Utah Jazz: McGrady says Game 2 is a 'must-win' for Rockets

"I don't know if he got frustrated or not, but I thought we did a good job of making him work for his shots," forward Carlos Boozer said. "I thought we did a good job of mixing up our defenses on him, giving him different looks.

"And with a great player like that that's all you can do,"

Boozer added. "You can't do the same thing over and over again."

McGrady understands and anticipates the Jazz throwing anything and everything at him tonight.

Ronnie Brewer, Kyle Korver, Andrei Kirilenko and Matt Harpring may all take turns like they did in Game 1, but it won't be mere single-man coverage.

"We've got to do something," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who is quick to pull the plug in the playoffs if something, or someone, isn't working. "We can't just let him run around out there.

"To start out the second half they isolated him and played him 1-on-1," Sloan added, "and he was killing us."

So McGrady knows what's coming.

For that very reason, he vows not to be trapped into forgetting he's playing a team game.

"No, I'm never gonna force the issue and take our team out of sync," he said. "I'm just gonna do what I gotta do as far as trying to make my teammates better. Yeah, I'm gonna be aggressive, but I'm not gonna force the issue."

Rather, he puts the issue on the table for all to see — and puts out a call to lost teammates.

The message: McGrady will try what he must, but he can't do it alone.

"It's just all about how the game is," he said. "If need be — I need to take more shots, and be more aggressive — then I'll do that.

"But that's not gonna get us anywhere if they come to double-team, and then I'm not making shots," McGrady added. "I can be as aggressive as I want to be, but if they double-team, get the ball out of my hands, and we're not making shots, we're in for a long night."

It's an issue, as he sees it, of mind over matter.

And it was evident which won Game 1, McGrady suggested.

"We've been running this offense for several months now," he said of a system employed by first-year Rockets coach Rick Adelman.

"We know where the ball should be, and how we get backcuts and how we get open shots and pindowns and all that stuff. We know that.

"But," McGrady added, "I think when the defense is putting pressure on you, and the stakes are much higher, the mind doesn't really function the way it needs to."

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