I agree with Lopez and last night was even further evidence of such. Most of us kept waiting for things to go bad after 1 left but we kept going to Yao and he responded. He even got back in late season 2005 mode by not waiting for the double to get there but rather attacking the instant he got the bball. If he just continues to attack and stay out of foul trouble defensively it is over. The first few times they doiubled in the 2nd half, he waited for the double to get there and passed out of it. THEN, he took it to another level and started attacking before the double got there. That's where he will get a bunch of And 1s and that's where he will find a wide open cutter at the rim as the defense has to come faster and faster to him to have any effect. When they double, go into attack mode, Mr. Ming.
Absolutely agree. But the beauty of the big fella is that he'd sincerely congratulate the winner. Even if it turned out to be McGrady. Because deep down, he'd rather be celebrating a championship with his teammates. He can you not love a player with those kind of values?
If Yao were American, he would be loved and acclaimed nationally for those values.........................
DaDakota... what game were you watching? Can you grab offensive rebounds when swarmed by 2 or 3 defenders? No, but your teammmates can and thats what happened... Hayes and Howard had 5 offensive boards each. Overall, Hayes and Howard combined for 25 boards and we've all read plenty here about how everyone feels about Howard's rebounding prowess. Even Head had 7 boards. We out-rebounded Cleveland 55-41! It was obvious that the Cavs were going to focus on Yao and make the rest of the team beat them. Yao didn't need stats last night for a win, but since the Rocket's defense stifled Cleveland and the rest of the Rockets made shots when necessary (an adjustment for the focus on Yao), we won. For stats watchers, in a way Yao should really get credit for much more than 4 assists but when he passed back out of the double team, there was usually 1 or 2 more quick passes before the shot. Make no mistake, those open looks were because of the focus on Yao and his ability to pass back out. It's a team sport. If teams want to gamble with doubles and triples on Yao when TMac's out and we win, we can't complain about Yao's stats. They're meaningless in games like that. We're supposed to find a way to win and they did.
Cohen, My post was a little bit of irony, but some truth. Yao has not been going after the rebounds lately. When he got back from the toe injury last year he was DOMINATING the glass which showed that when he WANTS to he can rebound. This year, he is more about letting the rebounds come to him and not really going hard for others. All that matters is the win though.....but for fandom, I want him to average 25+ and 10+.... DD
Yeah, Van Gundy even poked at him in the postgame news conference. But Cohen is right, when teams are concentrating on Yao, it limits his opportunities but Hayes and even Howard's numbers reflect the difference. You know there is no way that Howard picks up double figure rebounding without his defender leaving him to help box out Yao and leaving Juwan free to roam under the bucket. I'll take Yao only getting 5 boards if we can dominate the glass as a team like that every night.
He has another hole in his game, his ft shooting. a player that gets fouled as much as him should really try to improve his ft shooting to at least 83%. 70% from the ft line is not gonna cut it. He's like the Shaq of small forwards when it comes to ft shooting.
T-mac is sacraficing his game and he's American - and people are calling him out! This isn't about being American or international...so let's drop it.
We can complain about the holes in LeBron's game, but the sad thing is that he's young enough to improve even more! The guy is absolutely great for the league. He's only 21 years old, he's got great character, great personality. Nobody has more upside. There's only a select few players in the league that a reasonable GM wouldn't trade for LeBron, and one of them is now Yao Ming.
Yao Ming will be the MVP of the NBA League when and only when he takes on the role of team leader. This season he will be on the cusp of consideration. Although I hope in the second half of the season we will see him become more determined as his outside shots are reduced and he drives to the basket more. This could help him more to be the dominent player and could possibly push him into the leaders for MVP.
To be MVP in this league is really really hard. SO far this is still a young season and long way to get 82 games, not 16. YAO is doing great, but he needs to be consistent for all season and he needs to prove that. As long as we keep winning, people will say" YAO makes other players better" My concen is someone else has to step up to help him and release some early heavy mins from him, othewise he might get into a ditch, both himself and ROX would suffer. Yao also needs work on his rebounding, especially on D side, I know we are doing good on this part sicne chuck is great! But MVP needs 10+ rbs for that
"Yao dished beautifully to Juwan Howard for the exclamation-point dunk." I did not get to watch the game, but......... Howard Dunked?!!!!!!!
What's the deal about this? Why are you guys sound so surprised? Yao was just honored for the first month's player of the month award. He is, at this point of the season, is TOP 2 candidate for MVP.
OK guys look at the top 10 in Turnovers per game 1 Dwyane Wade , MIA 2 Carmelo Anthony , DEN 3 Allen Iverson , PHI 4 Ming Yao , HOU 5 Gilbert Arenas , WAS 6 Steve Nash , PHX 7 Paul Pierce , BOS 8 Tim Duncan , SAS 9 Kobe Bryant , LAL 10 Shaquille O'Neal , MIA All except 2 or 3 are mvp candidates. Dwight howard is number 12. Turnovers have nothing to do with MVP talk. You're going to get more turnover if you are expected to control the ball on every possesion.
I agree with the drop it part. However Tmac is not sacraficing his game. He has to change because of his current lousy shoot percentage. Besides, Tmac still enjoys the similar number of shoot attempts despite his low %. He really has nothing to complain about except work harder to get his touch back.
I could not care less if Yao or Tmac did not get the MVP award. Let us give one more to someone else- If Rockets get to the Western Conference Finals- that more or less settles it for me.
Right on. We need to stop making excuses for Tracy. It's great he is talented enough to still be productive while shooting lousy, but that doesn't change the fact he is playing below par (by his standards). If/when he gets his shooting touch back, Tracy should still continue to attack the rim.
