Dubious post on more than one account, to put it mildly. First, without looking at anything else but just your post alone, we say being "in somebody's face" is not tantamount to hitting somebody in the face. It doesn't matter how awkward one's body posture may look, no contact, no foul. Simple as that. Second, still looking at your post only, we maintain that refs are not supposed to make up calls against a player whom they had previously rewarded with abundance of calls in his favor due to the fouls legitimately called against his defenders. At any moment, calls whistled against illegal actions should be solely based on the "merits" of those actions, but not the history of prior calls, by refs. To be impartial is paramount to refereeing in any sports, not just in NBA. To be impartial is by no means to be "balanced." Makeup calls simply for the heck of balancing out the overall calls on each team are unprincipled and detrimental to the sports. Two wrongs don't make it right. And in Yao's case, he didn't even do anything wrong in the first place. Although NBA refs are life-time appointees, they should still abide by rules and professional standards. Finding undue excuses for them is pathetic on your part. Third, human bodys are not rigid body (per definition of physics), unless you buy into the bigoted notion that Yao is a "stiff" who is incapable of reflexes. If somebody pushes you when you are shooting a ball with your arms in upward motion, we expect certain body reactions including one which strikes to maintain some balance. We would never expect you to fall like a hard steel object. Fourth, boy you sure know how to cherry-pick one single picture out of a set of pictures to make a claim that "yet at the same time his elbow is in somebody's face." Did it ever occur to you there is a concept called "before and after"? Was the ball still in Yao's hands when his elbow was forced to be "in somebody's face"? For what I can see, the evidences shown in those pictures can hardly demonstrate Yao shot the ball while sticking his elbow to somebody's face. But if you have some other pictures that unequivocally support your claim, please do share. I am all ears, and eyes.
That is because they are SCRUBS- Please check their shooting percentages and you will see why they are no longer decent contributors.They shouldn't be on the court especially in the 4th QTR.
But the elbow is a natural reaction of Yao, while the other is intentionally forcing Yao to go off balance. That is the right perception of the refs.
JVG is very prepared, but he is also REALLY slow to recognize changes in the game, and how it is being officiated. For example, it took him 3 years to try a ZONE...THREE YEARS !!! And he still has not adapted to the "no touching on the perimeter" game yet. Sure, he has Tmac driving, but not Rafer, not Head, not V-Span or JL3.... Just Tmac......so when the other team takes away our number 1 and number 2 option, who ya gonna call?????? JVG has not found an answer, even though 3 potentially different answers are on the bench next to him. Bonzi, V-SPan and Novak. DD
Which is exactly what was SUPPOSED to change this season. With the players they got in the off-season, the Rockets were supposed to finally have the ability to make the other teams pay for using this strategy. They were supposed to be more versatile. Instead, so far this year, it has been more of the same. Expect everybody to defend them this way. Until JVG solves this problem, the Yao-TMac duo will only be able to carry the Rockets so far.
I disagree, looking at that zone defence its fairly hard to conclude that a slasher would definetly have easy buckets. The positioning of the zone seems to me to aim to stop the slasher on the weak side of the ball carrier. Potentially a slasher means the double team of Yao would come out but thats pretty iffy if your telling me that the slasher(ie Bonzi) would also pass the ball to an open Yao. I don't see any conclusive evidence that he would gel with the low post like that. Secondly if Vspan was in the game, its highly possible he would turn the ball over. Notice we are talking about a 4th q crunch time situation. If he turns it over I'd rather have an open shooter who clanks the ball, at least there is a chance it would go in. Which brings me to Novak, yeh of course his a more consistent shooter, its been shown to us many times. But hows his defence in a clutch situation. There has been quite alot of articles showing that Chucky gives Yao alot of space on defence alot of helping on the boards and switching and stuff like that, which surprising or not has led to less fouls. I think Novak playing at the 4 spot in the fourth quater is suicide. He won't be guarding the opposing 4 thats for sure. He'd be eaten alive in the post. I can see the logic of why not to put him in but people just don't really consider that. Not saying its 100% right by JVG by people make it sound like he doesn't have a reason and his screwing the team on purpose.
How to shut down Tmac-Yao duo you ask?? I know what every other team knows. Just hope the Rockets put this guy in! He will stop any Superstar playing on the same team with him!
The way to stop Yao is to throw an array of big men at him to wear him down. I call it a tag team tactic. It's no a coincidence that the two games which we collapsed badly in the 4th quarter were against the Spurs and the Pistons. Both of these two teams were well-equipped to employ that strategy. Once they wore Yao out in those two games, there went the offense of the Rockets too.
