20 ALL I GOT TO SAY IS THAT THE JAZZ ARE DIRTY TEAM.........T-MAC AND YAO WERE GETTING FOULED UP THE ASS!
You make valid points but what I'm trying to say is JVG never tried a zone. Even if it's just to disrupt the other team it's worth doing every now and than. Even Pat Riley went to a zone in the NBA finals against the Mavs and it worked. Dallas was not sure how to attack it. I'm not saying throw Deke on Boozer for 25 mins a game but you have to experiment and use what you have even if it means Yao spends some time on the perimeter with Okur because he could not stop Boozer. If one guy is killing you you make some one else beat you. Chances are a great coach like Sloan would have countered JVG making these moves but the thing is he never had the Jazz guessing at all the whole series the Rockets were so damn predictable and that's why they lost and even now to think of it fustrates me.
LETS FORGET ABOUT THE PAST AND LETS MOVE ON...........ITS NOT DOING ANY GOOD TALKING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST........ITS A NEW SEASON AND LETS TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE!
Amen brother! I liked JVG, but when he wasn't brought back... I understood. Maybe we did the best we could have with the players we had, but it's a whole new season and a whole new team now. I just worry about getting burned the same way twice, 'cause I'd have to kill.
Yes, if Yao is slow, then why was he used to guard to a quick PF, Boozer, rather than then a center, Okur (who should be slower than Boozer?). Some people (me too) think one of the keys to use Yao to guard Boozer was that JVG wanted Yao to close to the post, to get the rebounds, to play the help defence when the guards were driving into. Inability of guarding the Okur's three was not the main reason for Yao guarding Boozer because Yao has never been tested in this way.
IF YALL LOOK AT IT THIS WAY IF THE ROCKETS WOULD HAVE WON THE SERIES JVG WOULD STILL BE HERE AND BONZI,SF3, WOULD NOT BE HERE........SO I GLAD THAT WE DID LOSE THE SERIES B/C I THOUGHT WE DIDNT EVEN HAVE A GOOD TEAM TO ADVANCE TO THE SECOND ROUND WITH JVG'S OFFENSE!
No one said Yao isn't slow, but Okur is just as slow. If you watched the series you should have seen that Okur didn't put the ball on the floor at all. He either shot spot-up jumpers or took Hayes in the post. What is the evidence for this? How about watching Memo play for 7 games? The difference between Memo and Dirk is that Dirk has handles and speed while Memo doesn't. That's why Dirk is a far superior player. I have no idea what Duncan has to do with this.
We can now bring out BUTLER to beat on Okur or Boozer. Put some hard fouls on them then put Yao back in. With Scola at the 4 and Shane at the 3 we might be able to get away with it.
Everyone is forgetting our secret weapon to guarding Boozer.............. Jackie Butler. Just kidding. Maybe, we would have had a better chance if the role players had scored some consistent points. Look at the box scores...there were times where we barely got anything from the role players. I felt like our team was too reactionary. We worried so much about just defending our fort that we never had a good aggressive attack going the other way to exploit their defense. If we're so worried about Boozer, just go to the other end and attack him with a steady stream of Scola and Yao...forcing him to have to guard one or the other....than have a series of quick guards aggressively attack the rim. Boozer is not a very good defensive player, but we didn't exploit that too much last year. This year, just keep attacking him and he'll pick up fouls, get exhausted and maybe get a little demoralized. Also, I don't think Boozer can guard Scola. Scola's aggressive style would at least present him with more resistance....since Scola's physical and likes to take charges. Scola's even a little bigger than Boozer. Boozer is a little shorter than 6'9". Scola is a legit 6'91/2 or 6'10". Check out the tournament....Scola looks taller than Boozer.
You guys that said Scola can't defend Boozer are right. He can't. Boozer will have him in foul trouble in 5 minutes. But, you guys that said Scola is a key missing rotation piece against the Jazz are right also. The best defensive matchup we have against Boozer is still Chuckie. Chuckie is the best post up defender we got. What Scola effectively does is give us way more options. I really think the Scola-Chuck matchup against Okur-Boozer works a lot better for us than Yao and whoever. It also gives us the distinct advantage of bringing Yao in as soon as Boozer goes to the bench and all of a sudden it's Yao and Scola against Okur and Millsap. Yao and Scola will have those guys heads spinning and should be able to draw them into foul trouble. Once that happens then they've got to go back to Boozer and we've still got options. You could even bring in Deke to defend Booz and leave Scola out on Okur. Okur can only catch and shoot, he can't put it on the floor. All Scola has to do is crowd him and force him to put the ball on the floor or give it up. Yao and Scola are gonna have most of the leagues 4-5 combos spinning around like tops trying to defend the high low action since both guys have the ability to face up and flat drain the 15-18 footer and they both have more post up moves than you can count on 2 hands. Whichever player has the weaker defender can go into the post and leave the other player with the stronger defender guarding them at the top while they face the basket. For all practical purposes, it means that we should consistently win the inside game every night and everybody knows that the team that dominates the paint wins about 80% of the time. With Adelman, hopefully we will play the foul game smart, forcing the action early and getting into the bonus early in quarters to give us the added advantage of having guys like Yao getting to the line where he drops 90%. I always felt under Van Gundy, if we would have understood foul count better and if we would have maybe let some plays go defensively in favor of staying in favor in foul count and in turn forced the action early to force defenses to either foul or let go our easy layups, that we would have been a whole lot better off than trying to defend every pass and every shot and winding up in foul trouble ourselves and forced to go with unfavorable matchups against guys like Boozer. The key to beating the Jazz is not to keep them from scoring. It is to put so much pressure on their own defense that they have to make adjustments to attempt to slow you down and their focus changes from scoring to defending. Once you have a team more worried about defending than scoring, half the battle is won. This is exactly why we lost to Utah last year. We were more worried about defending them than they were about defending us.
Not sure how Scola will guard Boozer, but I'm rather sure Boozer will have nochance guarding Scola if the matchup is properly exploited.
boozer played much closer to the basket. yao had small space to cover so his weakness could not be exposed as much. well, along perimeter, there are a lot of spaces. one-on-one defense has to cover those areas. yao doesn't have the speed and reaction to handle it very well. let's look at football. the red-zone passing defense is easier than open field. why? because the space. receivers have big open space to play with.
because okur was guarded by faster defender. yao didn't guard him BTW, did you watch the whole series? did you watch those games on TV or stands? taking chucks to the post? you must watched different game.
We lost the Utah series because we couldn't score, far moreso than our poor defense on Boozer. AND Yao should have been guarding Okur. Okur really only shoots spot up 3's. When was the last time any of yall even saw Okur go off the dribble? Even if he does, should be a easy charge-draw for Shane or Chuck.
when ocur couldn't shoot, in the first games of the series, we should have played zone. with smart players like tracy, yao, and battier, they'd no wat to do. also, boozer was just unstoppable, in that series. he would make fade-aways when yao guarded him scola won't do that much, but is better than juawn howard, for sure. that series, our defense wasn't the main problem. our offense was. jazz is very streaky, they'll miss shots for 3-6 minutes, and we didn't utilize that.
I watched every game of the series from start to finish. Even when Yao was guarding Okur on a switch or whatever, Okur didn't try to drive. He is not quick and has poor handles. He is no Dirk; you must be confusing him with Dirk, who is quick and has fine handles. If you don't remember Okur going to the post on Hayes, you must have not been watching closely. It definitely happened.
