It was a great win tonight against Hornets, but our defenses against P&R involving Yao were bad enough to raise concerns. It is going to be our Achilles' heel against Utah in the first round. I simply have no idea how usually people defend it. Because if it is 2-on-2, there seems no way to stop it. If you run a 3rd person onto it, then a good PG like Chris Paul will find the open man and still kill you. Could somebody with greater knowledge of basketball please enlighten me? Especially what strategies could be taken by the rockets and Yao to somehow slow it down, if probably not be able to completely beat it? It seems prettey sure Utah is going to exploit it like crazy. SI
Well, Yao's lack of foot speed certainly doesn't help things Neither does Rafer's inability to avoid picks
If there was 1 way to defend it, no one would run the P&R. Take Nash: You can go under the pick, and Nash will kill you from long range. Go around it, and Nash is going to penetrate and kick. IMHO, you can't really depend on defending the P&R with the on the ball defender (which is why its kind of silly to blame Rafer so much) or the man guarding the picker due to the aforementioned dilemmas, but rather, with proper help defense and tight rotations afterwards.
to be honest,if i can answer ur question perfectly, you probably can see me on tv standing along with Jeff....hohoho
If Utah is smart at all, they will use Deron and Okur for the pick and roll instead of Deron and Booze, thinking that they will be able to take Yao out to the perimeter, where Okur can drain threes all day (Boozer can't do this). Like I stated above, the way you stop this is keep Yao near the paint at ALL TIMES and queue our defensive beast T-Mac to guard Okur instead. THAT'S IT. WE WIN.
A perfect PNR is simply unstoppable. Back in the old days when Stockton ran PNR with Malone, it was hard to stop even if you knew it was coming. If it were me, I would rather leave the guy who set the pick open and hope he misses the jumper from outside than having the guard breaks the interior defense and laying up for two. I think to defend PNR really is more of team effort, meaning how our help defense is rotated and is it coming quick enough.
You do realize that Utah can use either Boozer or Okur as the picker? Heck they can use anyone Yao is guarding. So if you say leave Yao in the paint regardless, then someone is going to be getting alot of open jumpers.
Thanks. I am kind of like Robert Horry. The regular season bores me, but when it gets close to playoff time .......
In general, when the Jazz use pick and roll, we want T-Mac (AND NOT YAO) to be defending one of the 2 players involved in the PnR. Is AK47 even going to be playing in the series?
Yao's defense on Elton Brand and Carlos Boozer the last couple of games they have played has been very good to be honest. Although he isn't the fastest guy on the court, he has the fundamentals of defending the jumper down and his length allows him to kind of cheat and give the defend enough space to not blow past him, but at the same contest the shot. So it would be interesting to see if JVG will put Yao on Boozer in the 3rd or 4th if he isn't in foul trouble.
Um, Boozer is pretty decent from mid 15-17 feet. And even if you pack Yao in the paint and leave Boozer open, Deron can still turn the corner and beat us off the dribble or step back hit from long range.
