Let's face it, the Rockets are better fit, defensively, to stop the Jazz without Yao. Yao isn't athletic enough to guard any one of their big men. Boozer can't manhandle Chuck Hayes. Boozer averaged 24/11 against the Rockets in the '06-'07 playoffs. He averaged 16/10 last season. While the rebounds are about the same, an 8-point output differential is HUGE. Unfortunately, having Chuck Hayes on the court on offense is like going 4 on 5.
hes saying because we shot twice as many free throws that people shouldnt complain about the refs. basically we have to work for our shots while the jazz get open jumpers at the basket. noone on our team can hit a midrange jumpshot like harping and kirilenko. the jazz are deadly from midrange. our players just shoot 3s.
In all fairness, Yao could not keep up with the game and was obviously gassed through the fourth. Also, he is going to get his 6 fouls against the Jazz because Okur and Boozer are trained on how to take him out of the game. Limiting his minutes is a not only reasonable, but possibly a necessary option.
again, yao had - 19pts, 7rebs, 6asts and 5blks in 30 minutes, under ridiculous officiating. if boozer got that i bet some of you would be saying how great he is and how yao is unable to guard him even more. 2 questions. one, how do you define "shut down" and what was boozer's # last year in the series? two, are you saying 30 minutes is too many for yao when we play utah?
too bad adelman's mentality is to make them pay at the other end, which is the best choice for us. taking yao out, put in whom? landry? didn't see him do great last night. hayes and deke? they may be able to drag down boozer's scoring by a few points, but how many will they be able to score?
boozer got 16 pts, 11 boards, and shot 42%. if you watched the games, he was rarely a main factor. espn commentators were clamoring where is boozer the entire series last yr. 25-30 minutes are good enough for yao v. utah. so his minutes are fine. my problem is only 5 minutes combined for deke and hayes. yao shot 7-18 which is 38%. yao's stats may look deceiving b/c he got 4-5 putback baskets.
we're better playing a low-scoring game than utah. again, if you put deke and hayes in for stretches, that will lower the confidence of boozer. again, did you even watch last year's series? like i said, if alston played in all the games, we would have won despite tmac and shane being injured. our lineup matched up perfectly with them last yr. and we have MORE talent this year. we can beat this team.
for whatever reason boozer is supremely confident vs Yao. you are right that hayes and deke needed some minutes last night.
again if you limit boozer, that makes someone else having to step up. i rather have that than boozer playing with tons of confidence. we also gotta be more physical with deron. unfortuntely, i don't see brooks or lwory doing anything. shane battier was beyond useless last night. since he's only effective guarding good scorers, might as well put him on deron and put him to use. since lowry/brooks have no chance v. deron gosh, he's like a ghost out there last night. like i said, scola still needs more shots. 9 shots ain't enough for luis.
since when putbacks don't count? isn't that, on contrary, usually a big part of a center's job? when dhoward got offensive rebounds and put them back (through fancy dunks), they're in the top 10 plays on espn every single day. and i really like how you're conveniently omitting yao's 6 assists (team high) and 5 blocks. so now you've looked up boozer's #'s? lol. so 24/11 against yao was domination (while yao's 25/10 against okur was "getting abused"), and 16/11 was being "shut down" by deke or hayes and wasn't "a main factor"? i give up. i rest my case.
if? we're talking about "if's" now? don't remember if i watched the series (i am old), but i happen to remember when alston pulled his hammy and left the game we're trailing by the teen's.
i'd have artest on williams. ron is physical enough to bother deron and just as quick or quicker than shane. i wasn't disagreeing with you about boozer, i was just pointing out for some unknown reason he loves facing Yao. yes scola needs more shots. i think we also should have tried going small with brooks and lowry and push the tempo and get easy buckets. the jazz want a halfcourt game first.
another bogus you pulled from nowhere. low scoring game? you mean what jvg tried where only 4 rockets scored?
while that's actually a good question, hayes was on boozer a lot last year and was (perhaps) the main reason he sucked. the year before though when deke would come in to back up yao boozer definitely struggled, and it doesn't make much sense because deke is even slower than yao and was never close to challenging his jumpers. it must be mental, boozer just knows he can score on yao and that's that. even when yao challenges his shot well it goes in every time. last year though i'm not sure if anyone gets credit for boozer because he sucked balls the whole end of the year against everyone. he was terrible the last few weeks of the regular season, sucked in our series, sucked in the next series, and was embarrassingly bad on Team USA. i don't know what happened to him, but it was not good.
actually we trailed by only 4 coming back from a 19 pt deficit at halftime. alston went out and bobby jackson was forced to guard deron. deron just went ballistic like he did last night. like i said, we were extremely physical last yr with this team in the playoffs. if u saw how the series went, it was going in our favor when alston returned b/c he was extremely physical with deron.
with scola, landry, wafer and more scoring options, yes we're better. give those scoring options to JVG and yes, we would be more equipped to play better. utah is not more talented than us now. utah had more talent than us when JVG was here.
Big key against Utah is to attack the basket and not settle for contested jump shots. That team just loves to foul and the quicker you get them into the penalty the more it plays into the rockets strength. Lowry, Brooks, Wafer and Artest can all attack the bucket. The rockets only had T-Mac last year as someone who could take their man off the dribble.
that's true. since the jazz foul a lot, take advantage of that. tracy got more calls last yr as he went inside more. we have capable guys.
