Can someone explain to me why we have a matchup problem with the Jazz. It seems that everytime we play those guys we make them look like the best team in the NBA. To me the only guy that poses any problem for us is Okur. I know that the nba is all about matchups. But explain to me this. If we match up well with the spurs who match up well with the jazz. then why cant we match up with the jazz. It just seems like some equation. I think we match well with the lakers who overmatch the jazz. We have played the lakers well all but 1 game (111-82 though we were kicking ass early) here is another. The magic swept the jazz this season and we match well with the magic. Keep in mind we have beaten Utah twice at home. They were witout boozer and we were without artest and mcgrady. I believe artest played the other home game. I mean the NBA is not like college basketball where the level of competition from different conferences is different. The NBA is a league where anyone can beat anyone on any given night. so why cant we just beat those guys.
Because they play you tough. And we haven't had any tough guy leading this team for a couple of years now. I think Artest will fill that role soon.
Well, everybody is talking a matchup problem with the Jazz, but the fact of the matter is that the jazz flop is a better team which record is indicating due to the injure. I can assume that Lakers or Spurs also prefer to play Nuggets, Hornets, Blazers, and Mavericks, so do the rockets
the problem is yao on defense. on offense we have to not turn the ball over... but mainly it's our defense. yao cannot guard okur out to the 3 pt line (thus leaving the lane WIDE open because we don't have another shot blocker on the floor) and yao has not shown he can guard boozer either. boozer drains 15 footers on him regularly and he is too quick for yao inside. yao is great, but against the jazz front court, he is our achillies heel...
That last game, we didn't play poorly. It was in $#!+ville too. We did most things better than they did, but couldn't make a lay up to save their life. Some of that had to be on the j*zz, but it could've been fatigue as well. If they hit shots they normally make and everything else is the same, we win that game.
I would copy and paste a response i made in another thread, but laziness prevails... In a nutshell, its because the Jazz win 85% of the loose ball battles in every matchup. There are other reasons, but this one is the most demoralizing. Boozer/Korver sink a shot on pretty much every broken play. I would wager that the Jazz score almost as many points on broken plays as set ones against us.
Spurs are are not comaparable to the Rockets as far as matching up to the Jazz. First of all Parker's ability to penetrate gives Utah fits. We still don't have anybody who can consistantly put pressure on Utah's interior defense.(Tracy was the only one who could at times). Deron amd Tony would cancel each other out. Second Duncan is a much better P&R defender than Yao, Tim is just more mobile and that mobility also helps him defend Boozer more effectively. when on the other end Tim can be effective against all of their 4's. Third Utah has no one to defend Ginobili, he may come off the pine but when He, Parker and Duncan are on the curt at the same time you are pretty much forced to play man to man. We just simply don't have the personel to play well against them. Sure we could probaby beat them in a 7 game series, but being so reliant on the 3 point shot we would have to shoot lights out to win.
How many times must I say this...we beat ourselves the last game...GEEEZ stop making a big deal on this match up stuff. We had tons of good open shots and layups we just plain missed. Maybe its their 3rd world hacking skills that get us out of rythm but the only thing that killed us was our lack of poise. Trust me when i say it won't be like this next time.
Well its like this They have Deron Williams, who guards him? Brooks or Lowry They have no good wing players, who does battier defend, an average role player They have Mehmet Okur, so Yao is stuck on a short guy while they put a shorter guy on okur who can shoot well over anybody They also have the love of the refs.
That's all Yao's problem? Rockets didn't beat Utah in playoffs with Tmac playing at his peak, with the addition of Scola, Landry, Brooks. They lost in 6. Before that, they were one rebound away from beating Utah with Yao, when Tmac shot poorly and Chuck Hayes as starting PF, Luther Head as 6th man. I know Alston missed two games, but I believe the addistion of Scola, Landry and Bobby Jackson etc made up more than that. If Yao was truely the problem, Rockets should have beat them easily.
Well, for starters we have to cross-match defensively. Okur camps out on the perimeter so it's impossible to ask Yao to cover him which means Scola covers Okur while Yao covers Boozer. Boozer, to his credit, is near automatic from mid-range and Yao has trouble even challenging on a simple 15-20 footer without risking Boozer putting the ball on the floor and burning him that way. The Jazz also don't have the 20 PPG wing player Battier is accustomed to guarding. The Jazz are also one of the few teams that generally don't double Yao which means Battier isn't going to get the open looks he's accustomed to either. Simply stated: if you're a Battier hater, you're going to love watching him struggle against the Jazz for these reasons. The Jazz have run the same offense for 20 years. PnR, PnR, PnR..... It doesn't hurt that Deron Williams is a great PG that can step back and bury a shot, hit the screener rolling to the basket or simply keep it & drive to the basket himself. Deron, despite already being a great player, is nearly unguardable due to the constant PnR'ing they do. They also have smart players that cut to the basket CONSTANTLY (Brewer, AK47). Cutting creates a lot of confusion especially whenever teams are struggling to read the PnR. Ask Artest what happens when you cheat off of Ronnie Brewer. Even though the Jazz foul more than any team in the league they have the type of depth most GM's would kill for. So it really doesn't matter if somebody like Boozer or whoever gets into foul trouble. They have a player coming off the bench just as good as the starter in every case except at the point. They also pretty much wrote the book on how to defend Yao. Okur generally plays him 1-on-1 with a defender sometimes cheating to create confusion, force a kick out or go for a quick steal. Okur is great at bodying up Yao and denying him the position he seeks. If Okur is able to get Yao 10 feet away from the basket it makes it easier for the help defenders to swarm Yao. Granted, a lot of the BS Okur gets away with against Yao are all borderline-fouls, he's still great at giving Yao fits.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but Yao wasn't the problem last game. It was the everyone else not named Battier and Scola who couldn't throw a stone in the ocean.
i agree with most of your post, but the OP is asking where we have a matchup problem... yao is the matchup problem, no? and your 'one rebound away' comment? ...ya, that was yao's rebound. he wasn't quick enough to get to it... i'm just sayin. let me give an example: if you subtract yao and give us a kevin garnett, we would have NO matchup problem with utah. but we don't have one of those type of bigs - one who runs the floor and has offensive and defensive range. we have a true center who happens to not be that fast. he is a pretty big matchup problem with utah. not saying it is all his fault we can't beat utah... he is not the sole purpose of why we haven't had success against them lately. but he is our biggest matchup problem against utah. (slightly ahead of dwill v AB0/KL) my opinion? if we had a healthy tmac, we kill utah in a 7 game series. but without him i don't think we would beat them in a 7 game series - home court advantage or not. the jazz are playing well right now.
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Different series with a healthy Alston(and to a lesser extent McGrady and Battier) last year. WAAAAY different series with a healthy Yao last year. Rockets would have won in 5 with all their guns healthy. Rockets woulda took it in 7 with a healthy Alston.
This has been discussed a lot, but I'll just add anything can happen. There are many factors that go into winning and losing so there's no simple answer. That said, it's well known and has been stated here many times that an extreme disadvantage for the Rockets is that Yao guards Boozer, and that means Carlos Boozer has an OPEN JUMPER EVERY POSSESSION. And that's the WORST POSSIBLE SHOT the Jazz can have. So if the best the Rockets can do on defense is hope Boozer misses an open jumper, then that's just putting a huge weight on your team and the Rockets would have to overcome that by doing so many other things right. It's "Hope-They-Miss" defense instead of "Make-Them-Miss" defense. Not saying you can't win the first way...it's just very difficult. The Rockets don't have this problem with other teams because only the Jazz have 2 jump shooting big men: San Antonio: Duncan and Bonner/Thomas Denver: Nene and KMart Portland: Pryz/Oden and Aldridge New Orleans: Tyson and West Dallas: Dampier and Nowitzki Phoenix: Shaq and Amare LA Lakers: Bynum and Gasol This is why I believe that the Rockets actually have a better chance vs. the Lakers if Bynum were healthy because I think the Gasol Odom front court gives the Rockets match-up problems. I know it's conjecture and the Lakers are the better team in both cases, but I really think when Yao is being forced to guard Boozer and Gasol are huge problems. Can they be overcome? Yes. Would I rather the Rockets deal with completely different issues with other playoff teams instead? Yes.
