Then who are our best matchups? My theory - Any team with a dominant SF finds us to be their worst nightmare. Melo, Lebron, Durant, will all still get theirs, but damn if they won't work hard for it. This will inevitably change with the decline of Battier, perhaps next year. Any team heavily reliant on a traditional center (When Yao is Healthy). Dwight, Bynum, Bogut would force the other team to play Yao honest from time to time and as we all know, that's suicide. Any team with subpar point guards will get eaten alive by Brooks. Still remember Brooks utter destruction of Portland and LA.Who are our worst? Teams who have the personnel to effectively front Yao. Teams with a dominant 4 - Scola/Hayes don't lose for lack of effort. Maybe Jordan Hill can help here. Teams with a big pg. This is actually a lesser weakness because it creates a game where the big pg (Deron, Billups and co) can't keep up with Brooks either. Teams with two talented wings to take advantage of Kevin Martin.Hopefully we can reduce our weaknesses and increase our strengths this summer.
It depends on what moves Morey makes this off season and what other teams do this off season. We'll have a better idea come training camp.
Here is the thing, while AB can burn opposing PG's, he also gets consistently burned on the other end as well. There is a reason why even scrub PG's often look like all stars when being defended by AB. With the addition of Jeffries and Hill, I am also less concerned about opposing PF's. While Scola is not the greatest defender, he is no slouch either. He is simply less athletic than most good bigs. Fronting Yao should no longer be much of a problem for a few simple reasons. If they front Yao we can do one of three things: - Swing the ball around and back to Yao who at that point has no one between him and the basket. - Shoot the ball with one of our many excellent shooters and have Yao retrieve the rebound since if he is being fronted, again there is no one between him and the basket. - Have AB penetrate in and either dish back out or to Yao inside. The really bad match ups for us if Yao does come back to form and stays that way is either a perimeter center like Okur or teams that rely heavily on perimeter pick and rolls. Yao is for the most part isolated down to the low post and is not fast enough to guard the PnR and neither is Scola for that matter. It is usually perimeter bigs or larger PG's that pose the worse match ups for us, though with Yao clogging up the middle, PG's are slightly less threatening.
We match up well with teams that have premiere SG/SF because of our elite wing defense. Good PGs tend to hurt us. Any post presence tends to get Yao in foul trouble. Shooting big men are trouble, as are face up PFs. As far as pure mathups from best to worst of playoff contenders: Memphis Portland Thunder Denver LA Suns New Orleans Dallas Jazz
Any team with a scoring point guard, any team that can injure yao. We'll really have to see with what happens in the offseason to evaluate. I'd say the worst matchups for us are the jazz and cavaliers
NO, Post presence will always work in favor of Yao, any traditional type center is the best match up for Yao like Bynum, Howard, Shaq and a few other traditional center left in the NBA. But Yes Big Man that can shoot or PF playing like Center are the one who hurt the Yao's Rockets team the most like Al Jeferson, Boozer, Murphy etc.
Traditional centers actually make Yao's eyes light up like a kid at Christmas, because they are strictly low post players and therefore Yao doesn't have to drift towards the perimeter. Also, traditional low post players usually prefer to try to take Yao on one on one, something that Yao and us fans obviously love to see.
The Jazz are the perfect team that could beat us. Boozer and Williams. AB can't handle Deron and Boozer... well we shouldn't have to worry about him in a Jazz uniform much longer.
And we won 13? straight before that.... I really don't see Thunder as a threat, hell we beat them the 3 times before that last game, if I remember correctly, we won with ease and was healthy, although without Yao What I'm hating is these teams that have the undersized big mans that guard Yao to perfection to get the tickytack fouls on Yao. Basically their method is going under Yao when guarding, go near his elbow, so anytime Yao, they flop if Yao's elbow/body part comes 6 inches from their face, Joe Smith did this perfectly....
