I watched most of last night's game and it's going to be hard to mesh McGrady's style with Yao's. Yao struggles to run up and down the floor so it's going to be hard for him to get points b/c he just can't keep up. Should we sacrifice the running game in order to get Yao involved? It seems like that would disrupt the flow of the game if we did that and it would hurt McGrady's production. What do you guys think?
Lets see what happens this year. Yao was coasting and so was McGrady; it's the preseason. They really aren't playing that hard. Yao's training and endurance will be scrutinized. But I'm sure he'll be better than last year. What Yao needs to do is rebound better and learn the outlet pass. He doesn't have to run the court in order to get McGrady, JJ, Nachbar, Howard involved in the fast-break. Those guys are the ones that will compete the break. Not Yao (although sometimes Yao will be involved). Yao needs to be the pivot point where the rebound is quickly sent out for the start of the fast-break. But Yao need to look down court immediately after he snatches the rebound. Kareem (Sabonis with the Trailblazers) did this with the Lakers. And he was not the best runner either. Not like Hakeem was. We can learn to execute a good fast-break while relying mostly on a very strong half-court game.
Both Yao and T-Mac have shown an ability to pass and be unselfish. And all T-Mac has talked about since he's been here, is sacrificing his game in order to win. T-Mac can run, but it's not like he's Jason Kidd out there, pushing the ball on every possession, and they've only played three preseason games together. Isn't it a little early to conclude whether they can mesh with each other or not.
Yao needs to take care the ball better, Ewing should teach him how to pass the ball out from a double team.
Ewing averaged about 2 assists per game. To put that in perspect, Hakeem averaged 2.5 assists per game, Shaq 3 assists per game, David Robinson averaged 2.5 assists per game and Yao Ming is currently averaging 1.6 assists per game. I know some people don't like him because of his days with the Knicks but give the guy slack. Especially since I don't ever remember him badmouthing the Rockets fans or organization.
I think T-Mac was bored of the preseason. In actuality nobody was really excited, save for Yao and a few others trying to show off for the coach and get some playing time.
That's not what I saw. I saw an opportunistic TMAC, Ward, Lue, etc. who ran off good defensive play when the opportunity was there to push it up for an easy bucket. When it wasn't there, they set it up and waited for the big man to come down. That's the way we need to play. TMAC is too good a player to require that he back it out and set it up when they definitely have a break advantage. Them guys running the opportunistic fast break is only going to serve our half court offense better because it will be more exhausting for the defense. And Yao and Howard are good outlet passers. They get the ball out quickly. This team will run when the opportunity presents itself off their defense, but they will be able to set it up and run very effective half court offense also. Everybody is still basically playing around out there.
You basically just said that big men cant keep up with guards. This is the case with every team with a real center, could Shaq keep up with Kobe. Can Z keep up with Bron? I dont know what basketball game you're playing, but this isn't NBA Live where every possession is a fast break. What do you need a center on the fast break for anyway, you want guys who can handle the ball and not get stripped. Also, if it's a fast break, you should outnumber the defenders, if you don't outnumber them, then more of ten than not, the guy running with the ball is making a stupid decision to not wait fgor his teammates. I dont mean to b**** at you, but this kind of question is just so annoying. You can ask this question of every single decent center/guard in the NBA. Can TD keep up with Ginobili? He's quick, but you dont see him on the fast break.
I hear they will give three points to a 5 on 0 fast break starting next season in order to encourage the centers to involve in the fast breaks.
I'm glad we could determine from one preseason game that Yao and T-Mac won't be able to play well together.
There are all kinds of threads predicting dynasty, best one-two punch in basketaball, smarter basketball team, etc before this team took the court and you're going to criticize a guy who actually made an opinion based on actual play.
I've noticed that Tmac hasn't really used the picks Yao has set for him. Yao would set the pick from one direction, and Tmac would go the other way. As a big man myself, I know how frustrating it is to set a pick only to have the jackass guard not use it. I'm kind of surprised that we haven't seen some real pick and roll yet. How would anyone stop that particular play?
