Utah Jazz: Rested McGrady rocks
Break helped Rockets get back into playoff series
In the fourth quarter of the next two, it was a combined 3-for-9.
Tuesday night's Game 5 between the Jazz and Houston, however, was a different story altogether for Tracy McGrady.
On a 13-for-26 night, the Rockets' seven-time All-Star hit three of his six fourth-quarter shots from the floor.
With the game well in hand, he needed to play only seven minutes in the fourth — yet still, with a couple of free throws as well, scored eight of his game-high 29 points in the final quarter.
With that, McGrady — who had more points (18) in the second half of Tuesday's game than he had in the first two combined — finally had found his groove.
And the Rockets, a 95-69 winner in Game 5, found themselves smack-dab back in the heart of the best-of-seven series, down just 2-3 heading into Friday night's Game 6 at EnergySolutions Arena.
So what was the difference?
Was it a more aggressive McGrady, perhaps? A less physical Jazz defense, maybe? Or a couple of calls here and there, perchance?
Rather, it was rest.
Good, old-fashioned relaxation.
"I got a lot of rest," said McGrady, who — for all his supposed postseason offensive troubles — actually has scored 20-plus points in eight straight playoff games against the Jazz dating back to last season. "Our guys came in off the bench and played extremely well.
"I was just fortunate enough," he added, "to have fresh legs throughout the game."
Reality however, suggests, there is only a minute's or two worth of difference in playing time that McGrady has had in the first half during the first three games of the series as opposed to the last two.
The most he's played in a first half is 22; Tuesday, it was 20.
Yet McGrady still managed to score 18 of his 29 points after the break, including 10 in the third.
And that allowed Houston to cruise into the fourth quarter up by 19, easing the pressure on the Rockets — and especially their star small forward — before each team ultimately emptied its bench.
All of a sudden, Houston is back in the series — and it hardly seemed to matter that McGrady needed 26 shots to get his 29 points.
Whether it really was the rest, then, or perhaps something else, the undisputable truth of the matter is that McGrady had finally felt comfortable with his game Tuesday.
"He stepped up big-time," said Jazz shooting guard Ronnie Brewer, who starts games on McGrady.
"We didn't do a very good job on Tracy," added Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko, Utah's primary late-game defender on McGrady. "He didn't dominate, but he had a good game and got everybody involved."
So maybe there is more to it than simple rest.
And McGrady himself hinted at what it may be.
"I was just mixing my game up — dribble pull-up, going to the basket," he said. "I kept them off balance a little better."
All of which arguably has the Jazz tilting toward trouble as momentum in the series shifts.
"He got on a roll," Jazz shooting guard Kyle Korver said of McGrady, who had scored 23 or fewer in three of the series' first four games — and shot just 11-for-26 while scoring 27 in Game 3.
"The nights before, we played him pretty physical," Korver added. "We ran a lot of different guys at him, and he wasn't able to get on a roll. If a guy like him gets on a roll, he scores like that."
And he can rest, even if just for a couple nights, with peace of mind.
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com
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