That's not an accurate statement.... The only team he had trouble with was the Supersonics and the reason he had trouble with them was because of the illegal defense.
The problem with this is that your original premise is wrong. Yao and the Rockets have never consistently beat the fronting issues. The thing they had in the past was a guy teams used to fear more than Yao, and that was T-Mac. That is no longer the case.
They trust him to bring them shoe contracts. They trust him to pick opposing players up when they lose those drivers. They trust themselves to throw up prayers against 7 footers. They trust themselves to go 1 on 5. But they don't trust Yao to catch a lob pass, so they never tried even ONCE in 3 playoff games. While asked, why Yao doesn't get some pick and pop jumpers, the counter argument is that Morey said Yao is only 30% on that shot. But Yao was 3-5 in playoffs, why not a few more attempts? Players do that, and some Rockets fans are accepting that happily as well - Yao is no Dream, so we don't trust him, and if it's difficult, we give up. It says a lot more about some players and fans, than about Yao.
I've brought this up multiple times. You beat the fronting defense by going away from it. People don't like this because it means that our top scorer isn't getting the ball. But the last two games proved it. We averaged 50% from the floor in game 2 and 46% yesterday and thats with Yao being fronted THE WHOLE GAME. We couldn't beat the fronting defense before because we had the mindset that we had to get the ball to Yao no matter what.
So they fronted Yao because they feared McGrady? That would give the feared player an advantage. McGrady read defenses well. The team beat it through quick ball movement. The ball would be on Yao's side and it would swing swiftly with no hesitation to the weak-side. Scola would shoot an open jumper and Yao would actually get the ball while flashing through the lane. It was bam, bam, bam. No hesitation, No dribbling. McGrady may have issues at times with the decision making for his own offense but he had no such problems in reading the defense for a team score ... he wouldn't have missed Yao last night.
With Portland overplaying Yao, why can't we fake a pass inside (causing the defense to converge on Yao) and then quickly hit a cutter from the opposite side? Do this a couple of times and the helping defense will be unsure of where to go. Another way would be fake the pass to inside to Yao, but have him spin toward the basket for a lob. The defense will get caught going the wrong way and then may react by grabbing Yao, trying to prevent him from getting to the basket. This should draw a few fouls. I know Magic Johnson could have a field day against the Blazer defense.
Every now and then Bullard would see a few playoff minutes...but if he ever went inside the three point line it was a miracle, and I don't recall any great lob passes from Bullard down to Dream. I completely agree with your post. It's not an anti-Yao thing...Yao plays for the Rockets, so I love him. If he didn't, I wouldn't. But we have to understand the limitations that he has. He lacks the quickness you need in the post. He can compensate for that somewhat by being so long and having a great shooting touch, but we can't make him into a guy who you lob the ball down to in the post and he sets up shop and dominates. He's not quick enough, he's not strong enough, and he gets bullied. The two biggest problems with this Rockets team are 1) lack of a go-to-guy in the closing minutes to close out games, and 2) we force-feed that post due to #1 and we don't have the prototypical post-up players. Yet we keep trying and we kept Portland in the game in that fourth quarter with bonehead post passes that we kept turning over. I like the way we match up against Portland, and I think we win this series. But the only way we win any more is if we can establish decent-sized leads in the opening quarters, because in the fourth our offense will struggle.
yes that's true.. we have not-so-great entry passers.. that one pass by shane in the second half was just atrocious.. he passed it straight to one of the portland defender... portland has made up their mind to take yao out of the series and by doing so has kept the game pretty close.. as long as everyone else steps up we will be okay
We also scored 86 points. Only 38 in the 2nd half. If we hadn't played good defense as well, then their strategy would have worked. The problem I have with this line of thinking is that fronting Yao doesn't open up holes in their defense. It's not like we're really benefiting from their strategy on Yao. If we could get Yao the ball and force a double team then that would open up holes on the floor that we could exploit just like the Yao assist to Battier last night. But when they front, they can take Yao out with one guy and nobody else really has to come off of their man. That doesn't create any advantage for us (like there would be if he was double teamed). In fact, it's a disadvantage because we only have 4 guys who can get the ball. And then we're just running a basic offense. It's really no different than just ignoring Yao the whole game even if he isn't being fronted. Having to rely on role players every night is going to burn you sooner or later because there's no way of knowing if they're going to step up or not. That's why they're role players. Playing into their defensive game plan isn't beating anything. We're letting them dictate our offense. If we could completely remove Roy and Aldridge from their offensive game plan (even more than last night), then we'd take our chances with their role players trying to carry the offensive load. And if we totally shut down Roy but still lost, I doubt we'd say our strategy failed.
I do accept it becuase I see it with by own eyes, BUT like Clyde said, not the exact quote: "I've never seen a time when a dominant NBA center can't get the ball in the low post." What I'm saying is, you're right, for right now, Yao has mobility issues, no doubt, he can't swing/spin around the defender quicker than I can parallel park a car, so we have a problem, BUT, the team (and especially Yao as he said to the press) have to do something about it. For him to be who he is, and for them to be settling for the few touches he's getting would be a terrible thing. I completely agree with most of what you've said but I am still hoping they'll figure SOMETHING out so Yao isn't rendered useless offensively and just turns into a defensive, paint-clogging presence. Go Rockets.
Watching the game live gave me a good angle of the entry pass. TRUST me that the entry passers are as much to blame for as Yao here. They ARE being hesitant. It seems that Yao gives them about a 3 second window of opportunity to pass him the ball but the passers are really out of sync with the target.
I just completely and fundamentally think you're wrong. The few times this season that Yao's gotten the ball while flashing across the paint, he's dropped it in with a baby hook. Turnovers were few. The reason is because he doesn't he even dribble. He catches and then jumps up and makes his hook shot. So actually, there were no instances of a defender poking it away from him because the shot'd be in the net before anyone could even collapse on him.
Shhh, no one wants to hear silly nonsense like that. Yao needs at least a 10-15 second window of opportunity before Aaron gets tired of dribbling and decides to possibly initiate some kind of offense or perhaps just drive it into 3 defenders to get swatted. It's Yao's fault.
Yao's 1st and 2nd fouls were both phantom calls. The 3rd one was the only legit one of the three. Speaking of Roy, he should have fouled out two minutes earlier than he did(on the 3 point play that got them back in the game).
I like what u say but i just dont know why we didn't try Barry as a PG for some time period during the game, he got high baketball IQ and enough height to try a entry pass. yes he is old and he cant defend well, but he should be a good choice for us when we are struggling to give Yao some touchs
The lob has never been the answer for a fronting defense unless you are throwing to a superior athelete which most centers are not. reversing the ball to the wekaside quickly and then having a guard deliver the ball on time is the way to defeat a fronting defense. The guards have proven they are absoltely incapable of this. yao is not great at moving to the other side of the lane to reestablish position, but he is at least average at it. The ball NEVER gets there as he opens up. If I was RA, I would have Shane throwing entry passes from the corner as opposed to all of the 2/3 offset of the key crap that our guards just can't figure out the angle on.
The perfect example of this last night was when they swung the ball to artest in the corner and yao went and got position quickly on the weakside, and artest dropped an easy entry pass into Yao for two points.
I'll be honest, I wasn't impressed at all with Nate McMillian when they put a mic on him during timeouts. He's definitely not an X's and O's type guy -- more of a relationship guy with the players. He just doesn't have a mental sharpness about him, like a Van Gundy or a Larry Brown.
dream had better and stronger hands, its not yao's lack of athleticism that doesn't allow him to catch the lob, its his hands
Just because JVG said it, you thought it was right? Ah, I forgot JVG was an offensive genius. Ah, I almost forgot when he outcoached Avery Johnson, a first-year head coach. It is very simple, if there is no defender behind Yao, Yao would crash the board for an easy guaranteed two. Remember the last regular season game between Houston and Portland?
