YAO Calls Out Teammates: "Come early in the morning before practice"

"If you're missing shots, you have to do something different," coach Rick Adelman said. "You need to attack the basket more, which is one thing we haven't done."



Glad to see this. This is where Stevie is going to benefit us. It's a fundamental thing, when shots aren't falling, attack the rim. Steve is the best penetrator/finisher of our guards.

Besides, this club has too much talent. Everybody should be going to the rim and our goal should be to break down the defense and get layups, not open jump shots. Adelman should be pressing these guys to pass and move and get the ball to the rim, initiate the contact down low, take the ball up, throw it down and go to the FT line for the And 1. Yao, McGrady, Scola, Bonzi, Battier, James, even Lil Chuckie all have the ability to finish around the rim.......get in the durn paint and tear it up. They should be working extensively on those short, interior passes right around the bucket. We have good finishers.

Basketball in it's purest form is an inside out game. You get all the easy ones you can, collapse the defense, then work outside for the short, WIDE OPEN 15 footer. With Yao on this team, opponents are already half collapsed to start the possession. We should be able to throw it around a little bit, move and cut, and totally break down the D. With Yao and Stevie being such efficient FT shooters, we should be initiating the contact in the paint and forcing the opponents into the bonus earlier in the quarter. Instead of avoiding the contact like McGrady and Rafer have a tendacy to do, we should be creating the contact. Yeah, we'll get a couple offensive fouls. But what are the officials gonna do? They have been rewarding the offensive player who initiates the contact all season. If they're gonna call it that way, we gotta bulldoze down the lane and start throwing bodies around. I guarantee you, we either get the calls, or it gets cleaned up both ways, in which case we still have the advantage because when the fouls are being called, guys like McGrady and Yao will clean up. Both of those guys know how to finish in traffic WITHOUT creating contact. We've just got to play the cards the way the refs are calling it and force the issue.

The officials basically have 3 ways of calling the interior:

1. Make the calls in favor of the offense. Any contact, foul call goes against the defense. Call it tight and force the defense into a helpless state except to establish position outside the lower circle and take a blatent charge. Everything else is called in favor of the offense. (This seems to be the case in most of our games and is the reason for the foul disparity against us. We send Tracy and Rafer through the lane and they are trying to avoid contact along with Yao. Then on the other end Yao is taken advantage of by opponents just seeking him out to crash into him.

2. The refs call nothing, no offensive or defensive foul. This is the second most common thing that happens.

3. The refs actually call it in favor of the defense, letting all the contact the offensive player initiates go and giving the defender lots of leeway in regards to slapping at ball, etc. (This happened in the Phoenix game.)


In the first two cases, you've not only got to be the aggressor in driving to the basket, but when you get to the paint, you've got to look for somebody to hit, you have to initiate contact. This is where McGrady, Alston, and Yao fail. They think they should get the calls, but they look to avoid the contact while guys like Maggette go in there looking for somebody to nail. If the refs are calling the game in favor of the player that initiates contact, you gotta go down there and hit somebody, not do all the dipsy dos trying to avoid touching anybody and avoiding them touching you. In situation 2, eventually the contact escalates to the point where the ref has to call it. What players like Maggette and DWade do is so simple. When you see them getting that call, the thing to do is go right back down and create the same play.

In the rare case where you get situation #3, you maintain a high level of defensive aggressiveness and offensively, you look more for the short jumpers or the layups off the defensive turnovers that you create because the refs are letting the defensive contact go.

The basic point is you've got to read the way the refs are calling it and ramp up the action until you force them to change the way they call it or you get your own fair share of foul calls and free throws.

 

Hold on, I don't think McGrady even comes early to shoot the ball.

 

Actually, I think Yao and Tmac are two players who need to work harder the most to practice their shootings because they consistently miss shots during crunch time!

 

Nice post. Francis, James, Bonzi, and Scola should be attacking the basket. It seems to be more of a "challenge" for Battier, for some reason I really don't get, and Chuck? Anything to get him some buckets is a plus, if he can do it. He really benefits from the quick interior passes for the easy layup. They all should, and I think they will when they get more comfortable with Adelman's system. I really thought the better spacing from Adelman's offense would lead to those kinds of baskets. So far, it has decidedly been hit and miss. More miss than anything. Scola should be a huge weapon in that offense. He's an excellent finisher, one of the best on the team, IMO, and an equally adept passer. They need to work him more inside. He can also hit that 15 foot jumper you mentioned. So can Bonzi, if he isn't busy trying to shoot beyond his range or rip an offensive rebound away from a teammate. Francis and James? They should be getting easy baskets inside. I think they play pretty well together, given the limited time we've seen. Defensively, it might be a challenge, but offensively they should be eating it up inside.

 

1. Just because they're not a championship calibre team doesn't mean chemistry is not important.

2. If as you say (and I agree) they can be a championship calibre team with improved shooting, then why risk ruining the chemistry?

 

If you're in the to .01% of your industry, you'll be paid even if your performance isn't great. Check out the executive packages lately? These guys are the top .01% of their respective industry.

 

They are paid because if they don't perform they are fired.

DD

 

The players who are under performed are not working hard than Yao, which is not a team for a NBA champ. I saw a TV show on the NBA TV, the spurs players work hard than Duncan, at least equal.

 

According to someone's logic, I think first people should be fired are Yao and Tmac because they consistently suck in the 4th quarter. As superstars, they should play well during crunch time, and paid huge money for that!

Rockets lost many close games this season, and those two should take responsibility for it.

There are some problems for our role players, but bigger problems are our two stars.

 

I do not think so, normally we do not have a chance for a crunch shot this year, only for the lakers game I guess, generally we lost the games before that point, I do not recall that Yao took a crunch shot this year yet.

 

Oh come on, don't you know how other team's operate?

They let you get comfortable playing vanilla offense for the first 3 quarters, then in the 4th they take away option A and option B, the team then has to counter with Option C.

Right now...C stands for Calcified, because that is how still the rest of the team is playing.

DD

 

These scrubs are paid millions to help out the team during game time and they can't do it by sitting their asses at home watching tv and just show up at game time. Finally Yao calls them out

 

I do think our two stars should take bigger responsibility than those role players. Lost close games, it is more stars' responsibility. Moreover, I don't like our two stars' attitude, specially for Yao! I think Yao should watch more Duncan's video. In fact, Duncan sometimes also got low pts, but he will get a lot of rebounds in that situation. He knows he can help teams in different ways. But for Yao, ususally, when he got low pts, and he also got low rbs. As superstars, they should look for their own problems first!

 

you just flat out admitted that you are completely satisfied with the status quo.... that "overtime" is what separates the good teams from the championship teams.

i'm not gonna lie - your comment is almost disturbing.

 

WHICH IS WHY THEY NEED MORE PRACTICE.

look man, this isn't a hard concept.... you dont think these guys are "obligated" to practice more, yet you openly admit that you dont think we're playing at a championship level....

are you proofreading your posts?

 

I am curious if anyone with inside sources can give us the hint on who is putting in the extra effort.

I know that Luther was always there shooting early before game time (there was an article about Luther being on the "Head" bus early this season and how it was crowded during preseason)

Other than him, and Yao of course, I wonder who does put in the extra pt.

 

with massive severance packages to send them on their way out.

not exactly the same.

 

Come on, dude.....if you have watched Rockets' game this year, seeing how MJ got the ball in the last minutes and rusded to the basket to make bricks...

It takes five.....good example as you said, SPURs, who is the best team in NBA.

 

LOL... I was just thinking that. Tmac doesn't strike me as the early to practice kind of guy.

 

Yao didnt call out his teammates. Fran Blindberry was asking T-Mac and Yao how could their teammates get out from the shooting slump and Yao offered the answer "extra practices".