All these pages, and I don't see an answer, which is simple: We don't have a penetrator who plays with Yao and can pass off penetration. Plus the guards are not patient enough (said by RA) 1. Brooks, he penetrates, but can pass, well maybe to Hayes in desperation for a clank. 2. Wafer, he penetrates, but don't pass, and he doesn't play with Yao Ming a lot. 3. Lowry, he penetrates some, and pass some, but he doesn't play with Yao enough. end of story.
Bingo!! Couldn't have put it any better. Entire game 2 was like watching a joke. Rockets sure showed them. Portland thought they needed to stop Yao, lets see you stop the guy we NEVER even TRY to pass to.
Guess you must be new but Gater is King Solomon around here, he just doesn't post much anymore. Another guy that has forgotten more bball than I know is Nikestrad, haven't seen him around lately either.
strategically, adelman has the idea of "if the other team takes away one thing, you go to the next thing", which i have no problem with. the thing is, almost all playoff teams have at least a 1-2 punch if not "big 3". we don't. ron isn't nearly as good as other teams' 2nd main option. (think about parker, gasol, billups, west, or aldridge, etc.) i know these 2nd option players play different positions, but the point is, outside of our main option, we just don't have a reliable second option to go to as a team, due to the loss of mcgrady. mj had pippen, shaq had kobe, wade had shaq, etc. so, simply going to our "next thing", which is our role players, is not good enough. ron and brooks played ok last night, wafer and lowry were good, but since we largely didn't involve yao nearly enough on offense, we lost. our going to next thing should INCLUDE still being able to find ways to give the ball to yao, on top of having others step up. they should not be mutually exclusive. i just can't say this enough.
I'm not going to disagree with all your points, but the point should at least be made that Pryzbilla said he was "exhausted" after the game. They worked their ass off trying to deny Yao. Not only did they have to front him, but then when the shot goes up, they had to do a 180 and box out Yao to prevent him from getting the offensive rebound. Kinda sad to see Pryzbilla being able to do that because of Yao's enormous weakness in the agility department. Pryzbilla had complete control over Yao's space on the court. If they're just going to front Yao all night, Yao should have 20+ rebounds with at least half of them on the offensive end.
I was thinking somewhat along those lines, too - although not so colourfully. I could imagine Blazer's coach telling his defence: "I don't care how you do it, but you do everything and anything to stop Yao." Then, it became difficult for me to imagine what Adelman told his guys. It did seem that his grand plan was to solve the problem by bypassing it. Did he not realise that you have to keep giving your opponents the problem instead of removing it for them? Especially in the 4th when we could have won it? I can only hope that this approach wouldn't be repeated.
sometimes i don't know what to believe, either Adelman lost his feel about the game or there is indeed a conspiracy story going on. Maybe a little bit of both, the bottom line is Adelman doesn't believe in Yao and rather play Brooks as a more important option in offense. I predicted Yao would be a role player next season under Adelman, well, it looks like it's happening earlier than that.
When a guy is doubled immediately after he gets the ball every time he gets the ball he would be an idiot to try and shot. LeBron or Kobe handling a double team is different because they can drive past or through them. What can Yao do in a double team? Turn the ball over thats what. He can dribble through or around double teams. All he can do is pass out of it, turn it over, or chuck up a shot. Anyone criticizing who doesn't realize that we couldn't do anything about it except have the others hit their shots when Yao passes out of a double team doesn't know basketball.
i'm 80% certain you didn't watch the game last night, with the other 10% possibility of you having a thinking problem, and another 10% probability of you not understanding bball.
You said it better than my long tirade. I don't believe in self castration. Rox coaching staff should not believe in that either.
You forgot the part about brooks and artest not being patient and finding him on the occasions when he did have his man sealed. They weren't numerous but there were several times when battier could have gotten the ball to Yao in that instance, but Brooks and artest wanted to chuck themselves. We already know Yao's weaknesses so, according to you, we should just give up or maybe we can have the guards look for our center, which I think is a good idea. Or are you OK with Ronron shooting us out of the series?
Yet you, the self-styled coach of the year, never has any solutions, only criticisms of others' supposed amateur hour comments. Do you go with Adelman's fronting solution of ignoring Yao completely and freezing him out of the offense or do something else? This method requires no adjustment, concedes defeat in the post, and doesn't require Adelman to discipline his guards' play. Very Adelman-esque. Or do you, in light of Yao's weaknesses, work with the guards on being more patient and have them take the chance of making a 'perfect' pass when Yao flashes across the paint (since Yao is incapable of holding position in the traditional sense) so that we have some semblance of an inside out game? What would you do, leebigez? I'm curious.
What's the point of your post? Did you watch the game? What is the meaning of garbage points when the game was already decided?
I really don't agree that it is Rick Adelman's fault that Yao doesn't shoot more. While he may not be specifically telling his players to pass it to Yao, I think that it is common sense that they should. I think in timeouts, Adelman draws up plays for the rest of the team, but doesn't exactly tell the guards to try passing to Yao first (he probably thinks it is implied; the plays are just there as a 2nd option). This might be a problem, but any NBA player in their right mind who knows that they have the best Center in the league on their team should automatically get the ball to Yao when he has any sort of post position at all, no questions asked. Rick probably doesn't tell his guards this because he thinks they already know. After all, after years of being legendary high school players and having successful college careers and making it to the NBA, they must have good basketball IQ, right? Passing to Yao is just common sense. But the Rockets just don't have it.
Assuming you're right that it's implied. When what's implied isn't understood on the receiving end, do you still continue to instruct by implication? Or, having seen that what you want done isn't being done, would it be incumbent on you, as coach, to explicitly say so? In no uncertain terms?
There is no solution to get Yao the ball effectively when he is fronted. The only way to beat it is to get Yao the ball when the defense isn't ready to deny him the ball. Yao has been most effective in stretches where he scores within the flow of the offense because teams can't zone in on him. The hard part is knowing when to go to Yao and when not to. I'm sure they weren't perfect but shooting 50% is still a good sign. Yao could be getting more shots if he would shoot the outside shot more aggressively, but he gives up after missing one shot.
Oh because I want the rockets to win? I would love for Yao to shoot 30 times, but that's takes stamina, energy, and not every shot will be perfect. If they other team is sandwiching the guy, what do a coach do? What do players do? Especially with a guy that moves in slow motion, isn't a guy that can get the ball out of position and still make something happen, and the shot clock is running. If a team is so hell bent on not allowing yao to beat them and they're committed to it, the rockets better have enough players to attack and make them pay. The sonics in the 90's did this to the rockets and they lost 16 straight to the sonics. Barkley came in and they could no longer no that because now they were leaving barkley backside 1 on 1. How hard is that to understand? Even a guy like dream was neautralized somewhat in the 4th qts against ny. The difference is dream made other plays like rebounding,blocking and defending the paint that still helped the rockets win the title. Yao has to do that if the rockets want to succeed. If he's not scoring, he needs to grab more than 8 rebs and block some shots just like he did in game 1. Deke denver team upset the 1 seed because deke shut the paint down. He only avg like 12ppg, but he grabbed 15 rebs and had like 4 blks. There is more than 1 way yao can impact the game.
