From Yao himself: I couldn't agree with you more, big fella. As soon as the Rockets listen to you and start playing you closer to the basket as a rule, THEN we will be contenders.
who the hell r u blaming?? is that coach's fault?? or u try to blame that on other teammates?? that's b/c YM is not stong enought to get himself into the lowpost!!!(not yet)
I watched Ming on several possessions last night and he was getting stood up as he tried to establish position inside. They need to run plays for him to be able to get position down low - he's having a hard time trying to get that positioning by backing people down or planting himself. And I'm pretty sure Rudy knows that getting Ming inside/down low is uh... advantageous.
I took those comment by Ming to say that he couldn't back his man down or get his own low post position...as DoD seems to say as well. There are other ways to get him near the rim without making him a Dream target. How the hell did Kenny get all those slashing slam dunks off of passes???? Remember, there is a reason why Shaq and Duncan are not performing as normal. It is a wee bit too much to expect Yao to get better low post positioning than those two guys. we need to continue running a motion game (that produced many of KTs points last game) as well as posting Yao. And like Yao said, him getting stronger can't be all that bad.
This message brought to you by the committee to detract from Ming while exaggerating Kenny Thomas' effectiveness because of one decent offensive game.
what does this mean?? the rhetorical point was "How the Hell Did Ming/Cato/Mobley Get Those Slams Slashing to the Rim against the 76ers. get it now, Achebe? It was a Motion game brought Kenny those points, rather that to "PUT MING IN THE LOW POST NOW!" Our motion game is more important than trying to turn Yao Ming into Hakeem. We can use Yao as a dry-spell buster, but the focus should be a 5-man game. We are running a beautiful offense now, and everyone is contributing, just like we all wanted before the season began. The Hakeem game (Ming version) will not work in an era of zones, and Rudy is doing it the right way.
They have been playing him in a high post offense. From what I see he couldn't back his man down from there. When the high post offense starts he usually is a pick, then tries to roll down low. Rarely have there been times when someone hasn't already cut to the hoop or shot before he gets down low. They do have a three man set on the left side where they try to get it to him in the low post. Philly was fronting him with good weakside help, denying the entry. Of course that opened up other players.
Ah, I don't miss the off-season. I think fans across the NBA are in total denial about the zoning we're seeing this year. If they were more aware the league office would have already have been bombarded with hundreds of thousands of e-mails decrying why their favorite player sucks. Hey Partner has been consistent in his belief of the best way for us to attack these zones and Achebe, that was just a low shot about K.T., especially considering Hey P. didn't say KT was playing great, he said the offense was getting him dunks when Yao was in the high post. Why is everybody so freaked out about Yao being 15' away from the basket? Given he has a sweet shot, is still struggling getting low-block positioning and it has shown effectiveness, why the gut-wrenching? This B.B.S is becoming about how the world affects Yao and I don't get it. For the record, while I agree with most of Hey P.'s assertion s about this offense, I lack the confidence of most of our personnel to run it effectively. But Rudy should get props for trying something, and kudos to Hey. P. for taking time to explain it to those who just aren't looking too closely at how these zones are affecting not only Shaq, Duncan and Yao, but also A.I., S.F. and just about every other superstar outside of T-Mac.
thx declan for getting my back. Surely Ming was talking about his entry's from the low block against the Hornets. Ming gets a lot of low post entries for him to work. But that spots seems to be 15' away when we run a Dream game to him. When in motion, the idea is to make it easier for him to shake his defender for even better position, and that is the idea behind the triangle and Shaq as well, right? For everytime Ming is receiving passes in the high post, Cato gets one too. When Ming and Cato are in the high post, that is a tell tale sign of our new motion game. You've see the Ming/Cato handoffs to Francis at the FT line, right?
Absolutely. They seem to be running a double high post at times now too. Teams are resorting to fronting Yao Ming more now in the low post. I think that is in part out of respect for his passing ability. They don't want him to have the ball at all!
This was the Hornets game I was talking about. If you have a tape, watch when Ming tries to set up on the left block. I believe it was PJ Brown or Magloire or maybe those 2 and Campbell, but he was battling for position so much (and not winning) that an entry pass wasn't made by the guard. This appears to be what many teams are attempting to do against Ming ; just shove him away from the paint. Once in there, there's not much they can do unless they have a great 7 footer defending him. It's also why Ming's numbers suffered in that Hornets game - he was battling so much for position or trying to get into the paint, it either wore him down or knocked him out of his rhythm. Not to mention, he was being forced to take shots a bit further out (on average) than in other games.
