McGrady with yet another vintage performance

Ok, I could title a post like this pretty much every week right now. Let me finally say it, so I won't have to write it again:

Tracy McGrady is officially back. By officially I mean, I said so!

Not only does he have one of the most awesome profile pictures on NBA.com I've ever seen, he is also productive!

Let me remind me, this is the player who used to be on par with Kobe Bryant. He is a two-time scoring champion and quite possibly the greatest player ever to never win a playoff series. He was the player who scored 13 points in 35 seconds to beat the best defensive team of the decade, the San Antonio Spurs (sorry Boston)! This is the guy who once averaged 32.1 ppg, 6.5rpg and 5.5apg. If he can regain 80 per cent of that productivity, the Pistons would have one hell of a player. Even at 50 per cent he would be a starter for this team!

When Joe Dumars signed him many wondered (including myself), why he would sign a player for a position which the Pistons are stacked with. In retrospect it was low-risk, high-reward gamble. There are several players with an extensive injury history who have become more reliable the older they became. Somehow all of these players are or have been playing for the Suns at one point or the other (read: Steve Nash, Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill, etc.). I think it is a lot about the right habits, great training staff and a fountain of youth near-by.

I think McGrady should be rewarded. Dan Feldman at PistonsPowered has already mentioned he would like McGrady as a starter, I will jump on that bandwagon. He's such a versatile player that you can actually put people around him. There would not be the issue of two players with the same style of play (Gordon and Rip) and how to make them fit. Mc Grady can morph into passer, scorer and playmaker whenever he wants. As I explained in my last post, he rarely forces the action and he can drain midrange jumpers off the dribble all day.

It would still be better to give Rip away for the team's balances sake, but I think it could work anyway. McGrady has the potential to help Detroit make a push for the playoffs and at the very least he could make them enjoyable to watch again. I must admit, last night's game against the Bulls was the best Piston effort I have seen for quite a while. They actually defended well and the offense looked fluent in the second half due to McGrady's increased roll on the offensive end of the floor.

We currently are sorely lacking a player with one-on-one go-to moves. The players capable of doing so are Ben Gordon, McGrady and Rodney Stuckey to a certain degree. John Kuester has already tried giving Stuckey control of the offense. While he is showing the skill set to do so, his decision making is often very bad. He is pushing the ball too often and settling for the midrange jumper which he cannot knock down on a consistent basis. I would like to have him as the sixth man, but not as a our primary or even secondary option on offense.

Maybe the Pistons need to change their way of thinking and stop playing with a traditional point guard and start the five players that are most comfortable playing with each other. The line-up might look awkward (Starting Five: McGrady, Gordon, Tay, Monroe(Maxiell) and Ben), but since we do not have a starting point guard on our roster and McGrady being the best potential starting point guard on the team, it might be worth a shot.

We are still within the playoff picture. Let's draw an eighth seed!

McGrady with vintage performance

Let me start with a poem:

"'Twas only a few years ago
A soldier named Tracy
Put up a nightly show
Laying the ball up
Throwing it down
Left the crowd in awe
Breathlessly saying 'Wow'

Then came years of agony and pain
Young Tracy
Had lost his game
Surgeries and rehab and unkindly fans
He left the Rocket and hoped for better times
In Piston land

At first there were skeptics
Questioning his shape
Then they said his former form
Could not be regained
But on a cold night just before Christmas
He finally fulfilled all of our wishes"

Okay, this was just for fun, but let's hope we'll remember this game as the turning point for not only McGrady but for the entire season. Tracy exploded for 17 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds and one insult to Chris Bosh in just 24 minutes of playing time. NICE!!!

While most people know he is a great scorer his most underrated skill has always been his passing and all-around game. Somehow he was reduced by the media as a poor version of Kobe Bryant, most people don't realize in which way consecutive injuries affect you. Do you think if Kobe had the injury report McGrady has he would be a practice monster. You ought to learn to rest and recover and you can't go all out every game. Kobe is playing through injuries and I really respect playing with broken fingers. Screwed up knees and a bad shoulder is something you cannot play through though ...

And that is why McGrady's performance was so heart-warming last night. He is showing flashes of his old self, last night he did not show flashes, he put together a complete performance and made the Pistons look like a contender. Will he be able to do it every night? Probably not ... Let's be honest, Calderon, Barbosa and DeRozan are not what one would call a lockdown backcourt. Will he be able to perform in a similar way regularly? I would think so.

Patience

I picked one moment which is, in my opinion, typical of how McGrady helps our offense. In this case he is stuck in the high post, doubled near the freethrow line after a Monroe screen. Monroe goes out to the three point line to open things up.



I especially like the spacing. Tay and Will are in the corner or at least near the corner and Rip is at the wing. McGrady is being pressured by Ed Davis and his own defender, but McGrady stays calm. A rookie or a smaller player or a player with less skills what either throw the ball away or pass it back to Monroe and just wasted half of the shot clock probably causing a bad look.

McGrady, smart player he is, waits for the Toronto defense to rotate. Kleiza has to watch out for the three second violation and he also wants to catch a possible pass to Prince in the corner. He leaves the middle and thereby creates the huge hole in the next picture.



Rip recognizes this, cuts right to the basket and receives the ball from McGrady for an easy jumper.



T-Mac held the ball under pressure for three or four seconds! He then used his length to find the open cutter who then got a rather easy look for the bucket. Gotta love the patience!

It's Rip City

Gotta give love to Rip for backing up my last post with this performance! 35 points off the bench. You could say either he is making the case for starting or he is making the case for coming off the bench. I would take the latter. As long as he performs like this, we'll be good.

Then again, it's the Raptors. They could make a team look good who's fastest stars are a turtle and a snail. It's a win and I'll take it. Maybe we can get some momentum going, maybe John Kuester is finally figuring out his rotation (it's just been a year or so). Or, quite possibly, the next game will be horrible to watch. You never know with this team. For a decade we knew they were going to win and play well or play badly and still be better than the other team. Now they gotta bring their A-game every night!

Use Greg Monroe in the High Post!

Hey folks,

the people of Piston Powered have made a great case of using Rodney Stuckey in the post against weaker PGs, which is pretty much any PG whose name is not Tyreke Evans ... Last night he had some beautiful passes that led to three pointers, because the Orlando's defense had to respect the mismatch he had against Chris Duhon.

That's not what I want to talk about though. As I watched the game I realized what John Kuester should do within the next couple of months is put Greg Monroe in as a starter. Greg Monroe is getting better and better and his learning curve has been truly impressive. Although his stats of 6 points on 3 of 6 shooting, 2 rebounds and 4 assists don't look that impressive, he had a real nice game once again. The two rebounds don't take into account how many balls he tipped to teammates and his overall hustle was a nice display of his attempt to try really hard which is nice to watch during this season.

In the second quarter the Pistons had two consecutive possessions where they scored out of a half-court set-up getting clean looks, once Tracy McGrady at the basket and Ben Gordon for the jumper. So let me show those two plays to you NBA Playbook style!!!

The Pistons start the play out with Ben Gordon on top and with Monroe in the high post. Monroe will set the screen and immediately cut into the lane.



Since the defense has to respect Gordon's shot both defenders go out to contest the jumper and Gordon can get a pass into the lane where Monroe's waiting with his soft hands.



McGrady sees this and cuts to the basket. Monroe is a pass first Big Man (boy that's a rarity) and instead of shooting the 4-footer over a smaller but (still) more athletic Carter he drops it off to McGrady for the easy deuce.



Right on the next possession, McGrady passes the ball to Charlie V on the right wing and runs to the weakside. Simulataneously Monroe sets a soft Pick for Gordon on the weakside and then shows up at the high post position to receive the ball.



Gordon, meanwhile, has arrived on the strong block gets a weak pick from Villanueva but still manages to get enough room to receive the hand-off by Monroe and score an easy midrange jumper, Gordon's bread'n'butter!







As you can see, the Pistons played to their players strengths and got off clean looks. I think we could really create an offense around that player. He could be like Chris Webber in Adelmann's system with the Kings in the early 2000's.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the win last night, but I see how this team could work together. The roster needs some tweaks, but overall I see a few bright spots! The reason I want Monroe to get as much playing time as possible, is simply that he'll be a corner stone for years to come hopefully. I like his attitude and his hustle! We're not going to make the Playoffs anyway and if we should happen to make them, we aren't going to go past the first round ... So why not develop Monroe? What's at stake????