On April 8, 2007, future Hall of Fame guard Tracy McGrady led the Houston Rockets with 40 points and 10 assists in a 112-106 road victory (box score) over the Sacramento Kings.
McGrady, who shot 50% from the field and on 3-pointers against the Kings (31-45), also grabbed eight rebounds — which means he came up just two boards shy of a 40-point triple-double.
Even Sacramento’s Ron Artest — a future Rocket, and one of the NBA’s elite defenders at the time — was no match for McGrady on that night. Perhaps fatigued from chasing around McGrady (or from being hounded by Shane Battier), Artest shot just 2-of-14 (14.3%) on offense.
Houston (48-29) needed all of McGrady’s scoring punch, since only two other players (Yao Ming, Luther Head) on head coach Jeff Van Gundy’s roster scored in double figures. The Kings were led by 24 points (50% FG) from guard Kevin Martin, who was actually traded to the Rockets in a deal involving McGrady less than three years later.
Houston snapped a three-game losing streak and overcame a seven-point halftime deficit by scoring 62 points in the second half (recap).
It was an important late-season game for the Rockets, who were in a battle with the Jazz for home-court advantage in the first round of the 2007 NBA playoffs. Ultimately, Houston held off Utah by one game.
Unfortunately for McGrady and the Rockets (52-30), though, the Jazz (51-31) still overcame the odds to win that series — punctuated by a Game 7 win at Toyota Center. It was the second time in three years that Houston lost in the first round after taking a 2-0 lead to begin the series.
In 2009, with McGrady sidelined by injury and the newly acquired Artest as one of the team’s focal points, that era’s Rockets finally advanced out of the first round with a 4-2 series win over Portland.
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