I've seen LeBron fans say that LeBron suffers from the same disadvantages by being big and strong, he takes a lot of contact that would normally be a foul but that he doesn't get calls because he's so hard to knock off balance. Not sure if it's true, I've just read it.
okur had 16 and 8 and negated yao's output. boozer is recovering from his injury. he has NOT have one single good game since returning and he nearly put up 20-20 against yao in only 34 minutes. we have to limit yao's minutes v. this team and og to him in stretches. we can score without yao v. this team. get deke and hayes in more for defensive reasons and shut down their big men.
it was obvious throughout the whole night the jazz were getting OPEN looks at the basket. Harping would go over 2 picks for an open free throw line shot. Boozer would come off a pick for an open shot or someone else. that's the jazz offense, and they're remarkably good at it. the only way to beat the Jazz is to contest all their shots. The Lakers, Spurs, and Celtics do a good job of this. Unfortunately Yao isn't going to go on the perimeter and block Boozer. We're probably the worst team at guarding the pick and roll just because Yao would have to cover the PG (which he can't). basically, the best answer to the Jazz is to avoid them at all costs in the playoffs. this team just isn't built to beat them. I would feel much better if we played the Spurs.
it's true. lebron gets his calls b/c he dishes out his punishment. but he gets fouled harder than any other perimeter today. watch the first laker-cavs game. bynum murders him several times and only one foul was called. the thing is those things piss lebron off and he goes even harder.
we could have beaten them last yr if alston played in all the games. they looked shook after game 5 v. us.
The problem isn't really the refs they have to make calls and have to much to worry about other than who is flopping. The problem is that there is no deterent to flopping. The Jazz are known floppers and take advantage of this. Control the flop. Control the game.
as a perimeter player, lebron still enjoys the benefits of the recent rule changes. plus, he gets away with crab dribbles where in comparison yao never does. other than that, he's a true amazing talent and physical specimen (though not my favorite type of player).
and lemme put up the stats why stern won't care about our complains. the jazz were called for 29 fouls last yr -> we shot 32 fts. we were called 18 fouls and they shot 17 fts. this was on their homecourt. how are we to complain when we got 15 more fts and 11 more fouls called in our favor? we didn't lose b/c of the refs last night. yes some calls REALLY REALLY piss me off. but c'mon, shooting 15 more fts? i take that every game in utah.
the reason is we had more mobile big men that could go out and cover okur and stayed with boozer. with yao, one of them is gonna dominate us depending on who yao guards. that's why we shut them down offensively last yr until the last game. and that was when alston went out at halftime and deron just went off on bobby jackson. alston was missed last night defensively. deron rarely dominated us like last night. i've said this since we lost the first series. play yao less, go to a smaller lineup and we have a better chance.
okut got away from the crappy officiating when defending yao. yao had 19/7/6/5 in 30 minutes - under harassment from both the defenders and the refs - and it's still sorta a disappointment for him in many's eyes. isn't that in itself a testament to his abilities? you guys always try to depict and distort the picture like yao is a scrub, in a variety of ways. i want to know why.
who has said yao is a scrub? stop trying to read too much into things. yao got 19 pts on 18 shots and at least 5 of his baskets were from putbacks. he struggled last night offensively. yao did do a great job of trying to play defense and blocking though. all i'm saying is utah's advantage with their big men will always be greater. we have to find a way to adjust to this (we did find a way last yr and shut them down). like i said, play yao less minutes (25-30 is good), play deke and hayes more. go to scola and artest more on offense. we can beat this team.
Maybe that was because both Boozer and Okur were shooting from outside (and made them)? Do you really believe that if Jazz were attacking as often, they would not get the same (or more) amount of ft? You can't just look at the stats and come up with a conclusion.
lol. thought deke shut boozer down last year. and limiting yao's minutes? i didn't see we score a run when yao sat last night. maybe in your theory, we should've sit akeem down when we played the sonics since it was such a bad matchup.
They could easily have been called for 59 fouls ... that's Jerry Sloan's dirty, cheap, puss-assed strategy (and it has been for twenty years): constantly foul the the opponent, and fall down at every opportunity. And the idiot fricking refs fall for it, but they reeeealllllly fall for it in Polygamy Lake City.
deke and hayes did a great job of shutting down boozer last yr. but yet they played a combined 5 minutes in yesterday's game. we didn't go on a run without yao, but we stayed basically even with utah without yao. now if deke and hayes played more, they wouldn't score as much and shot 50% against us. limit yao's minutes so we can play deke some along with hayes. is that a bad thing v. utah?
No offence to Battier. We all know that he's great guy, defensive-minded. But he has been " Chuck Hayes" on offense. No doubt, he can slow down the opponent's main scorer but he definitely needs to contribute some points as well. What I usually see is he always camps at the three-point line and waits for the pass to knock down a three. In yesterday's game, he seemed to be disappeared on offense, which made us like 4 vs 5. We can definitely beat jazzholes and I think he's the key !
