chron:Yao hits a wall even before Lakers bring Shaq to town

hi,

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns/0116sunsnb0116.html

Stoudemire wins battle of rookies

Bob Young
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 16, 2003 12:00 AM

HOUSTON - It was Yao vs. Wow.


Wow put up the bigger numbers. Yao won the game.

In a showdown of the top two Rookie of the Year candidates, the Suns' Amare Stoudemire - who Suns coach Frank Johnson said leaves him saying "Wow" a lot - put up 24 points and 13 rebounds.

Houston's Yao Ming answered with 11 points, seven rebounds and four shot blocks in the Rockets' 102-96 victory Wednesday.

"He's tall," Stoudemire said of the 7-foot-6 Yao. "He's got some low-post moves. I mean, he's not a bad player.

"(He had) pretty much the same stats. First game I think he had 10 points and two rebounds. This time he had 11 points and seven rebounds. The first time we played, I had like four points and two rebounds myself.

"I think my game has developed a lot more."

Despite the attention given the matchup, Stoudemire said he wasn't any more motivated against Yao.

"Not really," he said. "Every game I play, I feel I have to come out and do whatever it takes to help my team, regardless if it's Yao Ming or Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett."

While Stoudemire wasn't awed by Yao, the Rockets' Chinese-born star was impressed with Stoudemire.

"It seems like he's played for several years already," Yao said through an interpreter. "I heard he's only 20 years old. I think when I was 20, I was only half his width."

And when someone asked Yao whether he could envision a long career in the NBA, he joked, "If there aren't more players like Stoudemire in the future, I think I can last."

Afterward, he was even more effusive.

"He is very fast and has great jumping ability, so it takes a lot of energy to guard him," Yao said.

But Stoudemire is still learning. His turnover on an attempted wrap-around pass to Stephon Marbury with nine seconds to play ended the Suns' chances.

Of course, in Houston this was just the undercard. The more anticipated matchup comes Friday night, when Yao and the Rockets take on the Lakers and Shaquille O'Neal.

"It should be a very exciting game, and I hope it will be," Yao said. " . . . It seems to me that physically I may still be lacking a little bit (to match up). I think I need a suit of armor for Friday night."

He'll get no argument from Stoudemire on that account.

"Oh bro, man, I've played against Shaq and Yao Ming and I've guarded them both," Stoudemire said. "I'll tell you what, Shaq is a monster, bro. And Yao is developing. Look for Shaq to have a big game.

"You know Shaq is my favorite player, so you know I'm going to talk about Shaq."
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Wow, he speaks like a veteran superstar after few good games. Maybe it's cultural differences. Well, i hope yao keeps his humble manner but at the same time prove that he is a bit better than "not a bad player".

 

Is this another budding rivalry or media inspired crap? This does make the RoY race more interesting than last year's...

 

According to our Suns friend, he didn't really match up with KG and Duncan nor with Shaq and Yao I believe. What position was in for him to judge?

Or maybe that's driven by the fair weather media. Who knows?

 

Yao will come up strong against Shaq.
Yao 34 points, 16 rebounds on Friday.
Shaq 26 points, 14 rebounds.

There's no better time for Yao to break his career high than playing against Shaq.

The better the opponent, the better Yao's performance. He has studied Shaq's games.

 

I'm gonna add more fuel to this.

The Suns think they can take us down. Their whole bench was laughing when Steph made Yao fall the game before. Studemire wasn't great in that game but he was in this one. Steph called out Studemire saying that he was better than KG as a rook and now says Stud deserves to be an All-Star (with Steph presumably)

Steph taunted Steve and said he was the real All-Star, and gambled on some plays that lost his team the momentum. Both have number 3s and both are born in the same year. Yao and Stud are in the same rookie class.

The Suns (with Steph as leader) obviously want more coverage for being a decent team and they think they're better than the Rockets. They're like the Sonics who think they're the Laker killers a couple years ago. And only one team of the two will have the playoff glory.

 

Are you taking bets?

 

the only thing i learnt so far is that you never sell Yao short. got it?

 

How can you bet against our team and our player?

 

What a series it would be if the Suns and the Rockets ended up the #4 and #5 seed? The future of the NBA facing off.


That would be a brilliant playoff matchup. Wow.

 

Robertson always is a yao_hater !
keept it!

 

Even though Rockets has shown an improvement (is it really because of Rice? ), I will wait until the end of this month before making further prediction. The schedule is too brutal. Dallas twice and Sac??

 

There is no doubt that Yao had an off night and Stoudemire can dunk really hard and was more aggressive last night! But his defense was better than Stoudemire. If you notice we held him in the second quarter and beyond. We adjusted to his aggresiveness and unless the kid develops an outside shot, he is one dimensional. Yao is multidimensional and even when his O game is off , he can still contribute on the D end of the floor. I think he won the D battle!

But, still. Yao was gasping for air early in the game. he could hardly stand upright at times. He was getting the chippies easy, which is a good sign, but just seemed off due to his tiredness. as an example, in the later 3rd quarter he missed a feed from Cuttino that was the perfect Pick and Roll to the basket and would have had a tremendous dunk...but he fumbled it. 1-2 weeks ago, this would have never happened!


Solution: I think they should give him some time off soon. When MoT gets healthy, let him sit a game, which allows him to have 3-4 days off, so maybe he misses only one game total, but has lots of time. I would even give him 2 games off on the road against Eastern Con teams...this could give him a full week of time.

 

Even I say yes, we could not practically do the bet, and you haven't even mentioned any number.

Here are my reasons why I think so:
1. Ming has done well against superstar players. He may have studied them extensively. Remember he performed well against Duncan, T-Mac, Dallas crew, Pacers crew.

2. Yao is ready for this game, no doubt about it. It looks like he already has some ideas on how to play against Shaq. Just read his answer on the interview, he always said it's gonna be an interesting matchup. I am looking forward, etc

3. Yao knows his next performance against Shaq is really the one which can redeem his relatively lesser performance against Amare. So he would be extra focused especially after being embarrased like last night.

4. Like stock market, when everybody is bullish and driving the price up, I will sell or short the stock. When everybody is bearish and driving the price down, I will buy fundamentally-solid stocks. Right now a lot of people are bearish towards Yao, so it's time to say "YAO WILL EDGE OVER SHAQ" WOOOOO HOOOOOO !!!!!

Yao 34 points 16 rebounds
Shaq 26 points 14 rebounds

 

[prlen
Robertson always is a yao_hater !
keept it! ]

what's wrong with this robert? he was the happiest guy when rox lost to jazz. haven't seen his post in chron basketball for a time, he jumped out again when we win but YM soso.

 

End of story.

 

Look guys be honest.

Yao is gonna be a great great player, but Amare is frankly ahead of him at this point.

Amare is incredibly quick and really aggressive.

Once he learns to shoot at about 15 feet, he will be unstoppable.

Yao, on the other hand, at this point is a finesse player, too often he settles for a little flip shot from 1 foot instead of jumping up and slamming it home.

If Yao had the aggressive nature that Amare has, he would be unstoppable.

Just think how many offensive rebounds and put backs a 7'6" guy could get if he JUMPED.

Yao's biggest 2 weaknesses are:

1. He has never had to jump to shoot at any level, and still tries the little flip shots instead of throwing it down. Teams have caught on to this and are throwing it back in his face. Yao needs to jump and dunk to become the player he can be.

2. He brings the ball down on rebounds and gets it stolen a lot. BIG FELLA, keep it up high....the guards can't reach up that high to get it.

Right now, Amare is the Rookie of the year, hands down. However, if the draft was today, Yao would still be the number 1 pick, but I guarantee that Amare would be a close 2nd.

DaDakota

 

Note, please, the AZ Republic didn't mention how Yao stuffed the sheey!te out of not one but two of Man-Child's dunks.

Also, we were playing with a rather reedy PF duo. Not that he's been playing so great, but where was Mo-T?

 

We won the overall battle too. The Suns have always been a bad defensive team dating back to Barkley. That is why the Rockets always seemed to have their number.

The key with Stoudamire was truly the defensive adjustments we made against him. We threw wierd double teams at him from varied angles. We fronted. I was a little surprised we didn't just back way off defensively and force him to shoot but he was getting such good position, it was tough.

This kid is supremely talented but his game at the moment is all fire and no finesse. He doesn't recognize the complex defenses and isn't able to fully adjust against fronting. He also doesn't play defense for 48 minutes. It's why, like in Houston, the Spurs saw him go off even on Duncan but Duncan went right back at him and the Spurs won the game.

He is going to be a ridiculous beast, but, in 5 years, I think I'll still prefer Yao because I think his skills will alter how people play the game on this level. We've seen Stoudamire-like players (Garnett, Kemp, McDyess, Wallace) at this level many times, but talent like Yao's comes along much more infrequently.