The Death of "Small-Ball" as a Viable Threat.

I agree completely. I still see Utah as Houston's most difficult match-up and I'm not convinced that Artest will get them over the hump against Utah, but it's definitely a better shot than we had. Okur actually defended Yao fairly well one-on-one, and it's true he knew all of Yao's moves (there aren't a whole lot, after all). Yao scored at a decent clip, but he certainly couldn't dominate Okur and he was stripped often. On the other end, Boozer just annihilated Yao. Yao can NOT guard Boozer, never has been able to.

The Rockets' problem against the Jazz is this: Yao can't guard Boozer and he can't guard Okur. Yao can't guard any of the Jazz. Yao can't dominate Okur enough to score enough points to offset getting absolutely owned by Boozer to the tune of 35 points a game. That means Yao ain't a real effective player against the Jazz, when we need scoring badly. TMac is neutralized by a steady rotation of physical, nasty defenders. What are we left with?

Oh right: Artest. If Artest can consistently exploit his matchup with Kirilenko et al, we may be on to something. That's a foothold we can use to climb to the next rung. If Artest can rip the ball away from Boozer, ****, that's gravy. If he can help stop Williams from dunking on people's heads, even better. We'll see how it goes. That's all assuming Yao and TMac aren't paralyzed or something during the regular season.

 

^^^ As I just said two posts ago, you're talking in the past.

<b>2007</b> we had Howard/Hayes as our PFs. Utah could easily double Yao with a fronting defense and back help.
<b>2008</b> we didn't have Yao. Utah could easily double/triple TMac. Utah was unable to guard TMac that way in the 2007 series.

Those days are over. Yao will now be able to fully exploit his side of the matchup vs Utah. That, together with a 3rd scoring option in Artest, will prevent the smothering defense against TMac.

Everything opens up now. Utah must play us straight up. And that is our mismatch. They will be unable to play us straight up, so they'll have to pick a poison, which I'm willing to bet will be trying to play Okur behind Yao with late arriving doubles. The aggressive fronting of Yao with quick help from behind won't work. Adelman will tear that apart, now that he has offense all over the court.

<b>bottomline</b>: We just added Yao and Artest to a team that forced Utah a 6 game series.

 

Like I said elsewhere, I don't think the Yao we saw in the playoffs a couple years back was close to 100%. He was probably not that much better than he will be for the upcoming Olympics in light of when he returned from a foot surgery. I would think a healthier Yao would have done better both defensively and offensively in that series.


However, I do think that the Jazz are still a tough matchup-- even with Artest.

Defensively, the new Rockets team are notable for the fact that they have a pair of great wing defenders.

Problem? The Jazz don't score from the wings. Battier and Artest are as useful in a Jazz series as the combo of George Clooney and Brad Pitt are in a lesbian bar.

As noted by you and others, the Rockets will still need to stop Williams and Boozer at the 1 and the 4 and figure out whether to have Yao Ming cover a quicker Boozer or a 3-point shooting Okur. I am thinking, with the current lineup, we might as well make Yao stick around the 3 pt line with Okur, and just daring him to drive all the way to the basket and not lose his dribble with Battier, Artest, Alston Hayes, McGrady, etc swiping at the ball. I doubt Okur actually gets there. Yes, the Rockets won't have a shotblocker in the paint (except Battier does block some shots, but there are enough good defenders to make that work)/

 

Carl Herrera,

Matchups go both ways. How does Utah guard us? Can they still smother TMac like the 2008 series that went 6 games? Can they still completely ignore our PF position like in the 2007 series that went 7 games? with us leading with 5 minutes left?

Are we to believe that Utah can defend us the very same way?

Plus, your comment about Artest and Battier's defense being useless in a Utah series (merely because they are wing players) is naive at best.

 

1. Utah has one of the better SFs to match up against Artest: Matt Harpring. Not that he can smother Artest, but he's as good a matchu as there is. I would imagine they continue to throw variouis defenders at Tracy.

2. The major offensive difference with the new team will be (1) if you have Yao+ Scola or Landry up front, the Jazz, as you stated, will have to account for these guys or risk giving up a high % shot. That should make it easier for Yao, McGrady and now Artest to operate, (2) if you keep Shane, Artest, McGrady at the 2/3/4, there is going to be much better spacing either for a post player or a penetrator to work.

3. As far as Artest and Battier being useful-- they still are in terms of help defense. Artest will also be useful as a PF defender. You might even throw both of them at Deron Williams for stretches. But as far as being stopper on the wing, I don't know if shutting down Kirilenko and CJ Miles or Ronnie Brewer would make such a great difference in a series. They are just very unlikely to give these guys the ball and have them make plays.

 

thacabbage,

Not enough Scola discussion? He'll be the 4th option.

I don't think there is enough discussion about our #1 option--how does Utah intend to guard Yao Ming now. What do you think? You, too, Carl Herrera?

imo, Scola's part in the Utah discussion is to remind people that Utah can't leave him to double Yao aggressively. It's not like we are going to run a bunch of set plays for him.

Please someone explain to me how Utah guards Yao now. It's not like they can use the same strategy as 2006...which was a 7 game series.

 

Very good point.

I actually think we almost have a "big 5" instead of a "big 3".

Yao, T-Mac, Ron-Ron, Scola, Battier

 

stopping Sloan's PnR offense is ALL about help defense.

 

He made Boozer work on defense and consequently I think he took his legs on his jump-shots. I agree with heypartner and Carl Herrera ... the 2007 Yao was not 100% and Boozer had it easy guarding Hayes and Howard. Case in point, Okur last year didn't expend as much energy on defense as he did in 2007 and had a better series.

I think Scola's blown layups will decrease also. It was his first playoff series and probably felt the pressure of being the only low post scorer on the team. Adding Yao and Artest to last year's playoff team, will create more angles and space for him to finish.

 

This year is by far our best team under the Yao / T-Mac era. Hopefully we can get the most out of Ron Artest and maybe even sign him to a multi year deal if things are working out.

From powder puff to power hourse in an off season.....MOREY YOUR AWESOME!

 

you guys have to understand the jazz played worse and worse as the series got longer last yr.

2 yrs ago under JVG, the jazz got BETTER and better offensively, with the last game putting up 104 pts on us.

we have the players now to slow down the jazz's offense (yao will just have to play less minutes when he plays the jazz b/c his defense is a liability v. okur or yao). the question is like someone said, can artest attack the jazz secondary periemter defenders to provide tmac with more spacing to attack the basket. or better, maybe sloan will only stick one guy on tmac, which works to tmac's advantage. furthermore, scola got better as the series went along. he really struggled to finish the ball in the paint in the first 2 games, which is very uncharacteristic.

again, we just have to prove we can beat the jazz, along with the elite teams before other teams can give us respect. on paper is fine and gravy, but games are won on the court.

we all know this team simply lacked a 3rd scoring option. scola is a wonderful 4th option. you can pencil him in for 12-13 ppg with good efficiency. now you add artest, who can give you 16-17 ppg on good efficiency b/c he'll face single coverage all day.

i'm sure tmac and yao will still be doubled quite frequently, but now we have guys who can finish when they do get the ball, particularly artest.

ultimately, it all comes down to health. if we're healthy, even WITHOUT artest last yr, i'm sure passing the first round would have been the case. so pray for health.

 

I second that.

Yao wasn't killing Okur offensively in one-on-one situations as everyone thought he would, so much so that he was mostly being single covered by Okur by the end of the series. I think that definitely had something to do with Yao wasting energy to chase Boozer defensively and he wasn't having much success which also hurts his confident.

Also, DWill was eating Alson for dinner. So I'm curious how much impact there is with us adding Artest to the equation.

 

With all due respect to HP, I remember it just thecabbage does...the jazz were not completely ingnoring the power forward position when guarding yao ming. For the most part as I remember Okur guarded Yao straight up and made Yao Ming ineffective. Sure they probably should of called a lot more fouls on okur but they let him get away with a lot. Nothing will change this year if we face them again this year. Sloan will not double Yao unless he absolutely needs to. He aint going to give easy buckets to Landry or Scola. He's going to make Yao beat Okur. I do hope he was injured in 07.

 

Sloan didn't "double" Yao in the classic sense, but he did have guys watching Okur's back when Yao had the ball and looking to step in and strip Yao if he takes more than a couple of dribbles toward the paint. That limits the type of moves Yao can make and made him easier to guard.

Of course, every team plays help D, the differnce is one of degree-- how close can your help defenders stay to the paint area, how much can you afford to have the help defenders leave his man (and rely on teammates to rotate to help cover the help defender's man). The Jazz did a great job of having enough of a helper presence in the paint to deter Yao from making more aggressive moves while rotating fast enough to cover the shooters when a pass is made.

The things about the Rockets roster that year that enabled the Jazz to play that kind of defense are (1) they don't worry too much about giving up 2point jumpers to Juwan Howard and Chuck Hayes can be covered with rotation because his range is limited, and (2) the Rockets perimeter guys, aside from McGrady, were not dribble penetration threats-- you don't have to worry about them beating you off the dribble when the guy rotating to them fly at them. I think they will have a tougher time doing this against this year's roster.

 

Equation with artest now is that we know have someone besides tracy who can get bewer and AK into foul trouble. someone who can bully them. for crying out loud, there were times that bobby jackson was our first option when tracy was on the bench. now artest can dominate then when both yao and tracy are resting.

When was the last time we could bench both tracy and yao and not see our lead vanish or fall behind by a big margin? artest allows that now.

 

thacabbage, jcmoon

As usual, I was at all the home games, so you had the benefit of TV replays. Plus, that 7th game I went down to the rowdie section, because i couldn't take it anymore, so I saw the whole 2nd half in the worst seats for scouting in the house (a view through the backboard from behind). that said, 3 games were away, so i saw those on tv.

Let's not get into the semantics of what a "double" is. People are rarely if ever doubled w/o the ball. And just because you have the ball and there aren't two guys guarding you, doesn't mean you aren't being doubled as soon as you make your move.

What I remember is aggressive fronting of Yao by Okur, together with Okur pushing him way out of the box. On the lob pass, the double came from the PF position. Yao also failed to seal Okur much. That was the main problem with his one on one. I mean, a front should be beat by more than a lob pass. Then again, when the defense has the luxury of ignoring the PF position, it can also lessen the effectiveness of sealing.

This together with the fouling by Okur (no call). sigh

What I was upset by was it just seamed like Yao deferred too much, too quickly once he got the ball, like he didn't think he could attack. Probably some of that is JVG practices and practices how they are going to beat the Utah double from the PF position.

imo, that all goes away now. This team, with this much offensive power, has more ways to open things up for Yao.

<b>bleh12345</b>,

You beat Sloan's PnR offense with help defense. With two great wing defenders, you can trap Williams and force the pass. You can definitely force the ball out of Williams hands on the PnR if you can pick up a rolling Boozer, which we can now.

Also, Artest is capable of guarding DWill on key possessions. Phil Jackson put Pippen on Stockton for the entire series.

 

Late to the discussion re the Jazz here, but I too thinkthat they look to be our toughest matchup because of the problem with yao covering Okur or boozer. However, I think focusing on Yao is oversimplifying the issue.

a lineup of Barry/Tmac/Artest/Scola/yao is very difficult to stop. As noted in the prior post, you can't cheat off the others, as they pose a dual slash and shoot threat. If you cheat off to help on Yao, recovery is much more difficult. With one dimensional spot up shooters, you can close out hard, wihtout worry of a dribble drive. These four surrounding Yao are all dual threats, particularly Artest and Tmac.

In particular, the Jazz have to watch for the hockey assist. With a lineup like this, you can't cheat off Barry. if you cheat off the others, they can make a move to the basket and dish to a cutting man in the paint, or the move to the basket requires help from yet another defender, creating the wide open (as opposed to the contested recovery) 3 ball. this is the deadly hockey assist employed by the Spurs and and clutch city rockets.

If Yao is single coverd by Okur and is ineffective, you can post Artest or run an Adelman high post play. Same principles above regarding the hockey assist for wide open three all or cutter for a layup. this points out the imperative of having players that (i) can command a double or require the defense to cheat, and (ii) surrounding that player with dual threat players.

Alternatively, you can sit Yao and go with the uber athletic lineup of Alston, Tmac, Artest, Landry, Scola or Tmac/Artest/Battier/Landry/Scola. The latter reminds me of the Illini NCAA team or the GSW teams that just suited up a bunch of guys between 6-5 and 6-9, and played you out of the gym. the diference here is that the Tmac/Artest/Battier/Landry/Scola lineup has the potential to choke the offense out of people with stifling defense and strength on the boards.


I honestly expect the rockets to play at a high level in the first month, and then flat out dominate.

 

Now see, when I said the Jazz didn't double Yao, I was called a hater and didn't know what I was talking about. From my years of playing college ball, coaching and scouting, yet I don't know what a double team looks like because no one can stop Yao one on one. I've said it a million times, I like Yao and he's a good player, but he does a poor job of being decisive, aggressive, strong at the point and creating good passing angles. That's not me spewing hatered, that's just the truth. Some teams double to get the ball out of a players hand and some teams double because a guy is a poor ball handler, not jus dribbling. When teams double Yao, I think its more about he's turnover prone than anything. Utah after the 1st 2 games, singled Yao with Okur. When Yao would dribble,dribble, dribble, turn inside and got up for the shot, Okur challenged as well as ak-47. That's not a double,that's contesting shots. Once a guy gets the ball in a shooting position, the double is too late. Now I think with Artest and Scola the Rox have more options in the post, but they still have matchup problems. The rox now though can put ron on the blks, move yao weakside for offensive rebounds and cut off weakside shotblocking from ak-47 because he's on the blks guarding artest. Once the rox expose that and yao is killing backside because they have to double artest, tracy gets loose.