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Rockets' Yao, McGrady coming into own
From his promising days in high school to his disappointing nights in Orlando, Tracy McGrady tried to pattern his multifaceted game after childhood idol Magic Johnson.
To find that success, McGrady would need his own Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or at least some reasonable facsimile.
McGrady may have found his prodigious partner in 7-foot-6 center Yao Ming, who finally delivered on his half of the preseason hype and hope surrounding the pairing. McGrady and Yao led the Houston Rockets over the Dallas Mavericks 113-111 Monday for a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.
"I don't want to put that pressure on him," McGrady said of Yao on Tuesday. "But he can be an outstanding player in this league. He can become a dominant force in this league if he continues to play the way he played last night."
Yao scored 33 points — making 13 of 14 shots — and McGrady added 28 with 10 assists, eight rebounds, three steals and three blocks to move closer to getting the Rockets to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since the days of Hakeem Olajuwon. It also would be a first for McGrady.
Game 2 might have gone a long way in establishing T-Mac and Yao as the Western Conference's new dynamic duo, filling the void created by the offseason divorce of Shaq and Kobe.
The Rockets' union certainly figures to be much more harmonious than the one in Los Angeles. And it's tough not to look at their boundless potential and envision a winning inside-outside combo along the lines of Kobe and Shaq, Magic and Kareem, Dr. J and Moses Malone.
But they both will need plenty of resume building before they can begin to be mentioned with such greats.
McGrady never has made it out of the first round of the playoffs in his eight-year career, going 0-for-4 in Toronto and Orlando; Yao reached the postseason for the first time last year, a four-game defeat by the final edition of those Shaq- and Kobe-led Lakers.
"It's a great 1-2 punch no matter how you slice it," said Rockets backup guard Mike James, who won a championship ring with Detroit last season. "They're going to make their own legacy for themselves."
McGrady has seized control of the series at both ends of the court, averaging 31 points, setting up his supporting cast with nifty assists and providing some lockdown defense on struggling Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki.
His normally sleepy-eyed look and tendency to settle for off-balance jumpers has been replaced by rare displays of emotion and intensity, best captured by his ferocious tomahawk jam up and over 7-foot-6 center Shawn Bradley in the second quarter of Game 2.
"People in Orlando know what type of player I was," McGrady said. "I'm surrounded by a better team. The only thing that has pretty much I have done is my intensity and my focus. Just the will of trying to get this team to the next level."
The Rockets become even more dangerous, though, when Yao plays up to his All-Star billing.
Houston won the opener easily behind a big game from McGrady, but a quiet one from Yao, who was taken out of sync by foul problems. He was aggressive from the start Monday, scoring 17 points in the first quarter. His only miss all game came on his seventh shot, when Nowitzki popped the ball away as he was bringing it up.
In the final seconds, McGrady and Yao teamed up twice to send the Rockets to an improbable victory.
McGrady used a pick by Yao to drive the lane and whipped a pass to Yao for an uncontested slam with 1:06 left, giving Houston a two-point lead. Then, in a plan arranged during a previous timeout and with the game tied, McGrady went straight up the court with 10.4 seconds left. Yao set a screen on Keith Van Horn near the 3-point arc, and McGrady pulled up for the game-winning shot with 2.2 seconds left. Johnson, McGrady's idol, was so impressed with the duo afterward that he said that if Yao played again like he did Monday, the Rockets could advance to the NBA Finals. Yao agreed. "We can go very far this year, if we keep it up," he said. The union with Yao has even made McGrady, a two-time defending NBA scoring champ, eager to free himself of a scoring load that grew heavier in Orlando each year before the Magic finally bottomed out at a league-worst 21-61 last season. "There are plenty of times when guys want to get the ball out of my hands, but what I want to do is just search out Yao," McGrady said. "He's making me better because he's an outlet." Meanwhile, Mavericks coach Avery Johnson chose to run his team through a grueling practice on Tuesday instead of watching film, something that he's usually a stickler for doing. "We got out of our routine," Johnson said. "I kind of know when they need to practice, when they don't." And despite facing a daunting 0-2 deficit as the series shifts to Houston for two games, the Mavericks insist their confidence hasn't been shaken. "No fear. What are we scared of?," Dallas point guard Jason Terry said. "It's basketball. We're playing a game."
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