The Utah Jazz overcame a 2-3 deficit to bull past the Houston Rockets in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Before the game, Tracy McGrady, who has yet to win a playoff series in his career, said he would take responsibility upon his shoulders if the team lost the game. Yet, it's unfair to place all the blame on McGrady's shoulders. He did, after all, average 25.3 points per game and dished out 7.3 dimes per game in the series. The bottom line is that other than Yao Ming and McGrady, the Rockets are not that good of a team.
Carlos Boozer proved too quick for Yao Ming to handle and Deron Williams had his way with Rafer Alston. Moreover, allowing the Jazz to shoot 51% from the field in game seven didn't help the Rockets' cause.
McGrady certainly could have done some things better. He shot an abysmal 39.4% from the field, including an embarrassing 9-29 outing in their game six loss. In that game, he also shot 1-8 from the three point line. This is the second time in three seasons that the Rockets have blown a 2-0 lead. They beat the Dallas Mavericks twice before losing to them in seven games in 2005.
In addition, Houston's coach Jeff Van Gundy resigned right after the game seven loss, leaving team management to re-think their approach to next year's season.
Meanwhile, Yao Ming is going to start learning how to take better care of the ball. While T-Mac's 7.3 assists per game in the series came with just 3 turnovers per game, Yao's 0.9 assists per game came with 4.7 turnovers per game. Even for a center, that's atrocious. Yao had one assist and eight turnovers in game three alone. A career 52% field goal shooter, Yao shot just 44% in this series, including 33% in game one and 38% in game six. If the Rockets want to do better in the playoffs next season, McGrady will need more help from his co-star.
For Utah, Carlos Boozer was brilliant, averaging 24.6 points per game and 11.0 rebounds per game. Between him and point guard Deron Williams (16.3 points per game and 8.4 assists per game for the series), the Jazz looked like they had resurrected the spirits of former star combo Karl Malone and John Stockton. The Jazz face the Golden State Warriors in round two, who just upset the one seed Dallas Mavericks.
