I think Yao is too scared of the whistle sometimes, especially right after he just picked up a foul. In that phoenix game both Amare and Yao were in foul trouble, if you watch what both guys did after they picked up their 5th foul you'll see what I mean. Yao became timid on defense and didn't really fight for position on offense, he didn't pick up foul out, but he didn't do as much as he could have. Now look at Amare, he actually played more physical after his 5th. He probably played the best defense of his career in that 4th quarter. There were multiple times when Amare could have (probably should have) fouled out of the game. But the refs swallowed their whistles because he's a superstar and he's playing hard, the benefit of the doubt goes to the aggressor. When Amare finally fouled out, he'd pretty much dominated and pushed the suns back from a huge deficit. Yao's gotta realize that if he can't be passive in the 4th quarter. By being passive, even though he gets to stay out on the floor, he's not helping the team.
Geez why don't we just hire Karl Malone to coach Yao and Co. in dirty play. The Rox have always been a team of character and not thuggery.
I think it's not a bad idea. There are some games where Yao just can't catch a break, he's constantly hacked and no foul is ever called. If he just dropped the ball once and pushed his defender into the pylon (without punching, to avoid an ejection), he'd get a flagrant, but refs would call the game more closely afterwards to make sure a fight didn't start. And, if it didn't work, it wouldn't matter because Yao isn't effective in those games anyway.
I'm not opposed to setting hard picks, making fouls hard enough that guys don't score, and all of that. I don't propose being weak. But we shouldn't commit flagrant fouls. There is no correlation between flagrant fouling and winning. We are capable of letting our play do the talking, and
flagrant fouls are never good... u put the other team in attack mode and it'll just ignite a spark for the other team. yesterday when potapenko pushed Yao hard in the back.. he lost his cool.. which means he was desperate to stop yao and he couldnt. we got something good out of that. 2pts
