i really overestimated nate mcmillan heading into this series. he played yao straight up in game 1 and got destroyed. you don't guard yao ming straight up. tonight, he fronted yao, but had a weakside defender behind him as well. as jvg astutely pointed out, this is completely unnecessary - yao can't handle the lob pass. i'm completely shocked right now because the way to shut down yao without exposing gaps in your defense has been very well documented for anyone who hasn't been living in a cave these past few years. coaching has been the difference in this series up to this point. nate mcmillan has been absolutely horrible. you don't beat the rockets by loading up on conventional defense - i have no idea what he is doing with this gimmick "twin towers" nonsense. you beat us with small-ball offense. we have even yet to see travis outlaw at the 4, something even JVG was calling for. as a sidenote, i'm literally on the verge of losing it if i see one more suggestion of lobbing a pass into yao/blaming the guards for not getting him the ball/any other blind denial of the present realities of his immobility.
you're right cabbage, McMillan is severely limiting his team's offense by rotating in Pryzbilla and Oden and not getting Outlaw more minutes. Rick also took Outlaw out of the game by sticking Lowry on him which I thought was a nice defensive adjustment since he has no post-up game to speak of. For Portland to win with that lineup, they need superhuman offensive efforts from Roy and Aldridge like in Game 2.
I saw tons of lob pass to Yao before, Yao simple cant handle it? Not true. You think a NBA coach makes millions is a fool, the reality is, you are the fool. It is always easier to say than done, dont forget jvg was blamed all the time.
Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy! Fires Adelman! Needs Fan Gandy!
what you were doing in nba2k9 isn't relevant to real-game discussion. this argument of inherent infallibility by virtue of authority is so tired and flawed. applying this same logic, no nba coach has ever made a strategic mistake because all criticisms are assumed unwarranted. more terrible logic. i'm not going to waste my time.
that was absolutely brilliant maneuvering by adelman. it also forced took them away from running through roy for that short span. i love kyle lowry.
Whats funny to me is how Yao isn't picking up fouls by Roy barreling into him, but its still the obligatory "We know they are mugging you, but we're going to call 2 stupid offensive fouls on you anyway" per game. Officiating has really taken over the beautiful game that used to be basketball.
as a sidenote to this, yao's interior defense is all-nba level this year. he's literally a vacuum. and of course he's impossible to score on in the post. his troubles guarding smaller perimeter big men are obvious, but i'm very proud of the steps he has taken in improving this aspect of his game. he's actually become a monster back there now playing goalee as opposed to the poster magnet he was when he first broke into the league. i'm sure some of this can be attributed to subjectivity in officiating (there's no way he made that drastic of an adjustment on the timing/angle of his block attempts) but major kudos to the guy.
I think the efforts to let the defenders go "straight up" has given Yao a lot more aggressiveness down low on defense. His defense has been very stellar this past year, of course he still gives up easy dunks when the point guard gets into the teeth, but sometimes that could be said to be bad help on the switches.
Bullard was on 610 this week talking about this. He mentioned that the Rockets had himself and Horry, both 6'10" guys, to make the entry to Dream. This team doesn't have that guy so it makes it harder. However, Bullard still blamed the passers more than Yao. He said Yao is doing a good job fighting for position but the passers are hesitating when making the pass. They are not getting the ball to Yao at just the right time. We've seen it a zillion times. The ball is at the top of the key and Yao flashes accross the lane. For a moment, Yao is WIDE open. For whatever reason, Yao doesn't get the ball at that moment. They wait until the defender recovers.
I was thinking about this several times last night. Completely agree. Roy said after the game that the biggest difference wasn't so much Battier/Artest as it was how Yao completely closed off the paint to him.
Tons of lob passes? Really? You sure it ain't Landry you saw? Yao Ming could get a lob pass, but then there are 4 other defenders who can anticipate it and get it before he does, no matter how good the pass. Thanks for your wonderful contribution. (Also... Fan Gandy = Van Gundy?)
i just completely, fundamentally disagree with this. yes, he is open for a split second, but from my vantage point, over the year, when they do make that pass, he almost always turns it over as the defender recovers and pokes it away. the few times they have tried lobbing it over the top of the defender, if he is even able to catch it, he simply doesn't have the mobility to make a fluid motion in gathering himself and going straight up with it. this has nothing to do with him being soft or any of that slothful ESPN rhetoric - it's basic physics and it's a very low percentage play. people blaming our guards are placing unrealistic expectations on both them and on yao. it's just not something that is physically possible - we need to realize this, move on, and find other ways to attack what the defense gives us. there's absolutely no comparison to hakeem/shaq. not only would they catch anything in the area you threw the ball, but they were both so quick and athletic that their momentum moved them into a fluid motion to the hoop for the dunk. to place the blame on our guards is just inherently flawed logic. could they be better passers? sure. but they aren't exactly bad passers, especially considering no guard yao has ever played with has been able to get it into him against heavy fronting. with yao's combination of bad hands, lack of mobility, plus the fronting, i've made the analogy before that you are basically asking for a 99MPH fastball right in the heart of the strike zone for him to even have a chance to get it. because magic johnson could do it possibly doesn't mean our guards are at fault. it's time to just accept it. PS: i just chuckled at the notion of bullard mentioning himself as a 6'10 guy helping in getting the ball to hakeem. this would actually be relevant if he had actually seen the court in the playoffs.
But compared to Olajuwon, with Yao there's a much shorter time window, and a much smaller spacial window (ok, that sounded nerdy) to make that entry pass. On more than one occasion, the Rockets tried to get it into him and it resulted in a turnover. When that happens, its understandable why they'd hesitate to throw it in when there's such a small margin for error.
The entry pass has to be perfect in order to lob it to Yao. If it's not perfect then the other player will get to it before Yao can. Bullard had the benefit of passing to one of the quickest centers of all time that could always beat his man to the ball even while fronted. I would love to see Bullard try to get it to Yao.
Right, and while you are it you may as well ask our point guards to bounce quarters into shot glasses.
------------------------------------------------------------- thank god someone has finally pointed this out...
right?? they have 24 seconds to work with. that's it. they get a "flash" here and there where they might risk getting him the ball. great.
