- Tracy McGrady entered the game with 7:44 remaining in the 1st quarter. Viewing the telecast, I didn’t get the sense that there were many boos from the crowd. It wasn’t exactly a thunderous ovation, but the reaction appeared predominantly to be of applause. This came as quite a surprise.
- In his 7+ minutes on the floor, McGrady was matched up almost exclusively against the Detroit Pistons‘ 6’10, 230 pound rookie forward, Jonas Jerebko. While I have never seen Jerebko play before, my guess is that this favorable matchup played some role in Rick Adelman’s decision to activate McGrady for tonight.
- The first thing that stood out was the defensive effort. I can’t remember the last time I saw Tracy fully extend and contest every shot put up by his opponent. Naturally, he wanted to make a good impression in his debut.
- McGrady was not even in the play in any of the Houston Rockets’ numerous fast break sequences in the 1st quarter. While he tried, he simply couldn’t keep up with his teammates.
- With 2:45 remaining in the 1st, after a switch, Richard Hamilton was able to lose McGrady through a screen, hitting a jumper in the process.
- These above two points illustrate why Rick Adelman may have been hesitant to activate McGrady. While it could simply have been rust and the natural re-adjustment to the pace of the NBA game, it’s possible that Tracy just still isn’t physically at a level acceptable to Rick Adelman. It may just be that, unbeknownst to those of us viewing from the outside, Tracy may not yet have fully recovered or may have just permanently regressed.
- It looked incredibly odd watching Tracy McGrady catch the ball and almost immediately look to pass. For Tracy McGrady, that’s not quite the usage we fans are accustomed to seeing.
- With 3:19 remaining in the 1st, Tracy was unable to catch the pass off the curl while coming around the pick. This won’t work. More on this later.
- The Houston Rockets’ broadcast of the game was presenting the straightaway ’3′ hit by McGrady with 1:33 remaining in the 1st as the highlight and most significant play of his return. It wasn’t. It had little significance. I don’t really care that he hit a wide open ’3′ off the pass from his favorite spot on the court. This play doesn’t tell us whether McGrady can help this team or fit into this offense. Statistically, Tracy is not a good 3pt shooter anyway, so this doesn’t really have much predictive value.
- With 1 minute remaining in the 1st, we saw McGrady catch the ball in the far post on the right elbow against Jerebko. He turned, and then employed his signature jab step – left, driving towards the middle and getting fouled.
- As I said earlier, the above play is how I envision Tracy McGrady fitting into this offense. If he is physically capable, I think he can be effective attacking from the high post elbow where he has the option to jab step towards his left. On the other hand, while it may be that my perception is skewed by the awkwardness of the sight, I just can’t see Tracy helping this team if used in coming off curls as seen at the 3:19 mark. He is much more effective when he is shooting off of his own dribble. I actually think he hurts this team if used coming off of screens, because a) he doesn’t cut hard and b) he isn’t a very good shooter. Most importantly, moving him without the ball takes away his greatest strength and only skill with potential value to this team – his passing.
- If I had to make a conditional judgment on his performance, I thought he looked pretty bad. Now obviously, an absolute judgment means nothing as we’re talking about a guy playing in his first NBA game since last February. It’s only natural that he would look a bit out of sync and winded. The difficulty is that we don’t know whether his struggles stemmed from something related to his surgery and overall physical decline or if it was simply the rust and re-adjustment to the pace of the NBA game. We will need to see how things develop for any type of assessment but overall, it was nice to see McGrady finally get back on the court.
- Final note: Chase Budinger is the real deal.
Houston Rockets 107, Detroit Pistons 96: Tracy McGrady’s Debut
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