T-Mac falls to the floor in severe pain because of back spasms Sunday night against Denver. The Rockets played fairly well without T-Mac in the second half, but couldn’t close out a win without him and lost 92-90.

by John

SUNDAY, 1/8/06 – The Rockets experienced bad luck again Sunday night, with Tracy McGrady going down in a heap on the floor right at halftime. He had back spasms and had to be taken to the hospital for tests. By looking at the pain on his face as he collapsed and how he was carried off the floor (via stretcher), it looks like he is going to be out for awhile.

The Rockets fought hard and played pretty well in the second half without him (shooting 55%), but the Denver Nuggets made plays in the last minute to beat the Rockets 92-90. With about a minute remaining, the Rockets led 88-87 but turned the ball over on a possession that could have put the game away. Earl Boykins came back and hit a three-pointer with 31.6 seconds remaining to make it 90-88, Nuggets. Stromile Swift was fouled down low and was clutch by hitting two free throws to tie the game at 90-90.

It went all for naught when Carmelo Anthony hit a fadeaway baseline jumper over David Wesley to put Denver up 92-90 with one second remaining. The Rockets tried a difficult inbounds pass to Stromile underneath the basket as the clock expired, and that was the ball game.

If T-Mac had been in the game, he probably would have been the guy who would have defended Anthony since he is seven inches taller than Wesley. Oh well.

In the second half, the Rockets had a few players step up. Swift had 13 points in the second half (5-of-11), 17 points overall. David Wesley took it to the hole strong many times and had 11 points after halftime (15 overall), and Rafer Alston finally had a good game, scoring 18 points (7-of-10) after halftime, and led all scorers with 24 points overall.

If only they had T-Mac at the end to make plays when they needed them, this game could have been won.

John
john@YaoMingFanClub.com

To see the boxscore from the game, click here.

To read the Houston Chronicle’s article about the game, click here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 8th, 2006 at 11:59 pm and is filed under vs. Denver. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.