fisher is the weakest part of LA, so rick took advantage of this. great job by yao ming and brooks, great overall defense, greater coach rick adelman.
yao can beat the fronting by moving to high post and high pct midrange shooting which he has been able to do.
Game 1 Post analysis from HOOPCHINA Here I quoted some commentary translated from HoopChina, a famous chinese NBA BBS. Game 1: Rockets 100 VS Lakers 92 Yao markubeX： Perfect performance by the rockets,their play on both side of the court are just perfect.The scene in the tunnel will be an eternal moment. zuki: Although they nearly ran out of energy by the end of 2nd half,they got stole couple of times,it doesn't matter.One of the winning keys is that Yao came back in the 4th quater and he did knocked down the crucial shots. rijay: The 4th of the game was like a perfect film script,to set Yao as someone like Paul Pierce is kinda hard to accept,but getting Reed involved is definetely too much. Artest: markubeX: When Artest can get scoring constant,the rockets are really benefited a lot in the offensive side. zuki: He had some bad looks when garding Kobe and Kobe made his penetration many times,he's simply not a fast player.He diminished the number of adventurous outside shots,and that was reasonable and good for him. rijay: Artest was obviously a major concern of the LA media,and surely he did every thing he could tonight.The lakers let Ariza to guard him 1 on 1,and now we can see that they kinda underestimated Artest on the offesive end.Another remarkable thing is that Artest made a 2+1 and that basically sealed the victory for the rockets. Battier markubeX: Kobe attempted 31 shots and got 32 points,that's the job Battier did. His impact on the game was nothing less that Artest and Brooks. zuki: Kobe used his teamates as screen a lot of times,there's nothing you can do,dude,that's KOBE. rijay: There's nobody in the league who can completely lock kobe.And Battier is not that stupid to think he can guard kobe from any scroring. Rockets Team: markubeX:Thoughrout Monday’s game,Rockets totally overwhelmed Bryant’s team.They seemed more determined and aggressive.Except for a temporary panic in the fourth quarter,which made the host team took the lead by 1,Rockets overplayed Lakers.Yao’s injury is regarded as milestone of the game.After his leaving,we didn’t see confusion that we always found in Rockets’ games.Instead,they show us strong willingness ,letting them get rid of negative mood.Yao scored in succession afer he got back from tunnel,which destoryed the Lakers’ wish of equalising. It’s supposed to be Houston’s best game in 08-09 NBA season,facing Western top seed,Los Angel Lakers,who swept Rockets at regular season,4-0.Today,we took back home advantage with an undoubted success.As we will know,this Western semi-final will become more and more fascinating 不吃酸葡萄 Within my faintest memory, I can still recall the last time when Phil Jackson, a firm believer of winning the game with grace, sneaked around could date back to 2002. back then, Rick Fox, who still had his times in the league, once had some issues with Doug Christie of the Sacramento Kings. [/size] But poor Rick got kicked in the butt and fled in disorder by the newly-married couple. After that incident, apart from the establishment of Christie’s reputation as a tough knockout, the rule "whoever leaves the bench during a fight would be suspended"was silent with no following stories. Maybe it was because the referees could do nothing outside the locker room. Well, bad news don’t come alone. [/size] Today ,when Sasha Vujacic elbowed Shane Battier in his brow ridge, the referees, once again ,neglected that brutal scene. As regards this written-off game, the result turns out to be otherwise. And due to Sasha 's elbow , Shane Battier , a totally innocent guy with flood all over his face, only walked around in front of all the referees for a while. And right here ,I am not going to complain or attack somebody. Instead, I would like to express my appreciation to Vujacic for his can’t-help. Because at the end of the game , Houston Rockets ,eventually ,enjoyed the justified treatment that has never ever come to them before mainly due to the fact that the referees feel they can’t go against the will of the subjects. This makes me feel thrilled and somewhat not so right, which is something I would never ever dare to dream of . zuki Basically, it was a game including impressive fortune, high-level execution, effective defences, and hot-blooded process. The return of Bynum disordered the playbook of defending Yao, and it gave Yao wide space to perform. On the other hand, the Rockets persistently kept their effort in delivering the ball to Yao through the entire game. Speaking to defending Kobe, they have done just all what they could/should. As we can see, Shane Battier was always stick with Kobe, it made everyone emotional in Battier’s experienced defensive skills, as well as the decline of Kobe’s athletics. However, our defence still have sth. to work. Gasol probably would make Rockets much more stressful if his hands were not so ice-cold. In addition, it was all messy that Kobe even can use every screen to make enough space for his shooting, but he is KOBE. Anyway, considering Lakers are the No.1 in West, they've play out the decent defensive effort. Needless to repeat how hot-blooded in the process, which absolutely had been engraved in every fans’ memory. What should be mentioned is Rockets’ fortune. The terrible performances of Lakers in first half, the points from Brooks in the 3rd, timely out-of-gear by Odom, all of these brought Rockets unexceptionable opportunities to maintain the surplus for the final win. The win, a result completely without any dissatisfaction, plus the exciting process, we can describe it with MARVELOUS.
