Carlos Boozer said we're a different team without Yao. He said we're much better defensively. Who would've guessed?
It´s more like he has a worse matchup, i don´t think we defended much better than last year as a whole.
last yr, utah avg 90.4ppg, 44% shooting, 30% 3pt, 75% ft, 41.3rpg, 23apg more importantly, boozer avg 25 and 12. this yr, utah avg 86ppg, 44% shooting, 32% 3pt, 66% ft, 42rpg, 18apg boozer avg 15ppg on 44% shooting i think shooting wise, they've shot the same. but we've made them play more individual basketball, as seen by the assist drop off. our defense on boozer is not even close. it wasn't yao's fault. he was just a bad matchup for yao.
rofflesaurus (I won't quote you because you are on a couple of people's blocked list) Boozer also said this: "They've got some guys who kind of fill his spot," Boozer said of Yao's absence. "You can't replace Yao Ming."
I find it very amusing that the only thing Pryuen got out of this article is that "Yao is our best player", suggesting that he is better than Tmac and that Mac is trash.. give it up already dude.. it was a nice article, but the title is by no means representative of what the article is about.. is that really all you got from this article? that Scola thinks Ming is better than Tmac?
I would have and, in fact, did before Yao ever got injured. No one has ever accused Yao of being a great defensive presence. Deke is ten times the defender in the paint that Yao is, and especially against a team like the Jazz quick defenders seem to give guys like Boozer a harder time than Yao ever did last season, when Boozer just kept shooting over him and driving around him to torch us in a few games. Yao's biggest defensive weapon is his 7'6" frame, he can pretty much park himself in there and keep his arms up and he will be a good enough defender on most nights.
If anyone thinks Yao is a good defensive player they are on crack. What Boozer said is true and has been proven to be true. We are better defensively without Yao Ming. Are we better overall as a team? I highly doubt that one, but defensively, YES.
You would be on crack for saying Yao is not a good defensive player. Is he at Deke's level? Definitely not. Yao has a weakness at covering PnR, but he guarded the paint better than most other centers in the league right now. It is up to our coach to set up defence to his strength and hide his weakness.
You're the one that is on crack. Yao Ming may not be the best on defense, but to say he is not good, it's too exaggerated, and far from truth. And you must have not watched alot of the Rockets game this season on how he owned almost every centres/power forwards of the NBA teams. Yes he was exposed a lot of time last year in the playoff series versus Carlos Boozer, but it had alot to do with the way how he was deployed by JVG on defense, and Boozer is one of the worst match-ups for him. Of course, he had still alot to improve in guarding pick and roll, but IIRC, he was asked alot of times during the JVG tenure to be running around to guard the smaller and quicker penetrating guards/forwards instead of parking within the paint to protect the rim like what now Rick Adelman had sort of changed his defensive assignments. Besides, in previous years, the Rockets were not giving him alot of help defense, and in alot of time exposed him to face those penetrating forwards/guards on his own.
Yes cause one half says it all. Yao has had 20, 10 halfs. Both stats mean nothing on who the better player is this season if they result in losses.
I understand everyone wants to make his argument more convincing. But we should at least be honest with the statistics that we use. Did you just say Yao had only 12 rebs in the entire series? Are you joking? He had more than that in one single game in more than one occasion (13 rebs in game 1, 14 rebs in game 3 and 15 rebs in game 5).
Yao has his ridiculous haters and so does T-mac. I don't believe these people can be made to see reason. I put them on ignore
I suppose if T-Mac felt down with season ending injury, people would talk about how he is the best player.
