I checked the main thread of this game but nobody had brought this up, so here comes my 2cents. Everyone was talking about Yao missing key shots at the 4th, but the reasons? Yao was not only tired, he was mentally distracted, BY THE FIGHT WITH MASON! If you had played games and had a lot of fighting experience, you might find my point funny. But if you had seldom involved in fightings in a game, you might remember the first time you were involved and understand what I am saying. Yao was not neccessarily afraid of a fighting, but he was thinking too much about it. And that affected his game and his agressiveness. No player can avoid fightings in NBA. So welcome to the party, Yao. In a NBA game court, you can only have two reactions to a fight or potential fight: throwing a punch or a dunk! I don't think Yao is the type of players to throw punches. So throw a dunk, Yao! Somebody in the Rockets organization tell Yao this! I hope Yao had learned the lesson...
I think people did bring that up. He got distracted cuz of Mason. He was doing great before that though.
I don't buy this at all. Yao was just completely gassed by the final 5-6 minutes. Was he leaving PJ Brown open for jumpers because he was acutally daydreaming about the fight? And BTW, Yao has been on the scene of some ugly brawls with the Chinese National Team. This summer, China and Puerto Ric got into an nasty one with many punches thrown. Yao was in street clothes and stayed out of it, but it's not like he's never seen a fight on the basketball court before.
Looks like Yahoo sports will agree with you. Yao should stop being a nice guy otherwise a lot of teams will take this "beat Yao, insult Yao" strategy in the future. In my impression, every time Yao act like this Rockets lose the game. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap;_ylt=AqQokcYlZSy3B54vocZact28vLYF?gid=2005110510 "When Mason got up, he flipped over Yao, and the two shouted at each other. The players on the floor crowded together and Juwan Howard shoved Rasual Butler. Referee Tom Washington pulled Mason out of the scrum and tempers cooled as both coaches came onto the floor. Mason and Howard got technical fouls. At first, the incident didn't seem to faze Yao. He won the ensuing jump ball with Mason, then got two blocks in the fourth quarter to match his career high. But Brown began dominating Yao late, hitting two medium-range jumpers over him as the Hornets took control."
To be a bystander and to be involved is different. Despite of lack of gas at the end of game, Yao did not even try to fight for low post position and was not as focused as before the fight. Again, I was not saying that Yao could not handle it eventually, but he appeared he was distracted and not able to adjusted himself. I just hope he can handle it better in the future of his career. I agree the Yahoo report should not bring this up.
Agreed. But I think we were emotionally on edge tonight and how that affected Yao I'm honestly not sure.
Like I said. Yao leaving PJ open for jumpers showed that he was exhausted. Which is the same reason, for him taking all those crummy fall-aways. I don't buy this fight excuse at all.
Yao was much less aggressive after the fight, he even went on patting Mason on the back. This kind of actions will only inspire your opponent, make your teammates fighting for you look bad. Even though Rockets was still leading right after the fight, I didn't fell good about the game after that.
I'm sure Yao will learning something from tonight's experience. But not to the extent of being an Artest-type. Mason is a nobody!! That's why he was trying to make a headline out of that incident, to sell himself to the public.
Yao is not Hakeem. Hakeem was a 'nice guy' unless you provoked him, and then the Nigerian in him came out. He was nice, but very tough mentally and not much fazed him. I think Yao is just an incredibly nice guy and he will never develop that 'mean streak' everyone is looking for him to develop, so let's just drop this topic every time something happens and accept Yao for who he is: a gentle giant. I am ok with him being that way, but it only means that we need a bunch of german shephards around him, which I don't see in this current team AT ALL. They are wonderful talents, but with very little of that physicality and grind-it-out mentality that, say, a team like the Hornets has. IMO, this team is ful of way too many nice guys and not enough 'bad boys', which every team needs. If Spree is still out there and willing to play for a championship, I hope he's still on our radar. Like him or not, we need a fiery personality on this team, especially since Sura isn't going to be around for a while.
He scored the next time he touched the ball, got another block, and grabbed two more rebounds. Then he started to stunk it up at the six minute mark and on. I doubt that melee has much to do with his poor shooting and bad defense. He actually came into the 3rd quarter at the 4:46 mark. JVG should have rested him every eight to 12 minutes of playing time. However, it's not JVG's fault that Yao took it upon himself to take over the game when Yao knew he was exhausted.
Scott will buy that. I hope not the rest of the league. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap;_ylt=AnS1ovsvhzKhXJUP.mZqtE28vLYF?gid=2005110510 ``A play like that shouldn't happen,'' Howard said. ``Yao, all he was trying to do was defend the shot. Unfortunately, he wants to throw him off his back and be Mr. Tough Guy. We're not going to stand for that.'' New Orleans coach Byron Scott thought the play fueled the Hornets' comeback. ``We've got a bunch of guys jumping around and they seemed to play better after that,'' Scott said.
