Wow - Morey channeling his inner DD...talking about Ron's shot selection and the "Fools gold" of those early shots going in.... DD
i listened to 1 hour of ppl calling in and whining and b****ing about the refs yesterday. I'm not going through THAT again. I'd advise people to just wait for the podcast.
i found it interesting that morey said yao only shoots some 30% on pick and pop shots the regular season. They dont like that play because it also takes the best rebounder away from teh basket.
*Could see Von, Battier, Artest all on the floor tonight going small. Rebounding important part of Blazers game so then again might not see this. *James White likely to be activated as the 12th man *Joey Dorsey still hurting
OKAY... why do the people that call in always make me want to pull my hair out with their comments? Poor Daryl.
Well, there's your answer regarding our 12th man. I think it's better to active White than Dorsey because that guy cannot play without fouling. At least White can give us some shooting in case Wafer & Artest go crazy and Barry does not hit his threes.
recap: host: overall thoughts on game 2? DM: most disappointed in defense, we didn't execute what we had practiced. when they play Yao like that, other guys have to beat Portland. only if other guys execute can we get the ball to Yao more. host: what will you change to contain roy? DM: game plan wasnt executed well. will change pnr coverage from now on. consistently played it one way but we will mix it up from now on. other than pnr coverage played decently. host: LMA went nuts, what will you chancge on him? DM: will not change much, he had a great game. scola/carl/chuck will not change game plan. he just had one of his better nights for the whole year. happy with what we did, he jsut played well. host: Happy with Aaron brooks? DM: he's done what we were hoping. he has to put pressure on their defense and he has. defensively he's done what we wanted more or less. a couple of mistakes but more or less we've been pleased with AB and KL. host: on pnr with Roy, is it a bad matchup for Artest? DM: ron was frustrated but the way they were setting screens, some of them illegally, and the way we wanted to guard the pnr was making it more difficult on ron. it'll still be a mix of shane and ron. the specific game 2 gameplan is more aligned with shane's skills than ron's but since we'll be mixing it up more now, you'll still see a lot of ron on roy. host: ron's shot selection? DM: his shot selection was bad, but we dont want to get too down on him because someone has to take the hard shots. we want hard shots to come late in the clock, but he was taking them early. its kind of fools gold. he got a lot of great looks and missed, and we think they'll go down in the future. overall team had trouble with shot selection in game 2. host: thoughts on home court - new introduction, what's special for the playoffs? DM: we were a great home team, and that's because we have a great home crowd. this is a younger team (Portland) and a huge crowd could take them out of their game. want everyone to be there early. dikembe will be there. the new intro will be cool, we've been working on it for awhile. caller: to get Yao more shots while fronting, can we run a pnr or pnp? DM: focus is on the team getting good shots. yao is best when he's in the paint and we need to get him the ball there. he's stepped up and made some outside shots, but he doesnt really shoot the pnp shot well, and if we put him in that play he's not goingt o be able to offensive rebound as well. focus is on winning the game, not getting yao shots. getting yao shots will come from better ball movement. (some talk here about other playoff games which i dont care enough to type up) caller: joey crawford and salvatore are always trouble for the rockets. battier, if he's not playing good defense, is killing us on the offensive end. would like to see AB be more aggressive. DM: happy with battier - his job is to space the floor. we like AB to be very aggressive and he has been. he has a mismatch most of the game and has been taking advantage. caller: what about brian cook? DM: not a good option. their centers are mobile and brian isnt integrated. caller: use wafer more instead of battier so he can attack the rim? also would adelman consider using dorsey with the loss of deke? DM: want to make roy inefficient, and battier is probably the best option there. offense wasnt the problem in game 2, it was defense, so we dont really think we need more offense out there. von on roy would be a really bad matchup. could go to a smaller lineup for a little while to get von on the floor a little more. dorsey is still not healthy save an emergency. will activate james white instead. caller: is deke a HOF player? will there be an ongoing relationship with him after his playing career? DM: losing him is very difficult. i missed a lot of the game because i spent time with deke in a room with no tv. i think he's a HOF center, maybe the most game changing defensive center. career high rebounds per minute at the age of 40. (relays a personal anecdote on humanitarian work here). host: will we see anything about deke tonight? DM: we will plan something special for him, may not be tonight but it will be soon.
hahah, he was talking exactly what i have been fighting for. our offense was good enough in the last game. of coz, more and better. it was our defense, a key to lose the game. the defense was pathetic when they shot over 50% in playoff. you can pretty much say same thing to any team if it allows the opponent to shoot at over 50%. on another note. i agree with morey at all. yao doesn't necessarily have to touch the ball many times to win a game if other teams determined to pay any price to deny yao the ball. of coz, the precondition is our players knows how to punish jailblazers for their swarming defense on yao. in the last game, we shot at 50%. it indicates our players are starting to know how to beat swarming defense. you can say yao had the huge impact on 50% fg rox had although he didn't touch the ball alot. the more shots other rox players make, the better chance yao will eventually be freed up coz jailblazers can afford losing games by just ignoring other rox players.
The team stepped up pretty well against Portland's fronting. The basket was wide open just with Yao's presence attracting so much attention. You could see how we struggled offensively when he went to the bench with his 4th foul, so you know he impacted the game without touching the ball. Hopefully, we get a better combination of attacking their defense and getting Yao the ball in game three.
