Coaches figured out. But AB waits for 5 seconds, or just go to another direction. Well, a win is a win. Just hope they can improve next game.
He tends to make some dumb turnovers. I will admit that Blake, Fernandez, and Oden kept them in the game but I never understood why so many people wanted Blake here. I guess because Rafer was the pg at the time, but I still didn't get it.
My thoughts: Why we are a dangerous team: 1) Our two best players could hardly get/take a shot, and we still won, and led by 10+ most of the game. 2) Our bench, while sporadic at times, can just chew you apart if you don't pay attention. 3) Our defense, when we concentrate, is just plain nasty. Why we are not a dangerous team: 1) They should just rename us the Houston "we blow leads in the 4th". Dear god. 2) We have two players with a tendency to really throw up bad shots. (ron, wafer) 3) We have no backup center. It really hurts, and that Oden dunk fest was proof. I miss deke. Some things that may be bad, may be good. 1) Our center can be nullified. But that leaves the rest of the team in prime shooting or driving position. 2) Our power forwards all have deficiencies. But combined, they can out shoot or out defend anybody. It's on adelman to sub correctly. 3) Our passing is either amazing, or almost non-existent. No middle ground at all. It's nuts.
we are doing things about fronting. scola shooting wide open j's is the most obvious thing. they have TWO guys on Yao, one in the front and in the back. u have a better chance of finding a needle in a haystack then completing a pass to Yao in that situation.
I'm surprised we won that game. We better show up Sunday or Brandon Roy will pull a game 2 on us. Von Wafer was playing well when he wasn't forced to make decisions. His game is to go in there, get the ball, and score. He shouldn't bring the ball up the court and be forced to make decisions. Like Mark Jackson said, Lowry (or Brooks) needs to demand the ball back from him.
To beat fronting defense against Yao by other teams. Houston rockets need to teach Yao to catch the ball on the move and his teamates to feed him the ball while he was on the move. At least couple of possesions per game. That' ll break down the fronting defense. By standing there still, though 8 foot tall but can't really jump and not agile enough, there is no much you can do to feed him the ball. The best example I can think of is the Paul Casol, who is not very atheletic, but really good catch the ball on the move, which create a lot of easy oppertunities.
That game was Rockets brand of basketball, with a lot of stingy defense played by both teams. If we can keep getting them to play our way, we can maintain control of this series. It's not pretty but it will get the job done.
There is no "figuring Yao out", a guy does not do as well for as long as Yao has if he is a fraud. The Blazers are not doing anything special, they just have better players to execute the strategy on Yao with. Yao has grown as a player, while he did not get points he still contributed on the boards and blocking shot. If the Rockets hit the open shots when Yao is doubled on the front, they will sag off of him and he will get 30/10 again....
Scola deserves a big round of applause. He step up big time (except the TO towards the end try to force feed Shane). I am glad we got him out of almost nothing. Thanks spurs.
What worries me the most is how the Blazers adjusted their defense in the 2nd half. They did not have the back defender, LMA or their power foward, over commit as they did in the first half.
here's something all of you complaining about yao's touches need to consider. We solved fronting, in a way. They front and double Yao, daring the rest to score, and they did. Notice portland went back to playing one on one on yao behind him, not fronting and no doubling. Yao did get the ball, but missed, mainly because he was out of rythm. Then they went back to fronting, and the other rockets beat them. Next game? they may just start no fronting Yao and covering everyone else. It's not an ideal solution, but looking at yao's last two performances, to have a 2-1 lead is pretty damn good, it means we did something right.
lol there is no way yao will be able to catch a ball while on the move. he has to be standing completely still while the ball is gift wrapped to him.
Yao can be effective by staying as the decoy because that gives Scola all those open midrange jumpers. As long as Scola is knocking down those shots, Yao is doing his part
Yao is just embarrassing to watch - I don't remember any "superstar" who could be taken out of the game so easily. It's been 3-4 years now and still no improvement on beating the fronting.
can we be better than tonight even we won tonight, it's a very close and ugly game. yao still struggled all the time. we can't make 3. we can't defense pnr.... it seems we don't have any advantages over blazers.
