Hello, I would have been responsible for Boozer's 10 point, 8 rebound performance. Instead you get to enjoy his wrath while I shine in Memphis. Your pain, Rudy Gay.
howbout rebounds? you always keep saying battier was out on the perimeter guarding okur okur had 5 rebounds comapared to battiers 1.. they're both out on the perimeter okur had 17 points.. he had 10 free throw attempts making 9.. can those 10 free throw attemps, 5 rebounds and 4 field goals (especially that jumper at 2:30 which got thier lead back to 7) be attributed to battier? or are you saying battier has no responsibility whatsoever?
Battier isn't superman. He can't single handedly correct all the mistakes of his teammates. He did more good things on the defensive end than any other player on the team. He had two steals. He had two blocks (only credited with one). He made many help defense plays. He could have done more on the defensive boards, though the Rockets did defensive rebound well as a whole while he on the court (73%) versus off the court (60%). He's not the reason the defense sucked.
4 of Okur's rebounds were defensive, and he's not on the perimeter on the defensive end. But, I'm not going to argue that Battier is as good a rebounder as Okur or Boozer. He's not. That's what we sacrifice when we play Battier at PF. I just think people are overblowing the negative impact his lack of rebounding had. No, they can't. Most of those points scored and free throws came in the second half against Padgett (when Battier slid to SF to guard Kirilenko). No. I'm saying you guys are criticizing him for things that largely weren't his responsibility. Battier, overall, played well (I would suggest you rewatch the game, if you have a chance, and specifically watch what Battier does). I think he could do more on boards, but it doesn't appear to me that we were losing because he didn't get more rebounds.
So I saw that whenever Yao came out to guard boozer or whomever, we gave up a ton of easy looks (Deron Williams’ layups were especially maddening). My question is, what’s the best way for Yao to play defense when the opposing team doesn’t rely so much on scoring in the post?
Good question. I'd say his best defense, in that situation, is his offense. Punish the player on the other end. I also expect the Rockets will play a lot more zone this season to handle this.
I think Howard could've helped in guarding Okur out on the perimeter. He is certainly quicker than Mutumbo. That would've allowed Battier, our best defender, to guard Boozer. Although, I'm not sure he would've done a much better job, Battier is giving up way too much weight to Booze. Mutumbo's done. I am seeing much more now why everyone was clamoring for a backup center. This game and the poor defense cannot be pinned on one person, certainly not Battier. He did not play exceptionally well, but as Durvasa said, he did more on the defensive end than any other player on the Rockets. Unfortunately, he was in foul trouble pretty quickly. But the biggest problem I saw was the inability to guard the perimeter. Alot of Boozers points were way too easy because the perimeter guys were penetrating and because Yao could not get back quick enough. Finally, we should give Boozer some credit instead of solely blaming the D. He was making alot of fadeaways which are extremely difficult shots, both to make and to guard. Lighten up Battier haters and let the season play out. Then you can make judgements on how good or how bad the trade was. This game was simply a case of the Jazz coming out and playing fired up while the Rockets looked like they were asleep. I expect that to change in the near future.
yeahh JVG also said the same thing, but we really sacrificed a lot on defense in the Utah game. AND Yao didn't do nearly enough punishing on the other end. Could all those easy shots in that game be blamed on Yao, his physical shortcomings, or the subpar overall team defense?
excellent, excellent, excellent anaylsis durvasa. did i mention excellent? i'll add my analysis to the discussion by pointing out the terrible defense by our point guard - rafer. his absolute inability to stop deron williams from imitating steve nash was the primary reason, imo, our defense hoovered. as a team, we can live with that if rafer is punishing deron on the offense. however, save for the 4th quarter, he wasn't. it's the same theory that applies to yao. quick players with an outside J will hurt yao offensively, but as long as he is punishing them in the paint it is, at worst, a wash. i saw jvg try to run luther head at deron, but he was just as porous on d and ineffective on O. in fact, luther, i thought, was extremely passive offensively. maybe vspan would have been a better option defensively. maybe. i imagine we will find that out very soon because jvg will not tolerate bad defense and horrible offense for very long. as for yao, i would have loved to see him pull an olajuwon on his guards. verbally b****slap them into passing him the ball. that said, i saw a couple times against single coverage where yao did not attack the goal. that is equally inexcusable.
Thanks durvasa for the excellent data. Just as I suspected -- Chuck Hayes should have seen a lot more floor time, and I don't know why he didn't. My conjecture is that because we were down early, Jeff was trying to keep an offensively potent squad out there (Yao's foul troubles probably didn't help matters). A lineup of Alston/McGrady/Battier/Hayes/Yao would have probably been most effective at stopping the bleeding defensively (and, in my opinion, offensively as well -- three good perimeter threats, a rebounder and a strong post scorer). Plus Chuck would have given our pathetic offensive rebounding a much needed shot in the arm. As always, hindsight is 20/20.
with that lineup, i assume you would have hayes on boozer, right? well that puts yao on okur - an outside shooter with range to the 3 point line. is that really was you want to do? the simple fact of the matter is that when we face a power forward/center combo where the pf is a bruiser and the c is an outside shooter, we're going to see battier on the outside shooter and yao on the bruiser. either that or a lot of 2/3 zone. that can work if we stop penetration, which we most certainly did not. it can work if we punish them on the offensive side of the ball...force feeding yao the ball to take advantage of their softer centers, which we most certainly did not do. our 2/3 zone, imo, was pretty effective. we went to it and from that point forward we were even with them. problem is, we had dug ourselves such an incredible hole that it was virtually impossible to escape it. it would have taken great inside play complimented by great outside shooting. we got very good inside play and 6 fourth quarter minutes of great outside shooting. all in all, we just have to get better at stopping penetration and taking advantage of our strengths. oh...and knocking down some shots.
The loss put blame on everyone, from coach to players, even the players didn't play. Because they are not fit enough to contribute. But to say Battier has no fault in the game, that's absurd. I love those type of ultimate team oriented guys, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't expect more than the right attitude. To say most of the shots made and rebounds collected by Boozer and Okur are against Yao and Deke or anyone else, therefore Battier has no fault is some earthbreaking new logic. In that case, if all the big guys fouled out, when Rafer is desperately abused by opponents big guys by helping out. Should we claim that big guys have no fault, because others scored or rebounded against Rafer? C or PF, someone has to be Battier's assignment. You can't have both way by claiming their PF plays at premieter therefore it's not Battier's assignment. You either go out and guard at the premieter, or stay in, box out, and fight for rebounds. Hell, we all call Yao a bad rebounder, but he got 9. We all complained that Howard played soft, he averages 7 boards. I don't think Battier is proud of his 1 rebound, and he wouldn't appreciate his fans defend him in such a wrong way. He's new to the team, and I don't think the Jazz game would be norm for anyone, including Yao, TMac and Battier. It puzzles me greatly why would someone claim that guarding C or PF or help rebounding or boxing out is not primary duties of a PF, even it's Battier.
Uh... what? Okur had 17 points and 5 boards on 26% shooting. Last year he averaged 18 and 9 on 46% shooting. Get off the pipe.
Thought about starting a new thread on this but it probably fits better here with the direction this discussion is going. Just another angle on the defensive issue. The Rockets offensive efficiency in the Utah game was 108.8. That's actually pretty impressive. Compare that to last year's season avg which was 102.1. This is indeed a silver lining. Granted it's only 1 game but the improvements came from increased FT's (22 pts vs. 11 pts avg last season) and improved 3-pt shooting (10/22 vs. 5.7/17.2). The improved FTA's and FTM's to me indicates more slashing to the hole (addition of Snyder?). The improved 3-ptrs, 22 attempts vs. 17 so that's 5 more which may be indicative of trying to surround Yao and Tracy with more shooters. Shane Battier is obviously a contributor to this (3/4 3pm/3pa) helping to improve our 3p% from 32% to 45%. The defensive efficiency really sucked however - 109 compared to the 103.3 of last year. The combination of Boozer and the Utah guards killed us. Maybe we should have gone with the zone much earlier in the game because that seemed to slow Utah down.
For the many who don't believe me- the stats are posted here in this thread!! Our starting Point Guard had ONE Assist to Yao Ming. I saw two other attempts which were passed so badly that they were blocked before reaching Yao. Alston is poor when it comes to passing to Yao Ming in the scoring position, it has always been a weakness in his game.
I agree. TMac, Battier, Jon Barry, VSpan, and even Howard, they all throw better entry passes to Yao. If you are tall, it's easier. But if you are a PG, lob pass shouldn't be THAT difficult to you, unless you never threw that in your streetball style.
while i don't think that rafer is an excellent post entry passer, i do have to point out that it is not his primary responsibility. by design, the people with the most opportunities to pass to yao will be your wing players - namely snyder and tmac and occasionally battier. rafer's job is penetration, getting the ball up court quickly and safely, knocking down open 3 pointers and stopping penetration. sure, if yao is open and the entry angle is proper, rafer should be passing it in. however, when your post player sets up on the low blocks, the wing spot is the most advantageous spot to make the entry pass. on penetrations, i'd like to see better dishes to yao from rafer, yes. then again, i'd also like to see rafer finish more than 50% of his layups. and i think i am being kind by saying 50%.
