Oh No! Mcgrady Is So Much Better Than Kevin Martin: Houston Rockets vs. Indiana Pacers Game Recap

Sarcasm, my friends. The title is in jest, I'd just like to take a moment to reassure our easily startled co-fans who are suddenly regretting the Mcgrady-Martin trade while addressing a few other issues. For starters, Tracy Mcgrady is not back. In no way shape or form is he back, actually. Yeah, he'll averaged 20 a game for the Knicks to close out 2010. The Knicks are also a shoot-first team with no qualms about winning or losing games, a perfect fit for Mcgrady. On a Rockets team all about the whole being greater than the individual and winning at all costs, Mcgrady would have struggled.

To continue, it's not going to be long (right after he gets his guaranteed money, in fact) that T-Mac goes back to his typical drama. He'll get hurt, complain, the usual. And if not, so what? The man poured his heart into his years with us until last season, he deserves success. I don't think he's going to get it, but that doesn't mean we can't root for him. If he enjoys a career renaissance, we should be happy for him. This is the same player who put us on his shoulders and carried us to a 22-game winning streak. So although it may be validating in some sickening way if Mcgrady's career continued it's downward spiral while Kevin Martin blossomed into an absolute superstar, we can't think like that. Mcgrady did all he could and provided us with fantastic memories, and at the end of the day, we were contenders nearly every year with him. So although it may be painful to see him putting up 25 a night for someone else, we should find a way to embrace his success and, most of all, stay away from comparing Martin to Mcgrady.

Yes, Martin and Mcgrady will forever be linked in our minds as we essentially swapped them, but that's unfair to both players to judge them solely through relative performance. Mcgrady would not have succeeded on this Rockets team, and Martin was not brought in to be a replacement for T-Mac. Martin is a versatile, efficient scorer who, and this is critical, can score without dominating the ball. As brilliant as Mcgrady was, scoring with a low usage rate was never a strength of his. Martin is going to love coming off screens, spotting up and letting his teammates do the work for him, something Mcgrady would never be content with, which is why we need to accept and appreciate Martin for who he is while enjoying Mcgrady's success through entirely separate lenses. And that's enough of my going on for now, here's the game recap. 

The Good 

Someone who's not accustomed to being in this section but surely deserves it, Trevor Ariza. He continued his hot shooting yesterday, going 6-11 from the field, including three makes in five tries from beyond the arc. Oh, and all of this was while playing through an injury. He's 14-22 in his last two games, and that makes me smile.

Brooks and Scola were also stellar today, as they had 26 and 25, respectively. Scola especially looked very comfortable as the primary power forward, and that may or may not have to do with Landry's absence.

There were a few other good aspects to the game, like shooting 12-25 from three, winning the rebounding battle, having 28 assists on 42 made baskets and getting to the line 29 times, but nothing really noteworthy.

The Bad 

The last fifteen minutes of the game were painful to watch for Rockets fans. With about three minutes left in the third, the Rockets were up 88-79 and looked ready to continue onwards to the win. From that point, the Pacers outscored us by 19 to win by the eventual final margin of ten.

Not coincidentally, TJ Ford (yes, that TJ Ford) had 21 points during that stretch, including 15 in the fourth. If you had told me a week ago that TJ Ford would be the reason the Rockets lost the game, I probably would have screamed. Well no, that's not true. But I wouldn't have believed you.

We also could not stop Danny Granger, who poured in points from all over the floor on his way to 36 points. He's been a bit off this year due to injuries, but looked dominant last night.

Trevor Ariza also re-aggravated his hip flexor, and although he returned to the game it's going to be a situation to monitor, as his game relies heavily on exploding into passing lanes and for dunks. He's been playing heavy minutes this season and hopefully Kevin Martin will allow us to rest Trevor a bit more until he gets healthy.

The Ugly

I hate to do this to you Kevin, I really do, but the ugliest part of this game was Martin's 3-16 shooting night. This is certainly an exception rather than the rule, and don't be surprised of Martin hits many of the looks he was missing yesterday as early as tonight.

Overall it was a slightly disappointing game, and I definitely did not see our late-game collapse coming, especially against the Pacers, but we have to bounce back tonight in an important divisional game against the Hornets. And, as always, go Rockets.