If you're playing through injury, especially if it's fresh and you're not sure what you can do without hurting yourself more, you tend to play tentatively, which was what we saw. I suppose he'll adjust, figure out what he can do with his left elbow, and be fine by the Portland game. If you remember last year on April 1 Yao had 35-16-4 against the Jazz, and held Boozer to 10 points or so, while McGrady completely stunk it up. Yao just had a bad game, called for some bogus fouls early and playing through an injury. This "Yao is a bad matchup for Utah" is a bit overblown.
I def think you're right about the fouls really limiting his defense. I'm just sayin that Boozer is so much more athletic than him that we need to put Chuck there I think. And with 2 games in a row where we've had a center or PF in a little foul trouble, I can't believe that Snyder is suiting up over Landry.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/5267158.html That's strange. He told Sohu he has a torn ligament in his elbow, but it ends up in the Chron as a hyperextended elbow. Not sure what's going on here.
yao didn't "just" have a bad game. you choose what you want to see, but boozer teeing off on yao is a rather normal occurrence.
Maybe... maybe not. We'll see how it plays out. But don't expect Rafer to be anything than what we've seen over the last couple of seasons. If that's good enough for wins, he may keep the starting role. But Adelman was not out of the loop when we got James, drafted Brooks and signed Francis. He's seen tapes of the players and must have wanted some insurance or we wouldn't have so many PG's. Of course, most of them can play the 2 position but that wasn't what motivated the acquisitions.
If you look at last year's playoffs, Boozer had 2 great games, 3 average games, and 2 poor games. Boozer is going to score on anyone, even a defensive stud like Duncan. Yao didn't do a great job of containing him yesterday, but he did have 5 blocks and protect the paint. He has had a few games where he has contained Boozer effectively. I think you only see what you choose to see. I suppose Yao getting owned by Boozer is strangely gratifying to you so you only see that?
I was just gonna bring this up to debunk the CF myth that *this* Jazz team has *always* been a nightmare for Yao. Unless there is something we don't know, it stands to reason since Yao had lesser time to be fully recovered from his leg injury in that game than in the 1st round playoffs 3+ weeks later, Yao could not be playing much worse. Sure enough, we saw Yao stood his ground against both Okur and Boozer at least in the first game of the Utah series. Yao was still in his opponents' heads apparently before they started to adjust, but he, his team, and the coaching staff didn't have any plans to counter the adjustment. It is not a stretch to say Yao has not played one real good game against Utah since the 1st playoff game. Whether he is, as someone put it, still in JVG's mode, or Boozer and Okur are still in his head, I don't know. Reduced production from Yao is OK and not unexpected, since the Rockets have more depth in more than one position, but reduced efficiency is not acceptable. Yao has got to overcome his mental obstacle.
That's what I was saying and said it better a couple of posts later. Honestly, while he should be on Okur, with Hayes on Boozer, I'd rather have Scola on Boozer if he's subbing for Hayes and playing with Yao. Wouldn't you?
2 short comments. Utah will miss Derek Fisher. In a bit of irony considering the first half, in the second Yao was officiated like a star which was real nice to see.
nope, the people who have not liked yao getting battered includes everyone on this board, but i think it especially irks some more than others when this is pointed out. it's ok to try and find a positive, and to look at what yao DID do, good, I agree! i personally don't care how boozer plays against the rest of the league, garnett, duncan, whoever, it's when he has matched up against yao, he's too quick for yao to stop, he's got a great midrange shot which makes him a deadly player for yao to contain. That is not a myth. so in that area, overblown or not, you see what you want to see, that boozer has been contained by yao. but really i'm not sure what you are trying to say, you say boozer can't be contained, and in the same post, yao has contained him...
Yao just looks out of sorts, distracted. Do you think he is upset about Francis being glued to the bench? Yao is very sensitive about things like that. Then again, Okur, Boozer, and the altitude could be the main reasons for his poor outing.
Yao is a sensitive guy but he wasn't bothered in the Lakers game. The Utah guys made things tough for him.
You know what? That`s actually the thing I liked! Their defense was designed to stop Yao and to a lesser extend Tracy. Yao did struggle, but the others kept us in the game and won it. Tracy had a great night although he was well defended, and the other players stepped in. Yao won`t look this bad pretty often, but even when he, or Tracy does, we still have the strength to beat a well playing team, that played the western conference finals last year, ob their homecourt. And the players are just starting to learn the new system. If James can keep his level of play up, Scola get a little more used to playing in the NBA and Bonzi doing his thing when we need him too, we will be pretty hard to beat by any team in this league. If Francis can get his act together, we are really, really scary for everybody else!
Yao just missed those jumpers intentionally to avoid inflating Rafer's assist number. He wants SF starting.
He got into foul trouble early but by the time he got back in T-mac had already worked up a lather and he didn't get his touches. Still had five blocks and seven rebounds. Its great that he can have an off night and they still win with relative ease. I'm going over to the Utah board to gloat.
NO, I blame it on Yao's getting married! She made him soft and he's thinking about her tooo much during the game....j/k....Yao will come around sooner than later...
say what? utah played yao single coverage the whole game and the D on yao got softer and softer to basically playing him as teams did in his rookie year. yao has not drawn much double teams the first 2 games as phil and sloan have elected to play him straight up. when that happens, he has to put up 25-30. i mean, even the pistons still doubled old-ass shaq w/ the aggression last night. yao needs to start demanding double teams. teams are going to start doubling tmac way outside like the lakers and utah at the end of the games.
