With 2 minutes left in the game and my Spurs holding on to a double digit lead, a lead that they D'ed their way back into the game to get, I thought it was all over but the interviews with Tim Duncan. ENTER TRACY McGRADY!!! UN-FREAKIN-BELIEVABLE!!! I wonder how he felt when we woke up from his unconscious 35 seconds of basketball glory!?!
SOURCE
Dec. 10, 2004, 10:30AM
McGrady shows why he's special
By RICHARD JUSTICE
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Tracy McGrady seemed more dazed than happy, more exhausted than exhilarated.
He said the things he was supposed to say but admitted they were words without meaning.
"I don't realize what I just did," he said.
What he'd just done is put together 35 of the greatest closing seconds in NBA history.
What he'd done is turn defeat into victory and a mortal into a legend.
Welcome to Houston, T-Mac.
He'd scored 13 points in the final 35 seconds. He'd hit -- count 'em -- four 3-point jumpers in that stretch. He'd also hit a foul shot.
In the final surreal seconds, as arguably the best team in the NBA desperately tried to close out a game they knew was theirs, McGrady scraped the ball from Devin Brown with 7.9 seconds remaining, dribbled down the court and nailed another 3-pointer with 1.7 seconds left.
By that time, those who hadn't given up and left seemingly knew how it was going to end.
"That's why he came here," Rockets guard Andre Barrett said. "To us, it wasn't much of a surprise."
The Rockets had no timeouts, but they had the ball back where they wanted it.
His final shot was in from the moment it left his right hand.
Rockets 81, Spurs 80.
Left speechless
The Rockets celebrated as if they'd won a championship because they didn't know what else to do.
"The fans that walked out, they missed a good show," McGrady said.
Later inside the Rockets' locker room, they didn't really know what to say. McGrady kept trying to come up with words and couldn't.
"I felt like anything I threw up there was going to go in," he said. "The rim felt really big to me out there."
He paused and smiled.
"It really hasn't hit me," he said.
He may not understand next week or next year, either. He may not ever understand.
Years from now when they attempt to put his career in perspective, when they talk about the scoring titles and the playoff appearances and all the rest, they'll mention this astonishing night.
A rare talent
If you'd begun to wonder why the Rockets thought he was so special, if you'd begun to second-guess the trade that brought McGrady here, this was for you, too.
He's unlike almost any other player. Because he's special. Because he's capable of doing things that make you shake your head and telephone your best friend.
Maybe only Kobe Bryant could have closed a game like this, could have taken the final moments of garbage time and turned it into a legend.
Three hours before the game, Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson sat in his office looking like the loneliest man on earth.
He'd overhauled his team during the summer, and then in the first six weeks of the season had watched his team stumble badly.
There hadn't been enough rebounding. Yao Ming had played inconsistently. Coach Jeff Van Gundy kept mixing and matching the combinations.
Dawson knew some fans were beginning to question the deal that sent Steve Francis to Orlando and brought McGrady, a two-time scoring champion, to Houston.
"Listen," Dawson said, "Tracy has been even better than we hoped. We heard all that stuff about him being selfish. He's been nothing but great."
Dawson said he continued to believe that once McGrady and Yao became comfortable with one another, the Rockets could still make a playoff push.
He was encouraged McGrady and Yao had spent time at McGrady's home and they were still learning to play together.
Van Gundy was becoming convinced of other things. He'd worked the higher energy players -- Barrett, Bob Sura, Ryan Bowen -- into the playing rotation.
Even if the Rockets weren't going to win, they were going to play hard and look like they cared. At times this season, they'd seem nonchalant, and he wasn't going to accept that.
Which brings us to Thursday.
Even if the Rockets hadn't won, they'd have pleased Van Gundy in some ways. They'd won the boards again. They'd had more steals. They'd gotten the ball where it was supposed to go.
They were on their way to losing because they shot 35.4 percent from the field. McGrady and Yao combined for 60 of their 81 points and took 44 of their 82 shots.
Maybe they'll have another scoring option when Jim Jackson returns, but as Van Gundy said, "Sometimes when you work hard, you get miracles."
The Rockets got one Thursday night. They named it Tracy McGrady.
richard.justice@chron.com
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