Naaaaaah, the reason why he picked his jersey to be #11 is that His wife's jersey number is 11 in the Chinese national team. And 1 in Mandarin is Yi. So 11 is Yi Yi....i.e. YY, Yao and Ye. That is well known amongst all Big Yao's fans in China.
because people only remember missed free throws. They forgot how Yao made many clutch free throws in the past.
Dude take it easy, everyone chokes once it a while. Yao choked. Plain and simple. He's too good to miss three FTs in a row, and guess what, it happened in the final moments. Only explanation is that he somewhat folded under all the pressure. It happens. Nobody is bashing, saying he choked is just being real. This isn't the first time a Rocket choked at the ft line in a close game. Oh, and nobody is talking about Duncan choking because this thread is about the reason Yao missed his FT. Yao choked, we won, everything works out in the end. Now if we lost because Yao choked on those FTs, then it would be another story. Just be glad Yao choked and we still won.
Asking an 86% free throw shooter to not miss 3 free throws in a row at a critical point of the game is not asking too much. Maybe because of the 3.5 NBA championships? And before Duncan did win a title, that's the label he had -- "soft". Mario Elie had to call out both Robinson and Duncan back then.
I don't know if it was pressure, fatigue, or just randomness. With the game on the line, there still isn't another Rocket I'd rather see on the free throw line.
For those who are interested, here's Yao free throw shooting in the last 5 minutes of games + overtimes when the score is within 5 points, compared to his free throw shooting otherwise: Code: [B]"Clutch Time" "Rest of the Time"[/B] [I]ftm fta ft% FTM FTA FT% diff%[/I] 02/03 32 37 86.5% 269 334 80.5% +6.0% 03/04 42 54 77.8% 319 392 81.4% -3.6% 04/05 25 37 67.6% 364 460 79.1% -11.5% 05/06 27 31 87.1% 310 364 85.2% +1.9% 06/07 16 17 94.1% 340 396 85.8% +8.2% 07/08 23 34 67.6% 223 254 87.8% -20.2% Total 165 210 78.6% 1825 2200 83.0% -4.4%
82games.com provides the clutch time stats. I added results from yesterday's game manually, since they're not quite up to date yet.
"1"may also be pronounced as "Yao" in Chinese. In fact it was standard in military communication back to the old days. I guess as a guy from HongKong you must be familar with the magic number "518", my friend
Duncan has his tracking record: rings. Yao has nothing, and has not even passed the 1st round in playoffs yet.
Maybe because Duncan has hit numerous clutch shots in his career and has 4 NBA Championship rings? Just throwing it out there. He choked at the line, like you said unusual, it's just one game, move on and I'm sure he'll hit em next time. We won anyways haha, with great offensive rebounding in the final minutes.
When Yao got in the league he was soft. the #11 was given to him to harden him. Its like the black spidey costume. Except #11 for the Rockets stands for heart, leadership, hip-hop and the use of the word mutha*****.
