Great stuff! Especially the rebounds and the blocks! Yao is looking very active as of late. I think the play of Mutombo has kind of inspired Yao to be more active defensively with the blocks and going after those rebounds. The last few years Yao has kind of run out of gas in April and it is great this year to see him get a 2nd wind and playing well as we are heading into the playoffs. This team will only go as far as our two stars will take us.
I hate to throw ice water on such a sweet thread, but I'm not sure I agree. It seems like whenever Yao is out on the court, teams just take it to him and score almost at will. Our leads disappears and I'm screaming at JVG to put Deke in. In the Denver game, early in the game, everytime Yao touched the ball, a Denver double team came over and just took the ball out of his hands, or they knocked away a rebound he surely had. Yes his numbers have been better lately I agree with that, but Deke is turning around games and winning them. To me...Yao's frustration level has increased over the past month!
Yao seems like he's more comfortable in the system, and especially at the defensive end. I think by sometime next year, you should see those 35mpg projected numbers realized. Very exciting to watch this guy improve.
my observation about Yao's blocking is that he got a lot of help from perimeter defense. Before, the outside defenders were letting the slashers pass by and hoped yao would just stop them in the middle. However, they gave opponents too much space to jump, resulting in many dunks on Yao. Now the perimeter defenders follow them all the way through, even when they got beat. So the opponents can't jump/dribble comfortably, and Yao would just swat everything weak out of there.
