It ruined the Shaquille O'Neal-Kobe Bryant pairing in Los Angeles, but Tracy McGrady will not let it derail Houston's title hopes.

Tracy McGrady (left) and Yao Ming.

With McGrady and Yao Ming, the Rockets resemble the O'Neal-Bryant Lakers - one team, two superstars. One player has to be the focus, and O¡¯Neal and Bryant each demanded that role for himself.

McGrady does not seem to care.

"I had no choice but to go out and carry the team, because I didn't have Grant Hill,"he said, referring to his time with the Orlando Magic. "When I came here, I've got a big guy that I can go throw the ball to and he gets 25 shots a night and I could defer to him."

When McGrady joined Orlando from Toronto, it was thought he would be Hill's sidekick, but Hill could not stay healthy.

McGrady turned into one of the league's most explosive scorers while playing for some bad teams, but he has never played beyond the first round of the playoffs. He said the way to make it happen was by riding on the back of Yao, the Rockets'7-foot-6 center, who McGrady said was playing at an "M.V.P.-caliber level."

"I'm all about winning; I'm a very unselfish player,"McGrady said. "For me, it's all about getting W's. I've won scoring championships. I don't care about none of that stuff no more. I'm at a point in my career where I just want to win ballgames. So if that's going out averaging 12, 15 points and we're winning ballgames, so be it."

Not everyone agrees that a player who won two scoring titles and is one of league's most talented offensive players is most effective as the second option.

"He has to be the dominant guy on this team and not run away from the responsibility of being their best player," said Doug Collins, a broadcaster who worked the Rockets' game against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday.

But McGrady' s way is working. Yao has dominated, and the Rockets, who struggled last season when both players were frequently hurt, look like a contender in the Western Conference' s tough Southwest Division.

"I think it's death with either one, because they're both capable of winning the basketball game," Knicks Coach Isiah Thomas said.

"It's a matter of pick your poison."