If you search for the sentence “It feels good to get into the second round,” you’ll find countless news articles and reddit threads making fun of Tracy McGrady for prematurely celebrating the Magic upsetting the Pistons after taking a 3-1 series lead in 2003.
But I noticed there was no clip of McGrady saying this, and that none of those articles were from 2003. Running a search through news archives, the [earliest match is from 2005](https://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/article/mcgrady-knows-better-now-for-nba-playoffs-1479455.php)–when Jon Barry (who was on Detroit in 2003) attributes the quote to McGrady:
>Barry was with Detroit at the time and said McGrady’s words were quickly passed around the Pistons’ locker room.
>”(Orlando) got up 3-1, and he said, ‘It feels good to get in the second round,’ ” Barry said. “And it was a seven-game series. They proceeded to lose by 20 in the last three games, and we moved on. He’s heard about it from me a few times.”
So what did McCrady actually say following Game 4 in 2003? [Here](https://i.imgur.com/7TUIP9E.png) is the article quoting him at the time, and [here](https://i.imgur.com/H9ISOtS.png) is McGrady’s quote:
>Knocked out of the playoffs in the first round the past three seasons, McGrady hungers for the validation a series victory would provide.
>**”Being a young guy in this league and being able to put a team on your shoulders and possibly get to the second round would be so great,” McGrady said. “I’ve been bounced out so many times and it’s left a bad taste in my mouth.”**
Other [post-game recaps](https://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/article/magic-take-3-1-lead-on-misfiring-pistons-2113535.php) from after game 4 also have McGrady being more cautious than he’s now portrayed:
> Orlando last advanced past the opening round in 1996 — when it swept Detroit — and has dropped four series since. McGrady has exited in the first round three straight times, the first with Toronto and then two more after coming home to central Florida.
>
> All those trends can all be undone with a Magic victory in Detroit on Wednesday — but not until then.
>
> “Our guys are just keeping their composure, going out here focused and playing with a great deal of confidence — and that what we’re going to need to close out this series,” said McGrady, averaging 36.3 points against Detroit. “We can’t get too comfortable right now. We’ve still got another game to play.”
by nowhathappenedwas
22 Comments
If I read it on the internet, it’s 100% true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4enJtQYxivs
TMac talks about it in this clip at 4:30 mark. He just says “find the video!” in response to Billups bringing that quote up. And like you said there’s no clip of him saying it that i’ve ever seen.
If the quote is made up why didn’t he just deny it and say the quote is made up?
i got mad love for tmac , i could of swore he did say this it feels good to get to the next round , this was the yr they changed the first round from 5 to 7 games.
it was on youtube even years ago , i could be wrong just like billups tho. good post and this should be mentioned , ppl over the yrs used this against him when talking ish .
Jon Barry is as big a twat as his dad is. Idk how Brent turned out so chill.
I hate seeing people clown TMac for that quote or anything. If you were around to watch him, then you know how good he was.
Crazy that recent history can still be so unclear, even with a bunch of us watching the NBA at the time and being familiar with the story!
​
Good post.
When bullshit is repeated enough people start to believe it. Happened with this, happened with the Yi posting up a chair video, happened with Paul Pierce pooping his pants. Pretty much the Mandela effect.
[“I was young,” he said with a laugh. “I was so excited, because I’d been put out of the playoffs the three previous years. I was just so excited to be the eighth seed, and we were playing the No. 1 seed. “We went up three games to one, and I felt like the series was pretty much done. And I learned my lesson. … That mistake will never happen again.”](https://www.chron.com/sports/rockets/amp/McGrady-knows-better-now-for-NBA-playoffs-1479455.php).
Why would TMac say this if he never said the quote in question? Also, TMac’s own teammate quotes TMac as saying it in his autobiography lol
Edit: [Another clip](https://youtu.be/fk86YuzRTEI) with Rip & Chauncey discussing the comments alongside TMac on The Jump. Credit to u/cmgr33n3 for finding the clip, added here for visibility
Quality post.
As a Pistons fan who is more than old enough to remember watching the series as it happened, I’m not worried about TMac’s weird attempt to gaslight that he didn’t say it (seems like a very Paul Pierce attempt to change people’s perspective on history).
But as a fan of NBA Reddit I’ll provide a link for both sides.
Here’s another studio show ([The Jump, this time)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk86YuzRTEI) where Chauncey and Rip talk about the quote referencing its effect on their mindset between games.
Here’s [Fansided’s Magic site](https://orlandomagicdaily.com/2013/12/28/2003-playoffs-video-vault/2/) with a bunch of links to what youtube videos still exist of the games in that series. Skipping through the videos there from game 5 – 7 I didn’t see or hear a reference to that quote in any of the in-game content.
I remember TMac saying “it feels good to be out of the first round” and then the reporter checking him, saying it was only 3-1. He broke out in a shit eating grin and doubled down, “it feels so *goood* to be out of the first round. Roughly.
Dude went for a mega flex and got his ass handed to him, plain and simple.
Is this like how everyone remembers there being a movie starring Sinbad called Shazaam but it never happened?
I remember him saying it. The way I remember it he was in the locker room being interviewed and it stands out in my memory because of the way he is grinning and he says something about it feeling great. You can tell me that I’m misremembering, or Mandela effect, or whatever, but I 100% remember it. There aren’t articles written about every single thing, but I would bet money if you had access to video archives like ESPN does you could find the video.
i don’t remember the exact quote but it was definitely along the lines of considering it a done thing and it was a big deal talked immediately , not made up years later
So, I’m old enough to remember that series very well and I know for a fact that the notion of McGrady’s comments were out there and existed during the series itself. It was not a 2005 revelation on behalf of Jon Barry.
That being said, I know my word isn’t reliable enough to prove it as true. So I’ll do some digging myself. So far, I have this from [Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.orlandosentinel.com%2F2003%2F05%2F11%2Fmagic-out-of-time%2F) following Orlando’s elimination in ‘03:
> He can have all the time he wants now. McGrady — who just a few days ago was bragging about going to the second round — was going home instead.
Of course, “bragging about going to the second round” can go lots of different ways and does not prove he said the exact quote, but it’s pointing us in that general direction. I’ll keep digging.
**Edit:** ESPN’s Jemele Hill, who worked for the Detroit Free Press in 2003, quotes McGrady in [this fashion](https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/090917):
>McGrady was so confident the Magic would eliminate the Pistons, he told reporters how good it felt to “finally be in the second round.”
Seems we could be getting warmer, though not including “It feels good to” within quotations could either suggest he left those four words out or Hill excluded them for the sake of her own sentence structure.
**Edit 2:** From [Mark Heisler of the Los Angeles Times](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Farchives%2Fla-xpm-2003-may-25-sp-nbacol25-story.html) on May 25, 2003:
> Meanwhile, McGrady said he was thrilled to finally “experience the second round,” forgetting they weren’t there yet. Nor would they be.
**Edit 3:** At Game 5, following McGrady’s comment, the [Orlando Sentinel](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.orlandosentinel.com%2F2003%2F05%2F01%2Fmcgrady-ready-to-win-big-one%2F) made reference to the following incident:
>McGrady was heckled throughout the game, especially by one fan behind the bench who repeatedly yelled, “YOU’RE NOT OUT OF THE FIRST ROUND YET, T-MAC!”
Could have just been a heckler doing what hecklers do. Also could have been a pointed reference to McGrady’s comment.
**Edit 4:** I own a copy of Grant Hill’s autobiography, [*The Game*](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Autobiography-Grant-Hill/dp/0593297407), in which he says the following:
>”It feels good to get into the second round,” Tracy prematurely declared.
**Edit 5:** OP has located the full quote via [Lansing State Journal](https://i.imgur.com/QHydexr.jpeg):
> **“For a guy like me, who’s been bounced from the first round of the playoffs three straight years, to finally get to experience the second round, it feels great.”**
Must be Mandela effect, but I remember watching him say it.
u/nowhathappenedwas with the nowwhathadnthappenedwas
To add even more context, 2003 was the first year the nba playoffs first round were best-of-seven, so any previous year Tracy *would* have been in the 2nd round already
T-Mac told this quote allegedly to UPN33, which was a former Paramount network television channel that went under in 2006 when it merged with The WB to become The CW.
If the video was ever archived then it was probably destroyed through the merger, or just buried in stacks of tapes.
Don’t care. Tracy McGrady is so overrated by this place. If I never see another post about him it will be too soon.
TMac on Pardon My Take like 2ish years ago said he has no recollection of saying the quote. OP, you should look up his PMT interview to get his full quote when they ask him about it.
Fake news is real and commonplace.
Game 4 of that series was Tmac’s peak for his career