its unfair to say we are a better team with him because he actually performs decent for 3 quarters, so he keeps the game close or builds big leads for us for 36 minutes. but we're talking about 4th quarter! I think we play better when he's on the bench we've already seen numerous times where RA didn't use yao down the strech, due to 1. our inability to get him the ball (his inability to establish position.. it make our offence stagnent) 2. yao's lack of D (especially against pick and roll, which is what everyteam would do when yao's on the floor) 3. yao's lack of offensive rebounding (you can see how landry just owned the paint in the clutch without yao taking up space out there) thoughts?
i am not going to support or deny that we are better without yao in the 4th. however, i will say that yao is pretty bad at closing out games. we always force feed yao late in the 4th quarter of games and yao either gets stripped or misses shots. he also sucks at grabbing rebounds when we need them most down the stretch.
it's seemed that way for a while now. in crunch time teams give the ball to their best player every time. defenses know we HAVE to get it into yao. they front, double, trap, zone, hedge, shade, and every other trick in the book to keep the rockets from getting it in. unlike other franchise players yao can't come out to get the ball himself. so our offense shuts down. grinds to a halt. without him in there is more creativity, better ball movement. like we saw all game today. however, the rockets DO need a go to guy. taking yao out isnt exactly the answer.
Yeah cause we don't force it into him and waste about 20 seconds until we realize we need to do something else.
How utterly predictable, multiple threads suggesting the Rockets are better off without him in the 4th after 1 game without him. I thought I would just ignore the first one, but definently posting now IBTL!
NO. We need to get into the bonus early, it really helps out closing out games. Adelman having guys attack the basket got us into the bonus and everytime we couldn't get a score, we went to line to get our points. Adelman needs to play Wafer in the 4th, him and Lowry are the only guys that drive consistently. Everyone else just drives when they decide to drive.
if you've been watching the rockets you know its not just one game.. i mean, yao may hit a shot here and there in the 4th but OVERALL, he isn't effective at all on both ends.
