I know T-mac can play 40+ min, but he gonna need some rest if he's gonna be efficient for the 4th. Same apply to yao, he won't gonna contribute much if he doesn't get that 4-5 min rest during the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th. They can still play, but will be no where near 100%.
yea tmac CAN play 48 mins every game if u want him to. but he's not gonna be very effective in the 4th, like most players don't when they don't have their legs. i think we should rest tmac pretty good in the 2nd quarter (5-6 mins of rest w/ time outs) in the playoffs. so we can play him pretty much the whole 2nd half if need to .
I still think adrenaline will carry him through if he does play 48. If he does rest, it needs to be during the beginning or middle of the 3rd quarter or anytime in the 1st half. I absolutely do not want him resting AT ALL in the 4th quarter. Saving timeouts for the 4th will be crucial. Timeouts will be when T-Mac rests in the 4th. That is all.
Here's how I see our starters (and coach) matching up with the Jazz: PG: Alston vs Williams -- This is about even with Rafer doing the things we need him to, namely run the offense efficiently, solid perimeter defense, and making open 3's. Deron will have the slight advantage on the offensive end though. SG: McGrady vs Giricek/Harpring -- No match. T-Mac will run wild on the Jazz. SF: Battier vs Kirilenko -- Even. In years past, AK47 may have had an advantage but this year he seems to be playing much worse especially now coming off an injury, but still a top notch defender. PF: Hayes vs Boozer -- Big advantage for the Jazz. Although Yao will be guarding Boozer most of the time, minimizing the damage. C: Yao vs Okur -- Big advantage for us. Okur or Boozer are no match 1on1 with Yao. We will mainly play the Chuckwagon on Okur defensively though, as to leave Yao manning the paint. Coach: JVG vs Sloan -- Small advantage for Sloan. But I wonder what Sloan is planning to do to counter Yao/Tmac. As either will be able to give the Jazz fits all game long throughout the series. In summary 2 for us, 1 for them, and 3 a tossup. We'll win, but it'll be close-- I say in 6 or 7 games.
yea i dont think tmac will rest much if at all (if he does, 1 min max, maybe 2 if we're leading) in the 4th. ever since he came back, he has played big mins. had it not been for the roy's play in the blazers game, that would be another 40+ min game for tmac. but really, u want to rest tmac sometime for a good amount (with TV breaks and your own timeouts => really good and longer rest than the game time indicates) b/c u want his legs in the 4th. b/c really, no one on the jazz can guard him. dfish got lucky that night b/c tmac's mind was somewhere else.
I was talking to a friend of mine the other night and he brought up a good point where we simply don't match up well against the Jazz, just like we did not match up well against the Seattle Sonics in the 1990s. They have a 3-point shooting center in Okur (Sam Perkins) who will force our center to play D on the perimeter. They have a talented, defensive minded point guard in Deron Williams (Payton) that will be hard to handle and a athletic monster in Carlos Boozer (Kemp) that will embarass our power forwards. We have to make sure that our superstars offset the advantages that they have on us. Ultimately, expanding on that last issue above... we already know Sloan already has plans to make sure their defense is primarily focused on T-Mac and Yao. It's our other players that need to step up and hit their shots (Alston, Head, and Battier).
How to defend P&R is also my major concern. Jerry Sloan is the master of teaching that and they run beautiful P&R, which happens to be our weakest defense for the team, and Yao. Hopefully JVG could come up something to counter that and minimize the damage.
If my memory serves, I remember JVG had put VSpan on Deron Williams in last game vs Jazz. How about that?
Here is what I expect the matchups to be. 1. When we're on offense Yao v Okur Hayes v Boozer TMac v Kirilenko Battier v Fisher/Harpring Alston v Williams Huge plusses for us with Yao and TMac. Kirilenko can't keep up with TMac on the perimeter. If they keep Fisher in the game, we will be able to post Battier on him. Harpring is nothing special on defense, and Brewer will probably not play perfectly as he's still a rookie. Hayes will most likely be neutralized on the boards b/c Boozer is such a good rebounder, unless they try to double Yao from the power forward spot. Most likely they provide help from Fisher or Williams. 2. When we're on defense Okur v Hayes Boozer v Yao Kirilenko v TMac Fisher/Harpring v Battier Williams v Alston I think that Hayes will do a respectable job vs. Okur on the perimeter, and Yao should be able to slow Boozer inside, assuming Yao doesn't get in foul trouble. Harpring is their only reliable swingman scorer, and either TMac or Battier should be able to shut him down. The main question, in my opinion, is who does Battier guard? Normally we put him on the opponents shooting guard or small forward. But since there's no particular threat, we may have to change Shane's role a bit. Perhaps he and TMac can sag off and play the passing lanes more. This is a tricky strategy, since Fisher's strength is spot shooting. My guess is that we try to exploit TMac's length and really play Fisher far off. TMac should be able to rise up and contest a lot of Fisher's jump shots even if he's out of position, simply because he's so tall and long-armed. This gives TMac a little more freedom to roam the passing lanes a la the old Scottie Pippen role with the Bulls. Hopefully this can limit Williams's assists and also give us some fast break scores.
Even with all their great pick and roll plays, we have held them in the 80's in two of the 3 games we have played. I think that with Chuck or Juwon (maybe even Tmac or Battier) on Okur, we can negate much of his outside shooting while Yao can handle Boozer in the paint. On offense we just have to give the ball to Tmac and Yao and let them do their stuff, and hope that Head, Rafer and Battier brought their jump shot with them.
i think stopping the pick and roll is essential, if we do that, they turn into a jump shooting team, i'd rather they try and beat us on wide open Okur looks, rather than Deron and Boozer pick and rolling all night.
After looking at the matchups, I feel this should be an optimistic thread. and Mark my word: A jump shooting center will hurt his team in playoffs. JVG will make Okur his another victim if he has done the same thing on Dirk. Also, JVG will drive Yao into the paint like crazy. JVG is actually right for giving Alston huge support. With confidence, Alston will outplay that Utah rookie. Plus healthy Yao and TMAC. If you are a Utah fan, think about how to stop either one of them. Also we have Spartans on our bench! Everything is looking good. cant wait for playoffs.
What if we flip this thread and try to look at the series through Sloan's eyes. First of all, most of the Rox's offense goes through the big guy. Do you double him like Golden State did quite sucessfully--have a strong athletic player front Yao (Boozer) and a smaller player position between Yao and the basket? Will this disrupt the Rockets methodical offense? Or do you double T-Mac early in the shot clock and take him out of his game? Other teams have done this with good sucess and that strategy seems to get the Rox out of their rhythm and deny Yao the time necessary to post up his defender. Or do you take on the Rockets straight up.? On the offensive side, early in the game do you aggressively drive the basket and try to get Yao in foul trouble. Early in a game when Yao get a couple of quick fouls he either hits the bench or tones his game way down. Or do you continuosly run the pick and roll, ala Malone and Stockton and break down the Rocket's defense. Or do you bomb away from 3 point land and force the Rox to abandon their "guard the paint at all cost" defense and come out and guard the perimeter. Also, if you are Sloan do you want to try and make T-Mac play some defense and ware him down so when the fouth quarter comes around his legs are gone? I think both coaches will have their hands full with this series. It should be a barn burner. Go Rockets!!!
As I have been saying on other threads, after Yao and TMac, most teams have more talent. That is why player for player we appear to be outmatched at three out of five positions. However, the Rockets are more than the sum of their parts, and on that basis, they will beat the Jazz in six (HC) or seven (without HC). However, there are so many variables in a playoff series, predictions are just for fun.
Chuck Hayes will guard Okur. Okur cannot beat Chuck off the dribble and will only get contested jumpers. Chuck has really improved this season on getting right in a guy's front pocket so that even jump shots are hard to get off. Battier is rubbing off on him.
Like I said, if Okur starts destroying us, I say put T-Mac on him. In the playoffs, T-Mac is a top 5 defender... arguably the best.
I don't know if this is possible but if they can put Tmac on Deron when he gets hot that would be a good idea. Back in Orlando, against the Pistons, whenever Billups got hot Tmac was sent to guard him to shut him down, and certainly he did.
heh tmac will shut okur down. I think you will see battier start off guarding okur in the playoffs. If there's any hint of a problem, tmac will be all over him. I'm not worried about the jazz, it'll be a tight series -- but I'm looking at the next round already.
i prefer battier on deron, rafer on fisher or any other 2guard, tmac on AK47, harpring, hayes on okur, yao on boozer if deron or okur gets hot, stick tmac on them for a few mins to calm then down and go back to the original defensive matchups
