Well, better mobility would help to hide his hands a little better. OR, better hands would help hide his lack of mobility. But thats just who Yao is. I think it was Clutch himself who said yesterday on the radio that its strange that Yao has such a weakness so that the defense can take him away. Its rare for an elite level player to have that kind of weakness.
but yao isn't being heavily fronted all the time so if anything you're entire premise is faulty. there were a number of times last night when yao had his man pinned behind him and he was open for a few seconds inside the paint. of course we'd pass the ball around to artest/brooks and he'd have to move out of the paint. also i don't see any 'logic' involved. its an observation. it may be a flawed observation. but the way i saw the game last night, while completely being mindful of our guards' limited abilities, they made bad decisions. even if those decisions at times work out, they were bad decisions and gave us a lesser chance at success. e.g. when yao had aldridge pinned behind him after aldridge came to cover him because oden switched to brooks. yet instead of brooks giving yao the ball 4 feet from the basket he passed it to scola. scola made the jumper but that was not the best decision because it wasn't the best shot we could have had. theres no 'inherently flawed logic'. this is an observation.
He may not have been fronted the whole time, but he was shaded and 3 quartered. Also, dont just watch Yao. Watch teh guy with the ball. A couple of times when Yao flashed open or had his man pinned for a second the on ball defender was all up in the face of the passer. I recalled only twice that Yao was in good position, the ball handler did not have severe pressure, and the pass was not entered. At least once it was Artest. Can't recall who the other guy was. I saw a couple times where Lowry and Brooks were almost being manhandled by the pressure D when trying to make that pass. Battier as well. So its not just the D on Yao, its the over aggressive pressure D on the passers also. That kind of pressure D is just BEGGING for the ball handler to blow by and take it to the rack.
Why cant they just throw him a jump ball or something similar? Forget the lob pass, just throw it high enough where he can just catch and land. I am not sure how difficult that would be? I think throwing a tradition lob pass is the wrong way to go because he is not mobile enough.
Are you kidding? Nate Mcmillan is a great coach. How many coaches in this league can lead a young team like the Blazers to a 55 win season? They shut down Yao Ming in two consecutive games -- not an easy thing to do. The fact that the Rockets did not attempt any lob pass to Yao was because of the weak side defender. And finally and honestly, McMillan leaving Seattle is the reason why they don't have an NBA team any more.
I agree with thecabbage in general. But I think he is too absolute about this issue. The problem is not just the inability of Yao beating the fronting. It's a combination of many factors. Yao's window is small but not nonexisting. You need extremely high IQ perimeter players to execute the pass. In the past, we have T-Mac and Battier, and Rafer is okay. Now we have Aaron Brooks and Artest. Aaron is inexperience and impatient. Artest is just Artest. Listen to Adelman. He has a plan or plans. (I refuse to believe that Adelman is dumb enough not to have wrecked his brain coming up with several schemes to beat the fronting by now.) They (including the guards AND Yao) need to be smarter to execute the plans.
while that part of my post you quoted was an explicit reference to 'heavy fronting', the basic premise is in reference to any unconventional defensive scheme. it doesn't matter if it's a pure front or a shade, the point is that he has consistently been guarded in an unorthodox convention since game 1, and we have consistently, dating back to 2001, shown a complete and total inability to handle the scheme. i'll let you guess what the one constant variable has been in this time span. on the other hand, if you haven't been able to make the distinction that they aren't guarding him in a conventional manner despite it not always being a pure front, then there isn't even a starting point to this discussion. i just don't get this argument. that the situation presents itself doesn't somehow make it a high percentage opportunity. noone here is arguing that creases don't sometimes present themselves. the problem is that you essentially need the perfect conditions. that yao has awful hands, slow reaction time, and is incredibly immobile, is then even further augmented by the fact that the window of opportunity is so small - essentially mere seconds when the defender is caught out of position. considering that the defender is 100% of the time a quicker player than yao, you also face the high probability that he can recover in time to poke it away, in combination with the high probability that the help defender pokes it away, both heightened by yao's aforementioned lack of mobility. just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be attempted, that's why it's perplexing that people here are screaming about these alleged frozen moments in time in the defense that the guards are "ignoring" yao. greg maddux could literally paint the outside of the strike zone to precision and place the ball anywhere in his heart's desire, but that this is possible doesn't mean a headcase like tim redding should have been trying it. similary, that these creases do present themselves doesn't mean it's high percentage to attack them given yao's weaknesses. i have to wonder what anyone arguing otherwise has been watching over the past 7 years. it's been a constant theme that he struggles in these scenarios yet you still want to go on the offensive in a playoff series. that's high risk with extremely low chance of reward - after seeing the same story too many times, i would rather take my chances elsewhere. so you are essentially arguing that the correct decision would have been to force feed yao in a position where he has consistently failed historically? no thanks. our guards are far from infallible, but not force feeding yao is absolutely the right approach. i've seen this team crumble far too many times trying it to think otherwise. the flawed logic involved is the prevailing assumption on this board that just because yao isn't getting the ball, it is due to some complete incompetence on the part of the guards, completely oblivious to the realities of the situation (yao's limitations). i'm not saying this is your assumption - i don't know what you're thinking. it's not an observation. an observation would be "the guards aren't passing the ball to yao." that is a valid, logically sound observation. the assumption and flawed logic is "yao ming isn't getting the ball because the guards aren't passing him the ball. End." it's an assumption of a direct causal correlation with no account for exterior factors. that is flawed logic.
It's frustrating to watch the fronting and the inability for Yao to get the ball and do something with it. What I saw last night at the game, was Yao getting manhandled by Oden with very few fouls called, essentially Yao was fouled EVERY trip down the court. I saw Yao quit trying at times to fight through it...Why? I don't know, tired or frustrated he wasn't getting touches? I also saw Yao's biggest weakness, his inability to seal a defender. When they are behind him he still cannot seal them off and offer a target to the passer. The big man should seal, then offer a target, where he wants the pass and bam, it should be there. The timing of some of the entry passes is awful. Yao is off balance fighting his man and the pass suddenly appears when he is not expecting it and the now routine Yao turnover occurs. So when they are shading Yao, he cannot prevent them from getting around him to front and then we reverse the ball, they are back in position. As strong as Yao's lower body is, he just cannot own a spot on the floor. He gets pushed around worse than most good centers do, and the refs obviously let this happen. The offensive fouls against him called last night by Tony Brothers were just crap. So it is a combination of our guards not being good passers (rafer sucked, so did luther-Brooks is just okay, lowry is decent) plus Yao cannot seal his man, his fault, and then he gets manhandled with no bailouts from the refs. The combination of these things is what causes the problems when fronting.
Ok first off read Doc's statement... It was not about the lob pass; but about driving and dishing. Second, even if i'm playing in a pick-up game in a gym and I keep passing a guy the ball and he doesn't catch it or fumbles it.... I will lose confidence in that person. So too say it says a lot about the players and fans is just RIDICULES... In the Quote that DD stole from me... "Excuses are like BUTT holes and everybody has one."
Did anyone see Lowry try to make a pass to Yao on the block with a defender on his back by leading him slightly to the baseline last night? I think the ball ended up going out of bounds. It was a catchable ball however. Anyway, Lowry came out of the game right after that and Adelman was talking to him about it. I tried to follow the conversation - it seemed like Adelman was telling him not to do that; Lowry was trying to defend himself, but Adelman said something like "it doesn't matter, you can't do it", and also giving an explanation, something about Yao not being able to handle a pass like that possibly. I wish we had tape of that conversation; looked interesting.
Its a physics and rules thing. You place a wall, barricade or blocking object between the ball and receiving player, you have to go OVER or THROUGH it to get the ball to that player. Difficult to do, especially on a stationary target. Its like shooting over the backboard to score. The receiver has to then NOT be stationary and move TO the ball. Yao isnt mobile enough to go to the ball. Yao cant get "seperation" between himself and the defender enough. And he doesnt have enough vertical to be a red zone jump ball specialist like Randy Moss catching the ball in the air...NBA teams are starting to get it. Lot of length and athleticism in the NBA compared to college and high school.
First off read my post before you quote and reply. When someone is 8-20, he trusts his own jacking up shots more than Yao catching a lob pass, so he decides not to throw one in 3 games. When someone can go 3-11, dribbles 20 seconds and threw up a prayer against 7 footers in closing minute key possessions, he trusts his own prayers better than Yao catching a lob pass, so he doesn't throw one single lob pass in 3 games, but repeat that sequence again in the next possession. Now, repeat your quote or DD's quote, whichever you are fighting patent for, "Excuses are like BUTT holes and everybody has one." and some might have more than one, cause excuses are excessive for them.
Such a good post. I remember the play in game three where Brooks drew the charge on Roy (Roy's second, which was big). If you watch it, Yao shows surprising (albeit lumbering) movement funneling Roy right to Brooks. I thought it noteworthy, because here we had this huge 7'5"+ guy funneling an All-NBA (or he should be) guard right into a 5'11" guy for a charge. No, Yao hadn't made it back under the basket, but he helped create that play. Kudos indeed.
How about someone set a screen for Yao as he goes through the paint? I'm pretty miffed by the inability to get him the ball. I didn't know you can have both hands on a player almost constantly either.
We have plays like that. Yao gets a pick set for him a lot during the game, the problem with that is the players setting the screen don't set a solid pick, and Yao is just so slow that his man has time to recover.
Yao can catch those passes he has in the past...the guards can make those passes if they practice some patience and get the offense set early...the problem from my stand point is two things...one is spacing...Yao is never guarded one on one so why not iso him in the post first and force a double team to which we get an open jumpshot or a easy lay-up or dunk from a cutter to the basket...second...its hard to catch a pass when the defender is almost lifting you off the ground...i have never seen anybody played so horribly with no call...people will argue shaq maybe but shaq is too strong to move and seals his man everytime
First Yao needs to learn how to completely seal his man off so that he can catch a normal pass.. The last game he was basically played straight up and was still not able to establish his self down low... Since Yao is not on the nimble or mobile side, he has to establish himself download and give the guards a target to pass at. Now I know that Yao is your HERO and i've read some of your other post where all you HOLLA about is YAO YAO YAO and how you want him to basically take every SHOT.... Well tell your HERO to establish his position down low and give the guards a target to pass at.
love it. yao can't get the ball. it's because he can't make himself a target so the guards can throw a "normal pass". riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
No more so than the guards can't get a pass into him because they have to make a perfect Magic Johnson pass to get it to him. Its on both parties here, dont try and pretend it isnt.
