When teams commit to taking Yao away by putting a player in front of him and behind him, basically making a Yao sandwich, it opens up the floor for the other players on the Rockets to take advantage. To win in the playoffs, THAT is what has to happen, you do not force feed the ball into a guy when he is that heavily guarded, you reverse the ball and attack on the weakside and let Yao get his on the offensive glass. Team ball over me-ball. DD
I know. You know they're over committing when battier goes to the hole 2 times in 1 qt. Thats a true indication of overplay .
If Yao keeps hitting that mid range elbow jumper, more times than not, we will win. Those are valuable situations where if his man comes up and guards the shot he can find a cutter, or if he's left open... Wide open jump shot.
The problem is actually the other way around. Its hard to have a good discussion with because there are too many Howard Only Fans around here. Everytime a positive comment is made on Yao, one of you goes and expounds the virtues of King Howard and his monster ESPN dunks. Sorry, but I'm a Rockets fan, I will always give my players the benefit of the doubt.
I wish Battier would do a LOT more of that instead of setting for that 3pt jumper..... I like cutters, it forces the defense to get all bent out of shape, and when Battier cuts, he can bounce it to Yao for a dunk. Which happened last game, ... DD
Frankly, I don't think there was any time ever that anyone actually forgot to feed Yao - not in this game nor any regular season game. It just looked that way because either we couldn't find a way to feed Yao, or we attempted other options. Or a combination of both. When they're bleeding from one wound, they're naturally going to focus their energies on stopping that. We just have to open other wounds to continue the bleeding. That's the general idea every team adopts. Success, however, depends on execution. When the Rockets make other plays and we fail to score, that doesn't necessarily mean those plays were bad. Neither do these plays become good merely because we scored. It's all down to good or poor execution. When balls aren't falling in, that isn't a problem only for the Rockets - it's a problem for any team. So it's moot to actually say that we were fine the last game because the shots were going in, but we've a problem when they're not. When everyone, except one player, has a poor shooting night, then you can't really expect that team to win. Unless the other team has a worse shooting night or... your defence saves the day. And really, that's why we won the 1st game against the Blazers. When you limit the other team to just 58 points over 3 quarters (let's forget the 4th quarter since it was mainly garbage time for both sides), your defence has really put you in a very good position to win. When your offence is working as well, then it becomes a blowout. The keys to Houston succeeding against the fronting/double teaming on Yao are therefore good execution on alternative plays and great defence. It's really that simple - let's not make it more complicated than that.
Obviously the solution to Yao's fronting is for the other Rockets to score more and force away the smaller player fronting Yao to come back out. I know people complain about Artest, Brooks and etc.. shooting a lot when Yao is fronted but if they can't get the ball to him that is the only way to defeat the fronting.
If you're a student of basketball, you should be able to discuss anyone and anything without people getting their panties in a wad. There is another thread when someone said howard is ben Wallace part 2. Now i know this is a rockets fan board and like i've said many times, i've watched this team since 77-78, but you dont have to put down another player to build up another player's accomplishments. The same thing was said when amare was killing. Oh he just dunks or he will be nothing if he loses his athleticism. Well, he had microfracture, was out for a year and came back less explosive and a better player and yet people still will never give him credit because he won the roy over yao. Some people on this board act howards points all come from dunks. The same was said about shaq too, but then they started to see the footwork and the righty-lefty hooks. Old schol posters can have a discussion about players without being called haters. DD and i have disagreed on players and stuff before and as men, its cool. The problem the old school guys have with the johnny come lately's is the notion of this is houston rockets featuring yao ming. Smokey robinson and the miracles, harold melvin and the blue notes, maze featuring frankie beverly. Its not, it doesnt work that way in the on this team because yao isnt that kind of dude. Plus adelman is a coach that wont run his head into a brick wall because he's too stubborn to make adjustments. Now i will admit at times he's slow on the trigger, but he's always been known as a pretty good in game adjuster. Its all about team success. If they overplay like DD says and make a yao sandwich, someone else has to make a play. Battier going to the hole and getting 2 fouls on their bigs. Brooks getting switched out by alridge and making him pay. scola with the mid range jumper. thats called adjustment on the fly. The rockets offense didn't look like the causeway during the beach party in 96 whn the blazer changed their defense and thats a good thing.
thats why they lost to dallas, not because they couldnt get yao the ball. No matter what happens, you have to defend. When the rockets went on that scoring drought, it was compounded by going on a defensive drought as well. If you still defend even if you're not scoring, sooner or later the offense can be manufactored. Against dallas the rockets were bleeding out both ends.
They also took out Von, if you have Von and AB on the floor, most of the time your scoring droughts are not going to last very long. But with Lowry and Artest and Battier out there, the offense can bog down a bit. DD
I dont think shane should play unless yao is in the game. he among all the players need yao to get a shot. When teams dont double yao, he's as good as useless on offense. Like i've said before, shane used to be more offensive when he was in memphis. i dont know if he got confortable or something, but offensively he has little to no aggression, is probably the worse ball handling 3 man in the league too. If the bulls have some success without deng in the playoffs, deng might be on the trading block. If they can get deng for shane and some filler, that would be great.
i dont care if he's triple covered, when yaos on fire he's on FIRE! so Feed him the ball!!! This is the playoffs and he knows he must be the MAN !!! You stick to the game plan or you end up like the blazers did in game 1.
Maybe it's just me, but it does seem like the midrange shot has been falling for him with much more regularity than we're used to. It's probably never going to be as high percentage as his more traditional post moves, but I think it's good enough to keep defenses honest (and still a better option than forcing into a turnover or jacking up a bad weak side shot with little opportunity for an offensive rebound). If they do start fronting with frequency, I want to see the pick-and-pop feature with some regularity.
First off, it's been reported that if the Bulls advance to the 2nd round, Deng can be ready by then. And IMO Bulls don't want Battier and filler for Deng. Doesn't make sense for them. What I had in mind though...is Battier and Cook's expiring contract (he'll pick up his player option) for Tayshaun Prince. The Pistons shed salary in the process, they are in a semi rebuilding mode anyways.
So lemme get this straight, the pistons will take battier and filler for tayshaun even if tay is younger, better and just makes 8m vs the bulls not giving up deng who has 5 yrs at 10m per? Maybe both of us are dreaming, but i do know the bulls want to be a player in 2010. 1 contract or even 2 they want to get rid of is hinrich and if the teams keeps playing well, they might see deng as expendable.
Maybe I like Prince better then Deng, who (Prince) I think is a more complete player. I happen to think Deng is overrated. And Prince's yearly salary is 9m this year and climbs to 10 and 11 each year. His contract length is the same as Battier's. The Pistons have shown to be wanting to shed salary and may part with Prince if given enough incentive, while I haven't heard anything from the Bulls that they are willing to part with Deng just get rid of his salary. ...and even if the Bulls were willing to part with Deng, I'm not gung ho to part with Battier for him.
Let's just look at the facts,ok? The fact is yao's on fire, and in the 3rd qtr his teammates(AB for the most part) ignored him at least couple times when YAO'S OPEN AND HAD GOOD POSITION INSIDE. I have to say AB had an excellent game, and he definitely had his moments in 3rd qtr. With that being said, he just have to distribute the ball when yao's not fronted or doubled and has position inside. That's strategy #1 and it's a shame to forget it! What makes me angry is that the same thing just happened in last game against Mavs. Yao had positions a few times in the second half, but teammates went away from him. I feel like the team is not smart enough to mix things up. They either go to yao no matter what, or they almost completely go other way. You have to react to what the opponets' defense gives you. Not to mention the fact that yao will pass the ball most of the time after he get the ball.
i like prince too. I thought they shouldve drafted him instead of nachbar. i like deng a little better because he's a good defensive player, but a better offensive player. if the offer was on the table for either, you dont let them off the phone. plus deng is younger also. Battier is nowhere near the player of deng or prince.
