Maybe the coach wanted to do a defensive/offensive sub for Yao. We saw, at least i did that he was tired. The rebound by the ukrain guy was a lack of energy yao gave up that almost cost the rox the game. Like i said is the bigger issue of his backup. If they would have force a pick and roll with yao and yao wouldve been forced on williams at the 3pt line and wiliams drained a 3, then people wouldve been asking why wasnt yao in the game. The lakers used to take Shaq out in some of those same situations, but they still had a guy to protect the basket. The rox didnt have this problem when dream was here, but yao on the other hand has a tendacy to get iso'd on the gaurd at the end of games or give a half ass foul on someone going to the basket. If you dont believe me, check the James and 1 a few yrs back. just saying.
If Yao could hit one more shot, the game was over, right? it is completely unacceptable for a superstar in any circumstances.
it's always yao who cost us or almost cost us a game, eh? williams had a real bad shooting night. what makes you so firmly believe he'd "drain" a 3 in a p&r situation? there were 40+ ticks left, even if he or someone did hit a 3, it's still a tied game and we'd have the last play. it's almost irrelevant to bring up the backup center issue here. the jazz went small and adelman wanted to match. do you think if we signed deke before christmas, adelman would have used him in that situation?
I'm not going to say Yao wouldve cost the rox the game because i believe there are plays that teams leave on the floor every night.The thing is when the game gets like that in that moment, you have to get that rebound. Just like all those rebounds Utah ran down in game 7 2 yrs ago, you have to push through and make the play. As far as using Deke, i dont know, but its not about deke. Sloan went small to force the issue and create the matchup, but the rox should have a guy who is long or agile enough to still protect the basket. landry was out there. they shouldve had a guy that can actually still protect the basket.
What I like about what Rick did was the fact that he finally stopped being stubborn and gave the ball to another person instead of Yao during the 2nd OT. It was pretty clear that in the second half that yao was hella tired and couldnt hit a shot.. I cringed everytime he got the ball during overtime because I somewhat expected misses (I think he only hit 1 shot in OT). Great effort by Yao though, especially during the first half.
Although we won the game at last, Artest helped us alot. Artest beaten the Utah Jazz, at this point need to appreciate. But we still have to improve, Utah's shooting percentage is 49% (49/100), while we are 39% (38/97), looking at their assists---35, we are only 21. This is the difference. We need to play as a unity in 48 minutes, not only three quarters.. Our 3-point-shots are better than Utah, 42.9% to 38.5%. We won the game mostly due to FTs--(32/38), Utah--(12/18).. with a big guy in the center, great advantage of Rockets..
Nice game. great contributions by all our players. Yao was beastly the first three quarters but you could see he was getting tired was still getting good shots but didn't have the energy to really follow through with the shot. Great seeing Ron Artest step up in Mcgrady's absence he was in a bit of a scoring slump recently was still great on defense, but with this game I hope his confidence and contributions on the offensive end increase.
I was clearly wrong,lol. You certainly don't have a personal agenda against Alston. He was absolutely terrible tonight, but your hate for the guy is ridiculous.
I agree. If it wasn't for Yao's aggressive play in the first half building up a big lead, the Jazz could have caught up easily in the 4Q and won the game without OT's.
shows how much we need a back up C. yao was totally drained. again defense assignments were missed with those easy base line shots so another hole to cover up. we should have wrecked them without their front court, but a win is a win and hopefully we'll make it prettier next time.
And I bet you this will be the year T-mac gets his name mentioned in the MVP race, did you guys check the ALL-STAR race, yeah T-Mac's a leadind vote getter what a disgracegoo Good win Rockets
If Yao had sit out the previous game like Ron did, he would have closed out this game in the 4th quarter or 1st OT and be the Mr. Clutch one again. He looked exausted late on. It is a top priority for the Rockets to bring in a backup center now.
