I know.. I know.. the season has not yet started... But I was just curious to know if the current Rockets players could have someone woud successfully defend Boozer? Scola??
Yao should've never guarded boozer... it was a big mistake by the "defensive genius" JVG. Both scola and hayes are quick and smart enough to give boozer problems. Let's just hope whoever guards d-will will hold up.
then who should he guard? you want him to wander along perimeter, do you? easy to say bad strategy after games. c'mon. have you ever checked boozer's stats vs spurs? did utah lose due to his bad series? do you know who guarded him during spurs' series?
good point. all i wanna say is that JVG made rocket fans suffer the last three seasons... but yao has become a much stronger player under JVG... and this sets up perfectly for yao to reach his true potential under RA. 30/12/4/3
let's put it in this way. boozer did very well during playoff. he was way over my expectation. is he going to repeat what he did last season?
Yao's foot speed will have a dramatic improvment playin with RA's offense system. yao will be subconsciously quicker because this season's style of playin will be alotta fun for the players. adelman makes all the difference in the world
I think Yao can defend Okur well. In fact, Okur almost spent all his energy on defending Yao, and very few energy left for offense. The main reason that VGD didn't let Yao defend Okur is because that Okur is a three point shooter. If Yao defended him, Yao would have to go outside. Hayes is too short, and Utah players would directly drive and attack rim.
No, how will Okur even stay on the floor when we put in like 4 guards and one forward and we start running? With Adelman as coach I see us ditacting the flow of the game similiar to the old kings and blazers and the present day Pheonix Suns and Spurs.Unlike what JVG should have done we need to use our strengths to expose thier weaknesses as well. Last years team had strengths that could have exposed Utah's weaknesses but we didn't use our strengths to full potential imo. Now was that Jefferson or Boozer that got dunked on in the Olympics by Scola when Argentina beat USA? Go to the :46 mark of this vid: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XBIJjIE1W9w"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XBIJjIE1W9w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
i always believe any team, even military, has to use own strength to overcome its weakness. very few nba teams have a center like we have. the best strategy of other teams against rox is to draw yao away from low post and get him into open area. by doing that, they can take advantage. yao is big but slow. his reaction time is nowhere compared to those smaller ones. another thing i want to point out. RA system is not suns. RA mentioned many times he doesn't have nash. if you watched RA with Kings and Blazers, he focused on players w/o ball making moves and cuts in half court sets. players with ball should recognize where their teammats and make a good pass to get easy basket. it is a dramatically different from jvg's system. jvg wanted his players stationing along perimeter and let yao or tmac worked out to create open shots for them.
One reason Boozer lit us up is because Utah essentially runs three forwards out there with no center. Okur did a great job of guarding Yao one-on-one, so he could stay in the game without foul trouble. Yao couldn't guard Okur on the perimeter and it turned out he couldn't guard Boozer inside, either. Yao's weaknesses were pitifully exploited during that series. Obviously, we couldn't take him out of the game because he was one of two players who could actually score. My hope is that Adelman's new offense (and the addition of Scola, natch) will allow us to take Yao out of the game without losing as much scoring punch. That's, of course, where we're praying that guys like James, Francis, and Wells come in handy. If Adelman's motion offense is successful, we can sub in Hayes for Yao and put him on Boozer with Scola playing "center." Maybe we can defend Boozer a little better without a full 60% of our scoring potential sitting on the bench. Boozer and Okur (oh yeah, and Williams) are still a very difficult matchup for us. I'm not convinced we can beat them in a seven-game series, especially with that coach of theirs. It may simply come down to outscoring them, which is going to be tough if Boozer continues to score every time he touches the ball.
did we win games when boozer scored crazily? did you expect we will win games like 90 : 10. someone on other will score some points. none nba team is a high school team.
Yao's foot speed isn't changing. What Adelman should do is maximize his current strengths, not expose his weaknesses. I said it before, and I'll say it again. I'll be SHOCKED if Adelman decided to defend Okur with Yao on the perimeter. Maybe it will happen now and then in transition, just like it did last year, but I can't see him choosing to make Yao a perimeter defender.
Boozer's weekness is his defense. But, because Hayes is offensively limited, it didn't show clearly in rox-utah series. In fact, if Boozer spent some his energy on defense, he would not have enough energy for offense. I think Yao was underappreciated in last playoff. He needed to face two utah's all star players. And, he still did fine.
But the point is, will Scola be fast enough? Biggest headache of Boooooozer is not only because of his speed, but also he high-arc shooting style...
