Here's what I'm seeing. You guys feel free to expand, agree, disagree or whatever. So Yao's on the block with his hand up in the air, asking for the ball. His defender is fronting him. There's another defender behind Yao waiting to double. The guards look at Yao, see this, and then ... don't pass him the ball. They're playing right into the defense. I think to dramatically improve this offense, quite simply, the guard HAS to make that pass into the post. FORCE the double team to commit. When you don't actually make the pass into the post and force the double team, that guy behind Yao is in essence taking Yao out of the play while still keeping an eye on his assignment. Yao's big. He's been working out. He can handle it. Give him the ball, make the defense commit to the double team, and suddenly the floor is much more spread out. Yeah, I know, he's getting more looks than in years past, and that's great. But what blows my mind is Yao shoots very well from the floor and meanwhile everyone else on the team couldn't hit the ground if they jumped out of an airplane. And yet, they're the guys freezing Yao out! Get him involved in every single play. As long as he's on the court, I want to see him touch the ball on every offensive set (barring transition plays and *GASP* fast breaks). Seriously. I have total faith in Yao to shoot over the defense or kick it out to the open man. Why don't our guards want to create more space for themselves by feeding the big fella in the post? How many years, and how many times do we fans need to scream "give Yao the damned ball!" before the rest of the team pays attention? Feed the post, force the double, spread the floor and get better looks. It ain't Rocket science. But it should be.
The problem is that the Yao isn't quick or agile enough to get the ball when it is passed to him under pressure. When the rockets do pass the ball to him in this situation, more likely that not, the ball gets tipped and stolen. And with the stupid way that they ref Yao, they can often foul him and steal the ball without getting called for the foul... frustrating to watch.
When a defender is in front AND behind Yao....there is NO WAY to get him the ball. He cant catch passes when no one is around sometimes, how the hell will he catch them with 2 defenders on him? He is clumsy....no vertical, so you can just throw it up because he is 7'6. There is no way to get him the ball with defenders on him like that.
I think it's how the plays are drawn up. Maybe it's designed to fake an entry pass, assume it'll be denied, and have Yao switch to the opposite side, and reestablish position. You'll see the ball swing to the opposite side and then they try for the entry pass. You ask me, if the pass is there, make it, if not, then continue on with the play. This kind of goes hand in hand with the mechanical complaint many are talking about here. I agree with it to an extent. The offensive should have set plays, but be able to vary from them if the opportunity is there. BUT...JVG seems like the type to get on your ass if you don't follow the plays to a T, ESPECIALLY if you screw up.
Why did the Rockets stop using the play where you set up a pick and roll with Yao and let him roll to the basket? It worked against Dallas in the playoffs last year. Or give him the ball in the high post facing the basket and let him work his way in if possible. I know his ball handling skills are not top notch but he can handle well enough to dribble a fews times and move towards the goal. I mean if he can go behind the back and dribble the length of the court against Portland last year why can't he dribble from the top of the key?
Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say he has bad ball handling skills or even that he's clumsy. I WILL agree that his hands are too soft. He needs to hold the ball stronger so little guys can't just swipe it out of his hands. Guys like Shane Battier "block" him because of that soft touch he has going up with the ball.
My two cents... If they're doubling Yao, exploit it and get the ball to the open man (quickly!). If Yao is being single covered, but fronted, we whould alley-oop to him (it seems that we NEVER alley oop to Yao). Our guards should be sinking their shots from outside, and our forward should be able to shoot mid-range jumpers (ya hear that, Swift?!) In doing so, we pull the defense from the lane, clearing things out for Yao. How few times (if any) this season has a Rockets announcer said, "The Rockets are really making the <insert opponent name here> pay for closing the lane by consistently hitting their shots from downtown!"
I have no idea. But I find it funny that everyone was saying, "Run the pick and roll!" last year, but this year, more and more are saying, "Why do they have Yao setting picks up high???" My observation from the last game is the opposing team was suffocating our pick and roll. Usually T-Mac can get around or make a good pass from it. He really didn't seem to do it as much last game, which leads to my further concerns of what "percentage" he's playing at. is it more like 85-95% or closer to 75-85%?
The McGrady and Yao PnR is still very effective and was run successfully a number of times in the Hawks and Grizzlies games. It seemed like they used it to counter the fronting and it worked for the most part. Yao might of not rolled to the basket but he did get better post positioning and scored when they ran it.
To beat the fronting defense, you need Yao to hold the position better, namely, deeper in the post, and more importantly, a better ball handler from the wing. This season, when Yao got the ball 15ft away from the hoop, he has been doing one thing only, tried to backdown the defender. The problem is that with his height, it's so easy to get to ball stolen by the defenders when he put the ball on the floor. He needs to get closer to the basket, takes no dribble, or just one dribble before put the ball up. The bigger issue we have is the ball handler on the wing. If TMac has the ball on the wing, it'd be much easier to get the ball to Yao, fronting or not, since the defender is so focused on his shooting, or penetration, it's much easier to make a pass to the post. With anyone else on the wing, the defender is always laid back a step or two, pratically half way guard the passing to Yao. It's just too difficult to get the ball to Yao in those situations. There is really no easy solution to solve this problem, unless we can get Alston back to his old form(?), where he can take his defender off the dribble; or the Rockets becomes a good passing team, like the old Kings. I'm not hopeful for either of these.
If you watched last game, you know how TMac passed the ball to Yao. It was very easy for him doing it, but not our other guards.
Agree. Even this may create couple of more TOs in a game. I don't see any differences between a turnover and a horrendous outside shot made by our panic guards at the end of the clock.
When a defender is in front And behind Yao.............somebody's open! The problem is they gotta hit the shot dear.
That's because T-Mac is an offensive threat who lures the defense toward him. That doesn't happen with most of our other players. The defense just leaves them open - they can afford to. As long as they double Yao, they won't leave Yao to cover the Houston guard (unless it's T-Mac). If our guards were offensively dangerous, things would be different. The 'in-out' game doesn't work if the 'out' part is broken.
Testify! At least show them we aren't afraid to feed the post even when we see the double coming. Make the defense commit rather than letting them camp out in the weeds all game. The guards aren't getting the best looks as it is. So threaten to use the post more. Even if it results in a turnover or two, it'll get you some better looks. And if you consistently feed the post all game, the refs are gonna be forced to pay more attention to the hacking defense. We simply need more inside in our inside-out game. Dribble penetration isn't getting us there. Trust Yao to make the smart decision when you put the basketball in his hands. I'm confident he'll make his teammates better.
Sorta curious about Yao and why the other Rocket players don't seem to cut to the hoop after feeding him as they did in year one. Is it because the opposing teams became used to his slick passes to the cutters? Or has the offense changed dramatically to not allow such passes (eg. he gets the ball too late in the shot clock to run cutters past?)? Sure seems that in his rookie year Yao was considered the best passing big since Sarbonis...
Also to expand on this, whenever they do get yao in the post on a one-on-one situation, the passing guard will always make the cut, further cluttering the lane for yao to work. To me, it just wastes valuable seconds to get that guard to run through because rarely does yao pass to the cutting guard in front of him. I know they're trying to create spacing, but that clutters the lane even more, leaving the ball more likely to be stripped by the guards defender. Why not just pass the ball in the post sit back and watch which way they're going to double. I know we're in a shooting slump right now, but the shots will fall one day. Mabye an off guard or forward can make a backdoor cut which would be more effective, but the guard passing the ball in, and then cutting right in front of yao seems like it wastes more time than it does create spacing. I dunno if that made any sense, but I understood it just fine .
I've said this before and I'll say it again, why doesn't yao take any jump shots? We know he can make them. Last time I checked it's not a bad thing to be a versatile scorer. Yao is so predictable that defenders run right to the block and wait for him to get there. All he needs to do is step out and take the open shot. I've seen Yao wide open from 15 feet and not take it or take it hesitantly, like it's against his programming. I'd rather see him take the open mid range jumper than see DA take a crazy turnaround or wesley shoot up bricks.
No.. No we don't. Yao's scoring in the 20's (most nights) and is rebounding well. He's the only consistently dangerous player we have. We need more outside in our inside-out game. Yao has established himself as an offensive threat. Has our outside? No. That's the problem.
IT's not easy to become Championship. Back to 93-94, Except Dream, Clyde, we had cassell, horry,elie,even maxwell and smith, . Cassel is underrated star, You can see how much he made difference to Minnisota and LA clipper. It's not just their high basket IQ and high percent of 3's shoot, it's thier cold blood,which made key difference at key games. You can name any one of them, who made huge contributions at one or more of those key playoff games. Sure, Now we are talking about make playeroff, only T-mac and Yao is far from enough. I do not like wesley's attitude,I saw him and Howard smiling at a few losing games. If players can smile at losing games, what's our fans worry and enjoy for? Swift is not playing well, But at least he is not happy at those games.
