Just when we thought Tracy McGrady couldn’t show any less passion, he goes and does something like this…and totally redeems himself! We’re feeling confident as T-Mac leads us back to sunny Salt Lake City, where the beer flows like wine.

Tracy relentlessly took the ball to the basket, finishing at the rim or finding open players on the perimeter. His aggressiveness reminded us a little of Dwyane Wade, except that Tracy had to actually finish his drives instead of relying on the royal treatment from the referees.

At first, we were a little miffed that no Rocket was named to either of the NBA’s All-Defensive teams in spite of the Rockets’ league-best team defense. Then Derek Fisher scored 17 points on Monday night.

Juwan Howard finally found that elusive shooting stroke that’s been missing for a few weeks. J-Ho knows no middle ground, he’s either surprisingly good or surprisingly bad. It takes about three minutes to figure out which Howard has come to the game, despite the fact that his playing time remains the same regardless.

In the third quarter, McGrady turned what looked for sure to be a swooping finger-roll from six feet out into a slam dunk. After two uninspired performances on the road, McGrady was as close to dominant as we’ve seen him. He forsook the contested 20-foot fade-aways, and as a result, finished with his best shooting performance since Game 1. He also added a career-high 16 assists and hammed it up for the cameras on a regular basis. If we were playing that well, we’d grandstand also.

We know we’ve already vented about Utah’s Paul Millsap. But we feel we should also mention that it’s little consolation that if we had taken him with our second-round draft pick last summer, he’d be sporting a corduroy blazer on the sideline.

During a Rockets possession late in the game, Mehmet Okur was spotted holding Juwan Howard’s leg up in the air while Juwan hopped around on his other leg fighting for an offensive rebound. Are we sure this guy is from Turkey? This kind of dirtiness reeks of back-road Arkansas. Throw in the mullet and all the simian arm-waving and you can really understand our confusion.

For two games now, the Rockets have looked like a bunch of second-graders getting pushed around for their lunch money. Each Rockets player just hands over his two dollars, while Van Gundy voluntarily Saran-wraps himself to a flagpole. In Game 5, we expect reprisal. A revenge of the nerds, if you will. In fact, we’d say the chances that the Rockets get blown out again on Monday are about as low as the chances of Carlos Boozer doing a commercial for ProActiv Solution.

The underlying principle in this grade-school-bully paradigm is Jerry Sloan’s “They-can’t-call-everything” defense. The Jazz are handcuffing the officials by fouling on nearly every play. It would be a brilliant scheme if it didn’t reek of Sloan’s typically questionable integrity.

Listen closely and you’ll hear the sound of a cow dying after each of Boozer’s missed jumpers. At the risk of offending the Geico spokespeople, this guy communicates like a caveman. Quiet down and take your bricks like a man.

It frustrates us that Utah can snatch an NBA-ready power forward like Paul Millsap out of the second round, while the Rockets - apparently content to wait for Malick Badiane to experience mild success in the Senagalese League - have played for four years in desperate need of some size at the position.

Showing off those fancy decision-making skills that have been the talk of the town since the playoffs began, McGrady strolled up the court with five seconds left in the first half, then passed to Chuck Hayes who launched a 30-foot 3-pointer that had no hope of even coming close to the basket. McGrady floated through another game without the sense of urgency we were hoping would kick in in the playoffs. Perhaps the Rockets are waiting for the opposition to put their backs against the wall, because that worked so well for them the last time they had a 2-0 series lead.

For someone who came in shooting 17 percent in the series, Mehmet Okur has more than filled his quota for obnoxious fist pumps.

Deron Williams’ “NOGUTS” and “NOGLORY” tattoos on the back of his arms could use a little better spacing. We spent four games wondering what a nogut was, and why he felt so strongly about it.

In an attempt to appease those fans who have accused of us being pessimistic, we feel we should let you know that in Saturday’s loss, the Rockets snapped a four-game streak of sub-40 percent shooting in the playoffs, dating back to 2005. They made a red-hot 42.1 percent of their shots Saturday.

Andrei Kirilenko blew a hole through his wife’s argument that he isn’t playing well because of a language barrier when he said “Keeping (McGrady) on the outside helps.” Anyone who has mastered the art of the gerund loses the right to claim ignorance of the English language as an excuse for his poor performance.

On a night when T-Mac’s fadeaway wasn’t falling (9-for-23), our superstar didn’t even fall back on the playmaking ability that makes him such a versatile offensive threat. He finished with three assists, his fewest in a full game since mid-February. The Rockets are 10-11 when he is held to four assists or fewer.

Three playoff games after setting the record for worst playoff loss (Game Seven in Dallas), the Rockets set another NBA playoffs record for having only four players score in the game.

We didn’t win third runner-up in the Coach of the Year voting like JVG did, but shouldn’t the depth of a team’s bench be inversely related to the strength of the players on the bench? And if you are going to stick to two bench players, shouldn’t you avoid choosing two streaky guys with poor decision-making skills? Juwan Howard was the most egregious offender, going 0-for-5 with a few blown layups and just one rebound in 14 minutes. At certain points, we fantasized about Steve Novak ripping off that corduroy sports jacket and nailing threes. Perhaps during the Rockets’ 10-minute field goal drought.

Even Mutombo has lost his spot at Van Gundy’s cool kids’ table. Mutombo played only five minutes, despite providing a spark of life with a huge block on Carlos Boozer.

If we were coaching we’d start Mutombo in Game Four to set off this predictable chain of events: Deke posts up in the low block, Okur reaches over and does his arm slashing thing, Deke turns and Okur gets elbowed in his intruding face, Okur struggles to decide whether to flop or retaliate, the most unintelligible argument in NBA history ensues, a double technical is issued, Yao checks in for Mutombo, referees call the game tighter as tensions are high, Okur doesn’t stick his tender nose in Yao’s business.