Ludicrous doesn't sound right here. Perhaps absurd or ridiculous or dumb would be better. I don't agree with you but those words sound better. Boozer was a one man wrecking crew that needed to be doubled at times and how the Rockets defended him should have been mixed up as to not allow the Jazz to so easily form a plan of attack. That was JVG's downfall... He had his mind made up on how he would defend Utah and his only variation to his plan was the team needed to work harder. He was prepared to live or die with his plan. He died.
Its about winning a championship and you cant win a championship starting Chuck Hayes. Im actually suprised to see Chuck Wagon go this far starting. I also never expected to see Brooks or Landry this early in the season.
It sure makes a lot of sense to you on letting a 7 footer shooting over a 6-6 player on perimeter D, while letting a pf outquick and murders a slow center in the post. Genius! Saying Hayes is better perimeter defender than Yao in general isn't saying much in terms of Okur vs. Hayes. Advocating Yao to guard pfs whenever a jump shooting center is present is an abnormal suggestion which shows how weak our interior defense is without Yao, and that is because we don't have a strong pf on interior defense. Hayes isn't a strong interior defender to make offense worry about him, that's why the Rockets didn't want Yao on perimeter. It's only ludicrous when you have Chuck Hayes who isn't anywhere near a interior presence, it's not like Yao couldn't keep up with Okur for god's sake. If we have Otis Thorpe, Marcus Camby, or any defensive player resembling a semi interior defensive presence, Yao wouldn't be out of his position getting murdered by Boozer. Other than the fact that having a 7'6 guy with serious mobility issues be one of your perimeter defenders is a recipe for disaster?[/QUOTE]
The support for creating two huge mismatchups for the opposing offense in Boozer vs. Yao and Okur vs. Hayes is stupid, dumb and out of touch with reality.
Here's the main point of disagreement. Even if we had those players, I still don't believe Yao would be defending on the perimeter. The overriding concern here isn't what we lose in the interior (though that's part of it) but rather what we lose on the perimeter. Having a perimeter defender who isn't capable of defending his man on the perimeter, rotating to an open shooter, getting to the shooter in transition, or chasing long rebounds is simply death to our defense. I don't care if Bill Russell is our PF -- it won't work. And your continual assertion that Hayes was incapable of guarding Okur is also off-base. He was 25 for 72 (35%) from the field, 10 for 37 (27%) from 3s, in the our series last year. In the rest of the playoffs, he was 46 for 111 (42%) from the field, and 15 for 42 (36%) from 3s. If all you're basing it on is the height disparity, that's overrated for perimeter defense; you can defend a player like Okur with a shorter player.
What you are saying is your philosophy, I do not agree with it, but I respect it. I will let Yao defend against jump shooting centers on perimeter if we have Marcus Camby, but that's just my opinion. Many times you let defender stay one on one as many as possible. Yao slowed down a bit recently but he defended against pfs on perimeters before, such as KG and Duncan in his younger years. Following your way, whenever you switch positions on defense, there will be automatic mismatchups anyway, Yao will be outquicked by pfs, and our pfs will be outsized by jump shooting centers, as examplified in the Utah series. But I'm not gonna focus on that, the main point here is, since this thread is about whether Chuck has enough defense to justify him starting, I'm saying that Hayes isn't a interior presence, which puts a lot of burden on Yao and create a team reliance on Yao for him to solely anchor interior defense. What's your take on that?
What do you mean by interior presence? Otis Thorpe, who you've mentioned earlier, was not a shot blocker. Karl Malone wasn't a shot blocker. But these are players who were capable of defending well close to the basket anyways. I think the same is true of Chuck. He doesn't sky in the air and swat balls away. But, like Karl Malone, he's very adept at stripping the ball from players around the basket before they get the ball over their heads. Chuck makes his share of defensive plays around the basket, both on his man and others. Not sure how much more you expect from the PF position as an interior presence. Also, for the PF position, being a dominant interior presence is becoming less and less important. Look at the direction offenses are taking. More and more, teams play with 4 perimeter players and a big. You need a defensive PF who's versatile enough to guard both inside and on the perimeter. And having a guy you can switch onto wing players is invaluable in today's league (that's what Feigen has mentioned that scouts told him). Chuck works great in that role. As to your question of whether I think Chuck brings enough on defense to justify him starting, I decided about a month back that I feel we need another scorer in the starting lineup. I think Rafer and Battier are staying there, probably for the best, so that means Scola and Landry in for Chuck. I expect this will happen soon. I still think Chuck is a valued member of this team, though likely no longer a 20 mpg guy with Landry coming on. I think Chuck should be used against more traditional teams that don't play swarming defense over Yao, and in stretches where getting defensive stops is a high priority.
Let's just say a pf who has enough size and athleticism to disrupt shots. A guy a penetrator sees and worries about a little. Size does matter, even if Hayes raises his hands up bigger sfs can shoot over him. I'm glad to hear that you want Scola to start too. I liked Chuck but didn't believe in him as a starter. I think it's just a matter of time for him to go to the bench. I expect to see him contribute when the team needs it in the areas you mentioned. All in all, having a dicussion over who should start is a good problem to have. Man it's late, good morning.
chuck has his own function, but not a starter function, he would help curren team more on bench, i mean, he can do much better job as a sub than starter, what's more, we still gotta need him in playoff
Chuck just didn't fit in this game, I expect we will still see him playing. I don't believe he has been Wally Pipped....yet. DD
He will be playing; he just shouldn't be starting. Rafer and Hayes on the court together strikes too much fear in the hearts of our opponents.
dude.. it was like 1:50 in the morning when you posted that.. I was in dreamland. I expected Scola to eventually start.. shoot I predicted it would happen when Tmac went out last time. I agree that this was partially about match ups. I was surprised to see him get no PT at all, but hopefully it was a one time thing. Now I need to go read the rest of this thread!
I kept on saying this for years, to play the teams like gsw and the suns, that's the only way to defeat them. The JVG ball would not work.
The evolution of a Championship team...I love it. Thanks Chuckwagon,but we're movin on up..to that "DEluxe apartment in the sky."
I dont think this is anything to indicitive for the rest of the season, but rather a matchup adjustment. GS kills the rockets by cheating off and helping on yao. In the past they would do that off of hayes, but as we saw early in the game, scola made them adjust because he could make the defense pay for leaving him.
what a bunch of r****ds. hayes did not play because of matchups with GSW. plain and simple. and how dare u say chuck didn't do jack against boozer? did u frekin watch the playoffs last year. if we have scola last yr then we would have won because that allows us to w=switch chuck to boozer. it was boozer killing yao, not chuck. he played tremendously against boozer the last game, quite well against aldridge, and again tremendous against al jefferson.
Before we go with Chuck starting again, let's see what Scola does first, he would give the other team pf fits on the offensive or at least take them out of the paint to stop doubling Yao who would have field day.
