One of the things that is killing the Rox is when Yao is getting fronted. Why is it that the Rox are have such a bad time getting Yao the ball from the wing when he is fronted? All that has to be done is that the ball needs to swing back to the top & then sent down the middle. The spacing from the weak side is so poor that the Rox are allowing weak side defenders to cheat into the lane to cut the entry pass. The Rox need better spacing & perhaps a 2nd good passing big to rotate to the top allowing for easier passes from there. Dare I say it.....we need Horry back!!!!! LOL!!! Seriously this is a huge offensive defeciency that doesn't seem to appear that Van Gundy is addressing.
totally agree. besides that, the open man couldn't shoot doesn't help either. if you always have some hot hands open and score and punish the double or triple team yao they wouldn't do that so much. too bad our scorers were all off last night.
The hi-low entry pass seems to be the most effective counter to aggressive fronting...a la Brian Grant and friends. But in order for that to be effective the high post player must be able to score (MoT or Padgett), and that takes Cato out of the game. Yao doesn't have enough leaping ability or quickness to corral the lob pass with consistency. It doesn't help that our guards (except for MJ) don't have a clue about really effective entry passes. This is something we must improve upon over second half of season. The blueprint for rendering Rox a jump shooting team is well known around the league........it's our move. D R
Cato for Donyell Marshall anybody? That would help both teams & allow Bosh to play where he should be playing, the 4.
This team isn't going anywhere until we can find a consistent way to get our big man the ball. I'd rather go down with Yao shooting 25 times a game than with our guards tossing up bricks after jumping through 2 hoops of fire. Getting Yao the ball CAN be done efficiently even with double teams and fronting if you implement the right cuts, lobs, and rotations. We need to mix up Yao's possessions in the high and low posts. Passing and gaining position is a dynamic process. There's only a short window of time for completing a successful pass at both ends. If you miss that window time and time again, we should just send Yao to the WWF for cash considerations and forget about the playoffs for good.
Has anone noticed that Mark Jackson is pretty much ablt to get Yao the ball at will? We should seriously be looking to obtain someone with passing abilities similar to his if we want our team to operate at full potential. Francis just makes me cringe when he drives the lane and throws one of those no look passes to Yao that 99.9% result in a turnover
Is that true MJ did not play much on the court with Yao last night? Anyway, Shaq was also very annoyed with Boston's fronting, but he was able to grab offensive rebounds.
The hi-lo pass worked very well lately with MoT against, for ex., the Celtics, second game. The Heat played defense a little differently though. 1)They doubled more with the weak side guard. Their PF doubled at times but stayed half way to rotate back to MoT or Padgett once they moved into the FT circle. 2) Grant also overplayed top-side with the ball on the wing but dropped back behind Yao when the ball swung top-side. He played it very well. 3) Our open man is at the opposite corner which we found a few times but he missed open shots. 4) Another way to combat this kind of double-team if to throw it in toward the baseline side away from Grant and disregard their guard. Unlike the double team with the PF, the guard is too short to intercept the pass anyhow. We did this maybe once and Yao had an easy 8ft bank shot.
Ummmm .... MJ was in the game much of the time that Yao was in the game in Miami and I only saw him get the ball to Yao 1 time down the court effectively and that was because Yao made it up the court well before MJ did. Most of the times our guards are well down the court before Yao comes into the picture and in that situation MJ did not have any more success than Stevie. Not only are teams like Miami fronting Yao, they are also doubling him on the weak side which makes throwing a pass into him almost impossible. The only way to beat this is to be able to swing the ball around and hit the outside shot to force them to stay with their man rather than doubling down.
Well, if it's that simple for you to pick up, it's also that simple for the opposing coach to pick up. So the opposing coach stacks the strong side. Yao's basically doubled without the ball (guy in front, guy in back). Defender on the ball, and defender in the middle/top of the key. That leaves 1 defender for 2 perimeter shooters on the weak side. We can swing it to the weak side and they scramble to adjust. But you gotta knock down the open jumpers.
Teams will use the same strategy as Boston and Miami used in the playoff. Rox won't go far during the playoff.
It's premature to say if we will make the playoffs. There have been some improvement lately but a lot of progress is needed for us to make it to the postseason. I do agree with sun12 that a lot of teams will continue to use a similar strategy to stop us like the Heat,Boston,Grizzlies.
What the hell are you talking about? The Rockets project right now to a playoff birth without any improvement. The Rockets will make the playoffs, barring an injury to Yao. There is almost no doubt about this.
OPEN JUMPERS!!! That's the key in the Miami game. How many open jumpers did we miss! JJ made his first 3 pointer and missed his next 11 shots, many of which were open. Cat didn't do much better. If you can't hit the open jumpers, they'll continue to pack down low. No inside game, no outside game = you can't score. Combine that with no D = blow out.
My point is that the spacing is so bad on the weak side the 2nd & 3rd defenders are recovering to their man in time.
