Rockets beat Sonics

[lonestar]

Rockets 112

Sonics 102

Rockets improve to 29-16......very impressive!

[KFDM COOP]

8) Awesome!

[KFDM COOP]

T-Mac leads Rockets to win over Sonics

Tracy McGrady, wearing his best photo-op smile, stared at Mickael Gelabale until he caught the eye of the rookie he had just beaten and held that stare and smile as if it had been as easy as saying cheese.

McGrady took over down the stretch, scoring or setting up all six Rockets scores after he had returned to the game. His last 3 finally clinched a 112-102 defeat of the Seattle SuperSonics at Toyota Center on Wednesday.

But despite the pose, the 36 points McGrady scored and the nine assists he spread around, things never got easy until the final seconds.

After consecutive games in which McGrady could grin his way through the fourth quarter while relaxing on the Rockets bench, the Sonics scored too easily for too long for the Rockets to leave them behind until McGrady's fourth 3-pointer found the net in the last minute.

The Sonics scored just as easily through much of the night, with Ray Allen matching McGrady's 36 points and the Sonics making 45 of their 87 attempts (51.7 percent) against a defense that had fallen far from the form of its three-game winning streak.

After both teams scored so easily for much of the night, with the Rockets leading 93-88, they hit a sudden lull.

Luther Head missed four consecutive shots. The Sonics missed five shots with two shot-clock violations. But when McGrady returned to the floor and passed to Head for a 3-pointer, the Rockets had their first points in three minutes, their first field goal in five, and their largest lead in the game's first 42 minutes, 96-88.

With that, the Rockets suddenly began an offensive surge. McGrady set up Chuck Hayes inside for a layup then sent another pass outside to Head for his second consecutive 3. When McGrady jab-stepped Gelabale three feet off him, he easily nailed a 16-footer to send the game to its final three minutes with the Rockets holding an 11-point lead.

The Rockets had spent the night as if replaying the loss to the Nuggets, with the same shaky defense and the same superstar treatment that Allen had put them through offered by Allen Iverson.

They'd led by eight with 2:50 left that night. On Wednesday, when they led by 11 at the same juncture, Allen nailed consecutive jumpers to reduce the Rockets' lead to 103-96.

But this time, McGrady passed to Hayes inside and, after a Chris Wilcox jumper, McGrady nailed a 3-pointer with 51.1 seconds left for a 108-98 lead that finally put the Rockets out of reach.

As much as they had rolled through much of the first half, McGrady and Allen began to put on a show in the third quarter, with little of that annoying defense to get in their way.

After a 21-point first half, McGrady had 10 in the third quarter. Allen had 13 points in the first half, matching that in the third quarter until, in the last two minutes of the quarter, the Rockets sent Hayes to double team the ball out of Allen's hands.

That, however, took a body away from Nick Collison and he tipped in a miss to bring the Sonics to within 85-82 heading into the fourth quarter.

That would have seemed a good position for the Rockets to be in. The Sonics were playing the second half of a back-to-back and were 0-13 on the road when trailing heading into the fourth quarter. The Rockets were 15-2 at home this season when beginning the fourth quarter with a lead, 28-5 when leading after three overall.

The Rockets, however, had helped the Seattle offense get off to a flying start and once Allen started cooking, there was no slowing them down.

Seattle made 18 of its first 24 shots, taking a 43-39 lead midway through the second quarter. But the Sonics made one of their next eight shots, Allen took a seat for three minutes, and when Head, Battier and McGrady drained consecutive 3s, the Rockets surged to a lead.

McGrady added another 3-pointer at the buzzer, banking in a heave he launched after he thought he had been fouled, to give the Rockets their largest lead of the half, 59-51.

[king]

I could not catch the game..well i knew they were going to win