4 years into his career and it's the same thing every year. at some point you will realize it is Yao who is not utilizing himself right. the most important thing for Yao right now, and there's nothing really secondary to it, if he does this the rest will take care of itself: he must find a way to consistently stay on the floor longer. You can't be a dominate player in this league at 30 minutes a game. He just has to find a way to be at the minimum a 35 min player for us.
YAO is doing too much and this is the main reason he can not syat on the court over 35 mins, foul trouble or just get tired. I never seem SHAQ doing so much on the D side , c.Mihm either. Camby is doing great right now, but he got so many easy points on offence side due to open-shot and PnR. He doesn't need himself to create shot and he can put most of his effort on D-side. 14 rbs and 4 blks per game. Man!
Every team we face knows the Rockets have trouble defending the pick and roll. They know Yao has a slow recovery time. They know he gets caught out there. But you can't ask Yao to NOT help defend it when it's his man who is out there setting the pick. Would you have any other player on the Rockets not go defend his man when his man steps out to set a pick? It's called help defense. Every team, every player in the league plays it. Theres two reasons you don't see with Shaq what you see with Yao when defending the pick and roll out high. 1)Shaq can defend it better. As big as he is, he's not 7'6, he's recovery time is much quicker and once he shows to help he is able to recover quicker or switch back to the center he was defending who went out to set the pick2) because he is better at defending it, opposing teams don't send out there centers nearly as much to try to exploit the mismatch because theres not a great one. but they still do. Opposing teams do want to bring Shaq out because he is at a disadvantage out there just as Yao is. Yao will just have to get better at defending it. And he will.
Shaq ain't that great at defending the pick and roll. His weakness isn't exposed as much because he just simply refuses to step out most of the time (except during playoffs and the last two minutes of the game). ESPN: Ric Bucher
Hmmm. OK.... I agree with RocketFan85. Keep the 7'6 guy in the post. We didn't draft him because of his midrange shot. Sure, if he's playing against Shaq (only twice a year, mind you) he can shoot the J every once in a while, but like StupidMonikor said anything more than that is bailing the defense out. We would be doing exactly what the other team wants us to do. If that means I have a "macho insecurity", well, I guess that's something I'll just have to live with.
Bucher is right. Yao Ming is not most big men. But he's wrong when thinking he is most big men who will be able to dive back in time to cover the weak side. That's an even longer recovery time for Yao. Everything Yao does seems to be in slow motion. Thats the bad. His size has many more positives than negatives. You don't change a defensive scheme that has your opponents shooting 41% percent and 89pts a game for some poor excuse that it makes Yao tired. Every player on that court is tired. Whats tiring is that selfish thought, that stems from the desire to have ones favorite player to score more. That kind of thinking wants short term individual stat production at the cost of long term team success. it'll eat you up and you won't be able to apperciate the season and the teams success because the deisre for Yao to stand out in the stat sheet is more important to some than his overall impact on the whole game. Right now what he is doing is working and he is the foundation of the best defense in the league. If we can get some intelligent refs to come around for him, he'll get many more opportunites to score with increased minutes.
Was that sublimal jab really necessary? You're implying that Yao fans only want him to stop his defense crouch position because he's not scoring enough (in their eyes)? I may have missed something, but wow. Don't take this personally, and I know you're a better poster than that, but that was full of ****. And yes, they should continue to let yao show on the guards because as Texas Stoke said, it's working on the defensive end. We're one of the top defensive teams in the league (once we get it together).
The real question is... Would Yao not trapping on the pick and roll really cause that much of a problem on defense? Would our defense suffer that much. Ultimately trapping simply slows down the possession, as we rarely if ever cause turnovers from trapping the pick and roll. Every team does not trap on pick and rolls. If you watch enough games, every team has their own way of defending the pick and roll. And ultimately conserving Yao might serve us on offense: a) yao might pick up less fouls, increasing his time on the court, and he would be more effecient. b) we might not be scoring almost 2 pts less than our opponents. I know a lot mof mights... I'm not saying that Yao shouldn't trap on pick and rolls, but what would be the real implications of him not doing it.
I dont care whether Yao gets it down 3 feet away or 10 feet away. I only care if Rockets has a consistent winning style. So far, planting Yao down low exposed a lot of problems for us which had always been there in his previous years. Yao is a slow giant and doesnt like to be harassed. Now you may say he needs to get over it and get better at it. But it hasnt been working that way for 4 years, why should it be now. I say let Yao run his offense just like other Superstar does. You dont tell Tmac what to do, so why should Yao be told. Even Big Z can have his shots anywhere on the court, I mean Big Z!
The problem is that Sura will not throw the ball to Yao. It is obvious to me that Sura does not care for advancing the fortunes and positive energy of the Rockets, as he has chosen to be injured rather than pass the ball to Yao. Just because Sura doesn't like Yao, doesn't mean that Sura should refrain from passing the ball to him. Let Sura lay aside his foolish injury and jealousy of Yao and pass him the ball, as prosperity and filial piety dictate.
OK, let's see what we give up with Yao sagging on the PNR. Yao stays back, opposing point guard has open, long to mid range jumper. Yao use conserve energy to get better post position, gets a better hook shot in the lane. I would take Yao's hookshot over a PG's jumper any time.
A complete team defensive breakdown, I would think. I don't see how you can have a great team defense like the Rockets do and ask Yao who plays as the anchor of that D at times to play individually and not help out.Yao is not the kind of person that would accept that role anyways. It would isolate him and the the great help defense the team plays will collapse all around. When you're talking about players conserving energy, what you really are suggesting is a player take off plays on the defensive end, basically what you are asking him to do is not play defense. Tracy Mcgrady, when in Orlando, got blasted for doing that, he scored 32 a night though, but his team was terrible. Is that what we are asking Yao to do so he can conserve energy for offense. We are talking about a guy who is in the top 5 in fg% stats every year and we want him to conserve energy thereby increasing his production on the offensive end? Yao, last year, had to be right up at the top in Points per minutes. His biggest obstacle is his inability to play for long periods of time and it's not because he's helping on defense but because the refs don't understand how to officiate him.
Did the Chief lead a complete defensive breakdown? How about Kevin Mc Hale? I don't think they were EVER allowed to leave the post on D. The perimeter is for GUARDS, hence the name "guard". The middle is where Bird would pick pockets. If TMac is = or greater than Larry Bird, the perfectly conventional Celtic gameplan would work great with Yao parked in the post, and some hawks to patrol the perimeter. I certainly can't remember Kareem ever being instructed to "show" out to the 3 point line. The very idea is ridiculous. Kareem wasn't fit for that, and neither is Yao. His job was to shut the lane, while the guards and forwards could man up on the moving pieces. On offense, it's perfectly reasonable to have a good high post center coupled with a low post forward. Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul Jabbar both have rings. Kareem is a good model for Yao - exceptionally tall, lithe, good shooter. Really, having Yao chase out on D and bang low on O is an exceptionally stupid misuse of the man as he is, in hopes of some magic alchemy to make him what he is not. Getting the maximum from him by reversing this on both fronts would improve the team as whole, not be an excuse for "plays off". In fact, it would most likely increase the number of minutes available and the effectiveness in those minutes, because the man could do more what he is naturally good at doing. The most successful models in history are the Celtics, Lakers and Bulls, and JVG doesn't run anything like any of them.
It takes far more energy for a man 7-6 to move around, than someone smaller. I honestly think JVG does not understand the concept energy conservation. He is wasting yao's energy by forcing him to play his game plan which does not fit his body. People can twist and turn it however they want but he is obdurant. JVG has claimed on several occassions that Yao is trying to be the first player at 7-6 to be a complete player. It is not by Yao's choice. JVG is forcing him to do things that people of his size should not have to. Please, play to his strengths. Dont expose his weaknesses! JVG bend his own rules to accomodate Tmac last season. How long before he does the same with Yao?
On defense, Yao consuming more energy may lead to more fouls. It's hard to play defense when someone's huffing and puffing. For example, if Yao's tired and tries to draw a charging foul, he may be a step slower and instead it'd be a blocking foul. On offense, I agree we should maximize Yao's post presence when the conditions for posting up are met. When the conditions aren't met, such as when the guards aren't able to shoot well from the outside, keeping posting up has more harm than benefits. We have streaky shooters on this team, and even we have consistent shooters on this team, there's still nights shooters are off. What do we do on those nights? Keeping Yao in the post, let him fight against multiple defenders, and watch the guards bricking the ball? That doesn't make sense. Why not put Yao outside and let his passing and shooting be a factor, as well as clearing up the lane for guards driving and slashing? It's another way to utilize Yao's height, he'd become a traffic control tower with a turret, able to pass the ball to any teammates any where. A huge advantage the other teams can only dream of.Also, the best way to bring shooters out of slump is to let them attack the basket or shoot closer to the rim. When conditions for post up aren't met, it's best to change the strategy. Let me quote from the Art of War by Sun Tze, war is the art of deception. Kill the enemy with brute force like posting up, as well as unexpected movement created from a high post offense.
pasox, When Karla Malone goes went out and set a pick what do you think happened? When Mchale went out to set a pick what happened? When Yao steps out to set a pick, what happens? The player who is guarding him steps out with him. This ridiculous notion that Yao is not playing to his full potential because of a few possessions were he is caught out near the three point line chasing a guard is absurd. It's weak. We are debating something that happens no more than 5 times a game. Count how many times in tonights game Yao is caught all alone out near the threepoint line guarding a guard. The majority of the time he just steps out with the center he's guarding and shows for a sec and is back covering his man. It's almost as if you guys dont' want Yao to move at all on defense. Watch other teams play, centers are moving, playing help defense just as Yao does. Yao's movements are just magnified because of his great size. Yao can do the same basic defensive motions Mchale and Kareem did and it will look completely different. He is much more a giant of a man than those two were. Watch for it in the game tonight and you will see just what an exaggerration this all is.
I'd say it's Yao's problem also. You play for win not for satisfying coach. You should let coach know what you can do and what you can not do. If you feel tired, dont try too hard to get low-post position every time. Go outside for a pickroll or just shoot outside. Yao rarely has stamina problem when playing international games.
The 7-foot chasing 6-foot thing happened on Deke too. Only two thing will happen:1. cant catch 2.catch and get a foul Did JVG ask Ewing/Camby to do the same thing in NY?
