I think this game after the T-Mac saga and the trade was a game the organization really wanted to win... hence the use of Yao.. plus hes been a monster against Dallas.
Well Carl was out tonight so all the bigs played more minutes, but I agree with the OP. Yao clearly ran out of gas in the 4th quarter tonight. I don't understand why we don't play Deke at all. Sure he can't make a layup and has little offfense, but neither do many bigs in the league. Deke still rebounds and blocks shots better than anybody else on the team. He should get some minutes depending on the matchups.
Yeah, just play Deke 3-4 minutes each half Yao's minutes would be reduced to 31-33, not to mention Rox would have a fresher Yao in the 4th quarter.
Now injuries start spreading in the West. If Rockets want to win during the playoff, both Yao and Artest have to remain healthy.
I agree, especially since Hayes is looking more and more like a liability. Is it just me, or has his defensive skills greatly declined.
I disagree I think he did a great job on dirk. Him and artest are dirk stoppers. But Carl will always be a loss on offense when he plays. He's second on the bench so we can't expect too much from a thrid stringer, good d is enough.
Yao is overused all the time... esp. when we got a 10+ point lead and just got less than 3 minutes left sometimes, the coach still use Yao... what for???
you haven't seen how many minutes shane played last night? and our opponent Nowitzki? Landry is a good player, but we have to admit landry is not able to play center even one minute due to his size. we have to play run-and-gun when we play scolandry or hayescola or hayeslandry in the paint, but our guards are too slow and too numb to play that. run-and-gun requires a good PG who should be as good as nash at least, but we haven't got a better PG than brooks always finish the fast break with a nobrainer shot. we need a center that can gain yao severl minutes to rest, but Ric is saving deke for playoffs and doesn't want to dilute his career stats with regular season games. Dorsey is very capable to play a couple minutes every game to let yao also save some energy for playoffs, but Ric just doesn't trust him. maybe Ric should play some minutes himself, have we got a roster room for him?
I think the organization is very well aware of the minutes given to Yao. My guess is that they will reduce his minutes when playing back to back games or when the schedule gets tougher. Other than that, Yao should play significant minutes. I'm sorry but if you can't trust Yao to play more minutes how do you expect him to lead the team deep into playoffs?
If you look at his usage throughout the year, this game looks to be an aberration. We were unfortunate to be down very early in the game, and then having to hang on to a slight lead down the stretch. There were no good times to take Yao out. That, plus Dallas being a playoff rival, makes it more important than normal. I think Yao will go back to his 30-35 minute range once everything settles down. Actually, what bothered me more about his minutes was how fast the Rockets were playing in the first half with him in there. No need to go Phoenix-speed with Yao in the gam and keep him gassed.
geez....landry is out and he only avgs 33 min a game and he makes max money......why not in a blue moon use him to win a game
Not true. Adelman has been very good at keeping Yao's minutes down through much of the season - between 31 and 36 minutes. It's been awhile since he's played near 40 minutes like he did last night against Dallas. Hopefully, this was an anomaly due to Landry being out, and Adelman will get back to micromanaging Yao's minutes again, because so far it has kept Yao relatively fresh for the fourth quarter.
