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Originally Posted by DubOverdose
Yes, TMac did have an amazing series. Fact is though, when your team is up 2-0 and you can't finish out the series, something is wrong. Dirk was really sick and couldn't hit a thing or do much on the court during that series. A 'winner' knows how to finish that series off. A winner can get his team motivated and light a fire under players asses. If you are considered a top 5 player, MVP candidate, you're having an amazing series stat-wise, you sure as hell better be able to finish off a team when you are up 2-0 and their best player is slumping. Simple as that. The Rockets made it in as the 5th seed and fell apart after game 2 and I blame much of that on TMac, regardless on how well he played statistically. Wasn't TMac up 3-0 in a series once and lost it as well? The guy is a loser no matter how you look at it. He has to pull his team through when their season is on the line and the guy just can't do it. You can say 'one man can't win a series, a team has to' all you want, but Yao had an awesome series. We had no answer for him. That team has two all stars, we have one...and he was slumping/sick. There's flat out no excuse for TMac to lose that series. If that doesn't mean he's a loser, then what qualifies a player as a loser?
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With respect, Dub, your characterization of that series does not match mine. Yours seems (to me, at least) to suggest that the Rockets were somehow gifted the first two and should thus have been able to close it out on the basis of being up 2-0 alone. I disagree.
The Rockets were up 2-0 because that freakin' superstar Tracy McGrady willed them to that. The Mavericks were a DAMN good team last year. For my money, they were 1B in the Western conference. I had the Spurs at 1A, the Mavs at 1B, and the Suns at 1C. That's how I ranked them. I thought the Mavs had a nice shot at the Spurs, and I worried about their matchup with the Suns. But that was a tremendously good Mavs team. It was better than Houston.
But Houston got up 2-0, thanks to McGrady. And then the tiger fought back. Which is to be expected. Then the rightful team won the series. But damn, man, TMac gave the Mavs all they wanted and THEN some.
Look, I don't know about that 3-0 lead. I didn't watch that series. But I know that TMac was BY FAR the best player on the floor in that series the two teams played last year. BY FAR. I know a little something about statistics, and about logic, and on that basis I feel that you are making a mistake in labeling McGrady a loser based on those two series. The only impression I had coming out of that series last year is that McGrady is a winner of the highest order--as high as anyone currently playing in this league--and that the rest of his team simply wasn't good enough to compete with the elite.