suns are taking control in the 3rd....man i love this rockets team. they had the heart to always come back and make it a game whether they won or lost
The Phoenix Suns gave away this game and the Rockets took advantage. The Olajuwon offense in that fourth quarter looks eerily similar to our offense this season when the defense is geared to stop a dominant center and someone else has to step up.
If he can't establish low post position close to the basket, which often happens when the post defender fronts ... not much. Remember, Hakeem could face up and make plays 15 feet from the basket. He was also able to spin away from defenders and catch passes on the move.
A lot of the reason that the post defenders can front him these days is because they've got a defender shadowing on the weakside, not having to worry about whether they're going to get called for illegal defense. The only thing they have to worry about is stepping out of the paint every 3 seconds. I'm sure you remember that with illegal defense each defender (once below the timeline) had to guard their own man unless they were doubling the ball. In that setting, you could spread the floor and lob to Yao over the top, not necessarily directly toward the basket where help could come easily from across the lane, but enough to get him the ball in the post.
It's really sad to see how awesome Hakeem was and think how awesome Yao could be if the league did not decide to take measures to neutralize great post players in return for making mediocre perimeter players into "stars."
