Deal pays off, at least against the Knicks
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Tracy McGrady asked to go back in, believing he could help pull out a victory over the team that didn't want him anymore.
Instead, the day belonged to the players the Houston Rockets acquired when they shipped McGrady out.
Kevin Martin scored 28 points, Jared Jeffries and rookie Jordan Hill played key roles down the stretch and Houston rallied to beat the New York Knicks 116-112 on Sunday.
The Rockets acquired Martin from Sacramento and Hill and Jeffries from New York last month in a three-team deal at the trade deadline. The two big men played bigger roles than usual because of injuries and illnesses to Houston's frontcourt.
"When you have a part, a hand in your team winning, especially against a former team, it's always fun," Jeffries said.
Hill finished with a season-high 13 points while Jeffries, who had been the Knicks' best defensive player, stepped in to take some crucial charges in the final quarter.
"I was trying to find anybody who wanted to guard somebody. He did a great job when he came in," Houston coach Rick Adelman said of Jeffries. "I just thought with his length he could guard (Al) Harrington, he could guard Tracy. He did a great job."
Aaron Brooks scored seven straight points in the closing minutes and finished with 16 for the Rockets, who rebounded from Friday's loss to Boston and won for the fifth time in six games. Reserves Kyle Lowry and Chase Budinger each scored 18 as Houston won despite getting little from ailing forward Luis Scola, then losing Shane Battier to a first-half knee injury.
McGrady finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 33 minutes but was scoreless in the fourth. He missed all three shots after asking to re-enter to play 5 minutes in the final period, even though he was already over his average of about 25 a game.
"When you play with some of those guys for five, six years, you definitely want to go out there and compete against them and show them up a little bit," McGrady said.
David Lee had 27 points and 20 rebounds for the Knicks, who blew an early 17-point lead. Danilo Gallinari and Toney Douglas each scored 26, with Douglas making a franchise rookie-record six 3-pointers in the best game of his career.
Houston trailed by three before Brooks' 3-pointer with 2:15 to go. After McGrady was short on a jumper, Brooks broke the tie with a floater with 1:49 left, then made it 114-110 with just under a minute remaining by knocking down a long jumper.
Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni blamed his team's poor transition defense.
"We did not get back and that's where you lose the game," he said. "You can't control a call here and there. You can't control Aaron Brooks making those big shots, which were hard shots. But you can control getting back. We didn't get back. We did that in the second quarter and we did it in the fourth, right at the end of the game. It cost us."
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