"For Tracy McGrady, playing the Rockets for the first time since he said they "mistreated" him, the game felt like the playoffs.

So McGrady did what he so often had in the playoffs. He impressed. He put up numbers.

He lost.

With Aaron Brooks scoring seven rapid-fire points down the stretch and McGrady missing his final three shots, the Rockets rallied late past the New York Knicks for a 116-112 win Sunday in Madison Square Garden.

"When you play with some of those guys for five or six years, you definitely want to go out there and compete against them and show them up a little bit," McGrady said. "Probably one of my better all-around games, the way I played, physically, the way I felt. I tried to do a little bit of everything — tried to post up, tried to go outside, tried to rebound, tried to make plays."

McGrady made six of 11 shots, scoring 15 points with seven rebounds and five assists. But the players the Rockets got from the Knicks in the three-team deal stole his show. With Luis Scola ill and ineffective, rookie Jordan Hill played the fourth quarter and finished with a season-high 13 points.

But veteran Jared Jeffries might have been the greatest surprise — and most vital of the players going against their former teams. "