[Sina] Yao interview:

It was a very nice interview of Yao by Wang Meng of Titan sports. He talks about the upcoming playoffs, and how much it would mean to him to succeed. Translation below and excuse my English.

http://sports.sina.com.cn/k/2009-04-17/10394329470.shtml

Titan: All of a sudden, you're 5th seed now.

Yao: Sigh, this world changes so fast. It's our own fault that We didn't play good enough to win, and now there's no use saying anything else. Home court advantage would be nice if we had it, but we still just need to play the games. Live rich if you are rich, live poor if you are poor. Just bring them on.

Titan: It seems you and your teammates are not so upset about losing the 2nd or 3rd seed. If you were 2nd or 3rd, you will avoid the Lakers in the second round. With a little luck you can even be in the WCF. Have you ever thought about that?

Yao: I think that everyone is feeling ok. We have to think of it this way, it has already come down to this, what else can we do? We have to look ahead. To be honest, I never thought about the WCF, we haven't even seen the second round yet. So all our energy right now is focused on the first round. Passing the first round means so much to us. If we make it to the second round, playing the Lakers will also be pretty good. LA is a nice place, I can get some nice food there.

Titan: How would you describe your opponents the Trailblazers?

Yao: Young, explosive. No one in the playoffs is an easy match up, each team has its own strengths and weaknesses. Everyone says they lack playoff experiences. We seems to have a little more, but we don't really have winning experiences. All we can remember is how we lost. Our guards especially lacks experiences. So the primary goal in our next few days is to do our homework, find out their weaknesses, fix our problems that could potentially be exposed. We have chances playing against them.

Titan: From position match up, it seems Portland is a good match up for Houston.

Yao: You can say that. Let's start with bigs. Their front court players are big, so they are not that effective fronting me. Prizbilla fronts, but his foot work is not that fast. When he's out and Oden's in, they probably won't front a lot. And their starting pg Blake is not that explosive, rarely gets into the lane, which will be a big relief on our pg defense and Brooks won't get exposed a lot. Roy is a great player very mature, but we have Battier and Artest, two of the top peremeter defenders, and they should be able to contain him. I think we have chances. But right now all of these are just on paper. When the real game begins it's going to be a different story.

Titan: How will losing the home court advantage affect you?

Yao: Home court is important, but even if we have it, so what? It's not like we never had home court advantage before, and we still didn't get past the first round. Portland is a nice city, small and quiet, and there are a few nice resteraunts around, not a big deal going there.

Titan: So you're saying home court advantage is not that important.

Yao: I think it depends. Of course home court will help us, but starting on the road is also no big deal. No pressure on us, at least I think so. If we could win one out of the two road games, that's great for us. Just bring them on, no need to think too much, and that's a good thing. Now we can just focus on preparing for the games.

Titan: Do you like your chances?

Yao: I don't know. Although we fared well against them this season, but that's just regular season. Now it's the playoffs, and the score starts from 0:0. Even if we win a game, it would still starts from 0:0. Before we win all 4 games, the score is always 0:0. That's the most important thing I learned during the past few seasons. You can never relax before you win it all. History, statistics, they are all garbage. We have lost in all types of situations the past few years. Two road wins and up 2-0, and history says you would win, we found a way to lose. Two home wins and up 2-0, it should be a great situation for us, and we lost. Then when it comes to us down 0-2 first, we couldn't get the win. So, we must give it all every single game.

I just saw another reporter. The year we were up 2-0 against the Mavs and we returned to home court, he asked me "Do you think you can sweep them?" I told him just now that if we could get into the same situation this time, do not ever ask that same question again.

But for me, if we want to win, the first to road games, we must win at least one.

Titan: In two days, your 4th NBA playoff will start, how does it feel?

Yao: I can't wait for it to happen. My blood is boiling. I just want the post season to start already. In the past 20 days or so, we played a lot of games, and we've spent time in almost every position on the western playoff standing. It's really painful going through each day this way. I started expecting the post season to start a long time ago, like a young man anxiously waiting for a first date.

Titan: But this is not your first time, it's the fourth time already.

Yao: Ok, fine, first date with the Portland Trailblazers.

Titan: Ok, can you try to summarize this regular season that just finished? Is that hard?

Yao; It's hard, really hard. Frankly I didn't thought we could be in this position we are in right now. I said some time ago that we lost a lot of games that we should won, and if we could've won those games, our playoff position would've been determined a long time ago. But thats all "what ifs". This season we've gone through so many issues, I was even feeling desperate one time.

Titan: Desperate? That serious?

Yao: Yes, desperate. There was a stretch during the season that we lost to no matter who we were against, it's like we've lost all our motivation and swagger. Lost one game, we felt the pain, played a little bit harder the next game, won it, and then went back to our old selves again. I just felt that our team was running in circles with no hope in sight. At that time I was really feeling desperate. Not even getting past the first round, I was thinking could we really make the playoff this season or not.

Titan: Now you don't have to think about that anymore. The playoff will start in a few days. Do you feel right now that the Rockets maybe still need some time to find better solutions to some of your issues, and especially preparing the young guys for the coming playoffs?

Yao: Yes I have that feeling. Especially right after a game. I sit down, and think about the problems exposed during the game, those things that we could've done better, I do feel that we can play better, we still have room to improve. Especially before a big game, there's always all types of things to worry about. Just like right before an exam, you always think to yourself if you have prepared well enough, you always want your preparation to be perfect.

Titan: Well there's no perfect things in the world.

Yao: There's not. Don't talk about perfect, I don't even know when our preparation would be good enough. Cause we never got past the first round, and we don't really know what it takes. So just let the playoff start already. You can give us 10 days, half a month more time to prepare, but it would be the same as it is right now.

Titan: But how can you prepare if you don't know what it takes?

Yao: It's actually simple. For those that do know, they know what types of problems will most likely affect the outcome in a playoff game, antd they improve on them. For us, we just try to get to every problem we can. Guilty until proven innocent. Maybe I'm not expressing exactly what it is, but we just cannot relax a bit on anything. Although it's impossible to get everything perfect, but we will try our best.

Titan: You've never been through the first round before. Personally, how badly do you want this chance?

Yao: Well first, it's really difficult to get a chance to get past the first round. Second, when you get one chance it means one less chance for you the rest of your life. I don't know how to describe how badly I want this, but I really want to get past the first round of the playoffs. Chances are very precious for me. I am almost 30 years old, there won't be too many chances left for me. Also, I don't know what the future will be, what will happen next year. We always say this when we were young, how many chances in life do we have to fight and give it all?

Titan: Every time someone asks you about your goal in the playoffs, you always say, first round, first round, first round. It's almost like not passing the first round is getting on your nerves and you really want to get rid of it.

Yao: There really is a lot of pressure on me. I've been in this league for 7 years now, and I've heard a lot of people said Yao is the best center. Is that really so? I haven't even got my team past the first round yet, so how can I not have any pressure on me. So just as I said time after time before, don't talk too ahead, don't think too ahead, just play the first round first. After it's done, if we made it, things will be different.

Titan: So you can finally relax?

Yao: Maybe you will think this way, but I am not you. I don't even think about it. If we made it, whatever will be will be. The world could change, I might relax, people's perspective on me might change, but that's not what I think about. I just think about how we can make it. The rest is not my problem and I don't think about it. I always focus on whats right in front of me. That's the habbit of an athlete.

Titan: This year, TMac will not be available for the playoff. Although he's been up and down during the regular season, he had always played great during the playoffs. Now that he is out, how much more pressure and responsibility do you feel upon you?

Yao: I don't know how much pressure and responsibility is on me. These things can't be quantified. But what I want to say is, however much burden is on me, I'll carry it. Whatever I need to do, I'll do it.

Titan: So you say you are going to put this team on your shoulder?

Yao: heh, that sounds familar. What I want to say is, I am part of this team, and I am proud to fight together with my teammates for the same goal. But my teammates are looking at me, other people are looking at me. They call me the leader of this team, so I have to step up and take the responsibility. In case we didn't get past first round, what excuse do I have to say that it's not my fault? If we win, then I've played well, if we lost, then I haven't.

Titan: Fourth trip to the playoffs. How is this one different from the others?

Yao: Honestly I don't know. I was injured last year and did not play, so I don't know. The year before, we were very confident, but when it finished, we didn't make it. See it this way, I am feeling more calm than before. Pretending to be more mature.

Titan: Pretending to be more mature?

Yao: I know how badly I want to get past the first round. The longer I've been in this league, the more I want to get past this barrier. I want it more, but I am also more calm. Because I know, we've lost too many times these past few years, against the Mavs, against the Jazz. We had pretty good chances those few times, but we can never hold onto it. This year, it's not that different. It seems we have a good chance, but who knows? So I cannot affort even the slightest carelessness. It's like walking on thin ice.

Titan: What do you worry the most about the playoffs?

Yao: Excecution, especially during crunch times, if we can run the plays we wanted to run, if we can keep our composure, and find out the best way to destroy our opponents facing elevated defensive pressure. Just look at how we lost to the Mavs in the second half today. This problem has been haunting us for a long time, not just this year, it started since JVG's time. And till now we still haven't figured it out. We must be very carefull, and give it 120%.

Titan: Everyone says the playoffs are a different kind of games. What do you think?

Yao: Playoff is all about adjusting yourself. If you have problems that you can't solve in one game, the next one your opponent will still keep beating you at it. It's not like the regular season where you play a different opponent every night, each team is different, each style is different. If you didn't play well one night, the next game is against a different opponent and the problems will not be problems any more. Playoffs aren't like that. Same opponent, multiple games, you know each other very well. It's all about how you adjust yourself, solve your own problems.

Titan: Another playoff is coming, wish you success.

Yao: Thanks. Just let us taste what it's like to get past the first round. Pack our bags, Portland here we come.



I just found out that this article was discussed in this thread, but I felt the interview is much more than what's being discussed in that thread. Mods feel free to merge the threads and sorry for the trouble if that happens.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=166641