Sitting on a sideline seat following a morning shootaround in advance of the first-round NBA playoff series Game 5 between Utah and Houston, Derek Fisher was a man with mixed emotions.

The Jazz's starting shooting guard sounded like a kid who paid for one candy bar but got home and found two in the bag. He'd love to devour both, but figured before he could the other shoe would drop.

Tracy McGrady, after all, indeed was shooting just 36.8 percent — more than six percent below his season average — through the series' first four games.

Utah had Houston's star frustrated, perhaps even questioning his ability to lead his club into the second round of the playoffs — something he's failed to do in five prior tries.

Yet Fisher seemed to sense, maybe even know, that the seven-time All-Star wasn't going to let the Jazz off the hook quite so easily.

"I think as a team we've done the best job we can do in terms of making him work and expend energy to score points," Fisher was saying. "But I think Tracy's done a good job of really trusting his teammates — and some of those guys haven't really gotten going.

"So I wouldn't say that I, or we, necessarily forced him to play bad. I just think he's been trying to find a balance between carrying the load and trying to score more, but also getting teammates involved in moving the basketball around when we are applying a double-team to him. And it's been difficult for him to find his rhythm."

Sure enough, McGrady found his groove in Monday night's Game 5.

It happened after yet another slow start, and — this time — a hip pointer injury that prompted him to briefly visit the Rockets locker room following the first quarter. But by the time all was done, McGrady would have a team-high 26 points on 11-of-25 field shooting, a personal career playoff-high 16 assists and a 96-92 win that put Houston up 3-2 on Utah in the best-of-seven series that resumes Thursday night.

"He made some great plays to help them win the game," Jazz forward Matt Harpring said.

The most memorable came midway through the fourth quarter, when McGrady faked shooting guard Gordan Giricek to the floor, then dribbled around help-defender Andrei Kirilenko for a layup that put Houston up 83-80.

"Tracy was amazing," Kirilenko said afterward.

"Tracy stepped up and played great," Jazz point guard Deron Williams added, "and made plays down the stretch."

Just as the Jazz suspected he would, eventually.

Early on in the series, wondering when McGrady would explode was like waiting for water to boil.