Did you watch the game at all? Which ball should Yao shoot when he doesn't see the basketball all night long? Your ball?
chill what? This is playoff. If brooks is not good to start, just put him on bench. We NEED to advance to the second round.
Make your freethrows and you win. Very frustrating to see players go one for two at the line. That is ridiculous at the professional level. The fronting didn't stop Yao, Yao stopped Yao. He gets some bad calls, and he gets frustrated, and he goes into passive mode. He didn't seal off his man on offense, he didn't block out his man on defense. He rarely if ever demanded the ball. He showed no emotion or urgency with the game on the line. It is way to easy to take Yao out of a game. Way, way too easy. I didn't expect a repeat performance from game one, but I didn't expect a lifeless performance in the playoffs. I love Yao, but he will really break your heart. If you are going to talk in the media about not letting your team lose and taking them to the next round, you can't get lost out there. Folks, Wafer is the real deal. If he gets big minutes, I wonder what he would score. But he never gets significant minutes. Still dropped 20. A.B. looked like an inexperienced PG at times, but still managed to contribute. Way too much dribbling. Scola and Landry had off games. If Artest and Battier are elite defenders, how good is Roy? The Rockets played hard, gave it their best shot, that's all you ask. But Yao must bounce back and play aggressively, be determined.
Yao had no turnovers nor assists because AB didn't give the ball to him, obviously. However, if AB had tried to force-feed a fronted Yao, the result would have been a huge amount of turnovers, as Yao is rather poor at ball-handling in general. If the Blazers front, then they virtually concede the paint and it will mean a fairly easy basket for anyone who can actually get into the paint. While fronting will stop Yao, it does mean that if fast, athletic players such as Wafer and Lowry can get in, it's either a free bucket or a foul. You have to exploit that fact in fronting, which we frankly did an okay job as Wafer played a good game today.
I was gonna say we woulda won if we hit our freebies, but they missed just as many freebies as we did. So as it turns out, we just got beat. It took an uber performance from both of their stars to get it done though. Hopefully that won't happen again. Oh, and Wafer is gonna get PAID this summer. I don't see how we will be able tp keep this kid.........
ron will NOT win us ANY playoff game. he needs to chill and know his role and take his 10-12 shots a game. dave carmichael, next time you have him on your radio. gotta tell the guy that.
totally agree!someone who blames yao has to know,our players even not try to pass him the damn ball..
So it isn't an excuse when we get called for blocking calls when obviously it isn't? So it isn't an excuse when Brooks got called a foul when Blake "butted him"? So it isn't an excuse when Yao gets called a foul when Crawford was 25 feet away yet the other 2 refs who were within 10 feet never did? So it isn't an excuse when the ball went out and clearly Portland touched it 3 times? So it isn't an excuse when Pryzbilla flops as well as Malone? Need I say more?
If we ignore our center,please make sure we can win at last. Yes,the low FT% could be the answer.But we all know our best FTer is Yao.So maybe we just chose the wrong strategy(ignore Yao) at the very beginning.
and yao can hit that shot. and when he does, that makes them choose their poison. also it opens up the lane for someone like von wafer or lowry to score or draw a foul. as another poster stated: fronting is solved by player and ball movement. you reset and continue to move the ball and it makes it difficult for them to front effectively. adelman needs to bench artest when he starts jacking threes like that. i know its been said a thousand times on here but he never does it.
Deke being out is a big problem for us, for not just the obvious reasons (defense, rebounding, shot blocking, leadership, rest for yao), but also because it opens up the game for Roy directly. Tonight was proof of that. Roy has been hesitant in the past against houstonbecause once he gets by his man he's wondering where the big man is and also looking over his shoulder for shane/ron. today, with deke out and yao limited due to foul trouble, once roy got past his man it was 2 points or free throws. I'm really worried about the size of this team. I still expect them to beat portland, but it could be a longer series now. We are extremely short without deke, it not even funny how short our frontcourt is when it's landry and chuck in there. I'm a little disappointed that the team went after james white instead of going for another big man, but what can you do now..
No Yao no win, FRONTING needs to be solve now or it will be our worst nightmare. ehem it already is , our guard will simply go with different play and ignoring Yao.
