will be the first time that a team with McGrady on the roster moves into the second round. Ironically T-Mac, maybe the most talented player on the team, won’t be on the active roster if it happens. |
