Seriously I know we only play him once more this regular season but this guy is killing us. He is making Doc look like he actually knows something. Fronting Yao = the best defense on him. Knows Rafer will not hit anything, he basically plays us like we are scared other people might.
Too bad if we played some actual defense and maybe had Battier, we probably would've won this game. Same with Yao, he missed a few easy shots and looked completely lost out there tonight. But yeah, Thibodeau is a great defensive coach. It's just that we have T-Mac, Yao, and Artest along with a good supporting cast. No defense can stop that when our offense is running like it should.
it's hard to get the ball to someone in the low post who is extremely unathletic and clumsy when he's being fronted. it's a physical weakness not a mental one. it's ok, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. tibs taught everything kobe had to know about basketball (minor exaggeration), and you saw it firsthand how he shut down the league's premier scorer in the finals. tibs was a major contribution to the overall growth of yao's offensive game, so again, he knows how to shut him down. but even a man as great as tibs can't shut down the only tru warier (even though he went something like 3-16)
Tom knows Yao inside out. Tom probably knew what color panty Yao was wearing tonight. I am shocked every time I see a team play behind Yao. I have yet to see him consistently beat fronting defense. You can neutralize Yao, in fact even make him a liability, by fronting him all game. Tom knows it because he has seen it in his years at Houston. Always expect this kind of fast, furious, and fronting defense against Yao in playoffs. It's one of the main reasons he has been less than stellar in playoffs so far.
which leaves the backdoor open for easy buckets. i can see it now: "Alston to McGrady for the alley-oop". too bad our players fail to recognize that.
I was at the game watching much of the off the ball movement and dirty play by the Celtics. Tom Thibodeaux is the Jerry Sloan of the Eastern Conference. But why did JVG not allow TT to coach the Rockets players this way? TT had the Celtics slamming and punching Ron Artest every chance they had. Kudos to Ron for not losing his cool. Several times as Tmac rounded the corner moving laterally Paul Pierce grabbed his arm as Tmac blew past Mr. Crybaby. Or should I say Paul Kirilenko? The lady next to us agreed that PP is the new DWayde for the refs. And KG wasn't much better - lots of elbows, body slams and other dirty plays. Then of course there was the hard foul on Tmac at the end on his 3p shot. The refs stole this game from us in the first half when they let the Celtics get away with everything and called ticky tackies on Yao and the rest of the Rockets. But Adelman will never put Dorsey in and let him play the way we used to on the playground to payback the other team for dishing out dirty play. RA is not Sloan or Pop or TT. We had a name for people like that on the playground. We called them p*****s. We get treated this way by the Celtics and the refs because we allow it to happen as a team.
To Defense the Rockets....double team Yao with or without the ball, clog the lane and leave Rafer wide open. It is not that hard, really. DD
tom didn't own tmac tonight. it doesn't take coaching yao to figure out how to defend him. it's more about yao's own weaknesses. don't blame tom.
Tom Thib is just a great defensive coach period. Come on, Celtics D is good all of the sudden. Our D got great all of the sudden. Sure JVG is a big factor there, but so is Tom Thib. The Celtics team D is good. Ours is good too, but theirs was suffocating last night when it needed to be.
Glad I'm not the only one who realized the back door would be open for easy driving for McGrady,Artest or Brooks, or alley-oops.
