Frankly if you ignore what happened after TMac had back problems- teams were not Double teaming as the main strategy. Agreed Yao was more dominant after he came back from the Foot injury. As far as I recall neither Dallas nor San Antonio double teamed him ( front him yes)- and of Course Phoenix does not care! ( they just dont worry about defense as long as they can score in 3 seconds!) The reason I bring this up is the " Dead Eye" 3 Point shooter people are talking about- which asssumes one of our stars is double teamed or we conisistenly play zone defense ( which would be a cop out for JVG). A PF who has range would definitely be a boon to Yao to operate more freely. No doubt we need shooters- but I think I would prefer Shooters with Size who can defend ( and are resonable Mathc ups for other Shooting guards with Small Forward Frames!) I was sceptical of Carney- but now that I know Roy is not going to fall below 4 ( and Rockets will be conservative and not trade up)- but if he can shoot why not? I could even live with Ager or Mardy Collins- perhaps this would be a "trading our Pick downward" situation- but if we can get A "twofer" on our 8th pick why not?
You must not know a lot about basketball to say Yao doesnt get double teamed, even with a healthy Tmac.
If you read the very first sentence again- that would be nice They resorted to that AS the Prime strategy after TMAC was not there and the opposition realized we had no shooters ! I prefer to WATCH my basketball than TALK about it like an expert. I guess we were watching different teams.
Wait, are you kidding me. All these teams will toss a variety of double teams at Yao. Especially after he gets off to a strong first half. They'll often front with help over the top, creating effectively a zone sandwich. Phoenix does that more than anyone. They front with a quick defender (Diaw), and shade over another defender constantly (usually Marion). That's why he had such a bad game against Phoenix, even with Mcgrady. They denied him the ball with multiple defenders.
I did read the first sentence, and you must be watching those games while your drunk, because Yao has always been double teamed once teams realized how much of a post threat he is. I think it started in his second year. And Yao was being triple teamed in the latter part of last season. You may be right about watching different teams, all I know is I watch the Rockets, the one with White (home) and Red (away) jerseys. Oh and Yao is the tall chinese guy, no. 11, I believe.
Phoenix front Yao and Sometime with Help defense- the more relevant part of their strategy is Outrun Yao and keep the tempo up- so that Yao never figured in the offense ( that was one game in Phoenix) Although we did lose the next game at home- They game was not that one sided- in fact we were leading in the third quarter.
Yes they tripled that WAS AFTER TMAC's Injury and no one that was Left open made a damn Shot- so why bother even defending the player!
yao was getting doubled even without the ball during the end of the season when tmac was out. he had a player fronting him and a player behind him trying to keep him out of the paint. let's just say we draft JJ, sign KVH, and trade jho to mini for jaric: yao-deke KVH-stro-hayes tmac-novak-bowen JJ-head alston-jaric-sura who does the defense leave in order to double team yao and/or tmac?
Like you said, Yao's been getting double-teamed for years. I'll admit they weren't always aggressive, hard double teams. And Yao has been forced to kick out off some of the softest double team imaginable. But soft or not, they were double teams. Yao is such a good scorer one on one, that teams have to send some sort of help on him. Whether it's through denial or help early or late, it almost always takes more than one player to get Yao out of his comfort zone.
You should stick to your Comments abotu Basketball and not get personal. Yao Was tripled after TMAC's injury and NOT prior. THis is was espcially when no one was even making a damn shot. if you leave out last part of the season- this was NOT a consistent strategy Tell me the games where he was DOUBLED ALL THE Time when TMac was playing without injury? We can settle that fairly quickly
The important thing here is that Anitasri has mastered the use of bold and caps lock to EMPHASIZE THE POINT HE IS TRYING TO MAKE.
Of course they couldn't double team both Yao and Tmac all games long (or 'all the time' like you said) when both of them were playing. That's one of the reasons why we won like 80% of the games during that stretch. How were they supposed to send four players to guard Yao and Tmac and leave one player to guard the remaining three Rockets for the whole game? The beauty of having two superstars is that no team can afford to double both of them all game long. They have to pick their poisons.
Keeping the tempo up was completely predicated on stopping Yao and screwing up our offensive sets. Once they get us out of our offensive rhythm, and we started tossing up bricks, that only fueled their fastbreak. If you remember that game, they started immediately by denying Yao the ball. We would spend way too much time trying to work the ball inside, so when we couldn't get it in, we'd be forced into a bad shot. That led to fastbreak points, and easy buckets for them. Rinse and Repeat. We'd didn't make an adjustment until the next game, when they moved Yao around in the post while the ball got swung around, and reversed from the weakside in a misdirection effort to foil their double teams. That kind of strategy to counter fronting and cheating help, would be MUCH more effective if we had more shooters OR penetrator OR offensive creators ont he floor. I'm not even sure how your argument about Yao getting double teamed supports the point of your thread. There are different ways to help our team, but they pretty much all involve getting players that have more offensive skills than the current group that we're tossing out there. Whether it's a money midrange shooting PF, a slashing two-guard, or a dead-eye three point shooter, any of these guys would be a big improvement over what we've got.
And why would you double team both Yao and Tmac at the same time ( ie use 4 players)? Forget Yao- they were not going to do that Tmac either- it is a whole another topic- if people start double teaming a player because he is having a monster night ( unlike of course if you are Toronto and you think guarding Kobe is a waste of time!)
Huh? If I understand what you said correctly, you agree with me that it's impossible to double both Yao and Tmac all game long. Right?
I do remember the game well. I did not know that I have to define a double team- to me fronting is different than double teaming ( or the help defense variant of that)- those in my opinion are not Serious double teams and are meant to keep the Player who is being double teamed- tentative and guessing. If we are up against constant Zone Defenses sure a 3 pointer would be just great. Our needs in the order I perceive it 1. A SG who can match up with the competition on Defense, is athletic and can score easily ( read ROY) Would be nice to have a 3 point touch- but need not be a specilist. 2. A Power Forward- who can Block and rebound/defend (and do the things Chuck Hayes does so well!) And will be a deadly shooter from 15 feet. 3. We do need 3 point specialists. But I would like to know at what Cost? Definitely not a No 8 Pick? To me Steve Novak is good a pick ( ie if we went for the 3 point shooting and forgot about defense)
Actually the fronting and keeping a looming defender (who has not commited to Yao yet), would be whislted under the old rule's as an illegal defense. So, it is double teaming. But that is aside from the Real argument you brought up which is saying Yao does not get double teamed, it only happened in the latter part of last season. There is only a few times a season at most, that defenses don't concentrate on Yao, by doubling him, he is too capable a scorer. It is standard practice to double (or front and shadow with another defender, or whatever else type of defensive sets the opposing team draws up) Yao and take him out of the game.
