can i ask you a question? how did boozer do in the series vs spurs? i didn't see anyone said td was embarrased by boozer or schooled by boozer. you know why? spurs won and they kept other utah players in check. who cares how many pts boozer scored. let's face the reality. boozer was very good per last year's playoff performance. you shouldn't deny it.
You people who say Yao guarding Boozer was a mistake, please tell us all how we should have defended Utah. Putting Yao on Okur is a joke and we can only play zone a small part of the time. Even so, a tall guy like Okur will have almost uncontested jump shots from the perimeter against a zone. The fact is perimeter centers who can hit their shots make Yao a huge liability on defense. (Remember that ridiculous game Raef LaFrentz had against us in Boston?) Our counter reactions are to have Yao dominate on the other end (my choice) or pull him off the floor. Regarding Boozer, he's a very tough guy to stop when he's hitting. I don't know why some still underestimate him. The name-calling and ridicule after game 1 was silly and he came back to roast us the rest of the series. He does it to other teams too so there is no shame in admitting we can't stop Boozer unless he stops himself. I can tell you Scola won't have any chance of stopping him but at least he could make Boozer work on the other end. Chuck is our best choice as a defender.
Boozer would just shoot right over Hayes. He has a good 5 inches on him. And Okur would have destroyed Yao from 3. We did a good job of limiting Okurs game.
agree. we have to stick what we are good at. it's tough to shut down a great player in other teams, such as kobe or last year boozer. let them earn pts but shut down other players. i am not really worry about boozer. against utah, i am more concerned about other players, like deron, okur, AK, and fisher. if we can limit them, we have very good chance to win any series vs utah. of course, fisher is gone. AK wants to be traded.
Yao Ming can't guard jump shooting Power Forwards with speed. Scola will counterbalance Boozera he will be able to play a more physical game against him. All as Big Yao was able to do was stand there and look big. Not only that but he will cause Boozera to have to play on both ends of the court. In the same way he will force all Power Forwards to play on both ends.
but not last game. a few times in the last game, jh left okur wide open because jh commited to do help defense. sometimes, i hate help defense. it could give a dangerous 3-pt shooter wide open. anyone who guards those players of other teams should always think about before doing help defense.
That is right, Boozer can not guard my guard Scola, that is a key. Last year, we knew that a slow center can not guard a quick PF, but we just kept doing it. I know different people have different opinons, but how about trying different things, like zone, let Yao guard Okur for five mins to see the result, did we try it. Do not tell people that another way is not working because there is northing to prove it.
I am more worry about Duncan this year. Boozer's thing should be a history, should never happen again. A big question is that Scola, Yao, and Heyes can slow Duncan down or not. I know the Spurs center Oberto (whoever) is a tough guy, do not expect Yao dominate him every time on the court.
Double team, help defense, and zone are some of the things JVG could have tried to throw at Boozer from time to time but we rarely witnessed any of that in the playoff series. Gundy the most overrated DCOY can't come up with plan B when plan A fails to work. Okur is a .356 3-point shooter over his NBA career, and .384 in his best season. Those are Rafer-like numbers that are scorned mercilessly on this board, only idiots like apostolic3 would make Okur more than what he is capable of in a 7-game series. Incidentally, when Okur did get hot in the crucial moments of game 7, guess who was guarding him, the most touted Rockets defensive specialist Chuck Hayes, who conspicuously disappeared when the season was on the line.
Yao only becomes a liability in these cases because he is reluctant to actually go out there and defend the 3 point line, because that then leaves the rest of the interior defense too open. Yao isn't necessarily the liability in these cases, just the overall team defense that JVG employed. Yao guarded Boozer. We lost. So, clearly, that was a mistake. It may not have been the KEY mistake, and certainly wasn't the only mistake, and likely wouldn't be the first thing you'd change if you had a re-do, BUT it is something you'd do differently if you played the series again.
6-9 Scola vs 6-9 (although more athletic) Carlos "Booz"-er >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> than 6-6 Chuck Hayes vs 6-9 Carlos "Booz"-er
Well, exactly. It wasn't a "mistake," it was simply the best we could do with Yao in the game because you can't take Yao away from the basket by putting him on Okur; defensive rebounding was a huge key to JVG's gameplan. Of course, Yao was pretty helpless against Boozer defensively so there weren't so many rebounds for him to grab anyway. Deny it? I KNOW Boozer was very good. That's my point. We can't just "hope" that he's not as good again this year. The Jazz's defense negated our two mismatches last year by defending TMac and Yao about as well as they've ever been defended. They then exploited their own mistmatch by using Boozer to attack Yao over and over again. The difference that the Spurs made is that the Jazz couldn't defend them as well. In order to avoid a repeat of last season, Adelman will need to find a way to limit Boozer's scoring and find a way to prevent Okur from effectively guarding Yao by himself. Obviously, we're going to need Scola to be able to both score and defend for this to work. Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree. I don't worry as much about Duncan when the Spurs don't have a center who shoots threes, so there's no need for Yao to guard the power forward exclusively. Yao's not so bad defending Duncan, anyway.
I think more important than how Scola will defend Boozer is how Boozer will defend Scola. Boozer is the Jazz's weakest link on the defensive end in their starting 5. Last year they got away with that because we had Chuck Hayes starting. Yao dominated Boozer when Boozer picked yao up in transition or in the pick and roll. In the third round Duncan and even Oberto abused Boozer. So it'll be interesting to see how Scola will use his offensive skills against Boozer.
I am not concerened about that , if we play the Jazz Yao probably will be on Boozer again , we don't want him chasing Okur on the 3 point line. We should play a lot more zone against the Jazz when Yao has to guard Boozer imo. Harprong and Kirilenko aren't great shooters. Deron neither , he is better from mid range. Plus it will make is harder for Williams to control everything.
yao and TD will cancel out each other. Spurs use more half court, whcih is a better suit for yao. On the other hand, Utah moved ball very well, which troubled yao.
When we play the Jazz, Yao should guard Okur. Yes, this may mean Yao has to step out to the perimeter occassionaly. But Yao cannot hold Boozer. Boozer is a much bigger scoring threat than Okur. I dont ever want to see Carlos Boozer schooling Yao like that again. Boozer is their forward, Okur is their center. Let Yao guard the center, and let Scola guard the forward.
