They will front, but not with 2 people. Using 2 people to front has given our PFs the opportunity to score at will. As has been proven many times before, single fronting Yao still severely frustrates him and allows other teams to contain our other players.
Their defense was fine yesterday in the second half, as JVG noted. They need to be more aggressive on offense, and maybe put more shooters on the floor. Fernandez killed us, and he should have gotten more minutes. McMillan kept stressing throughout the game that his team shouldn't "rush", but in so doing I think they became much less opportunistic as well. The last thing a team should do against a disciplined defensive team like the Rockets is use up the shot clock. They need to look more often for quick hitting plays.
Great Post RileyDog! The points are well taken. Some people don't understand that the rox have a huge advantage on the perimeter. Yao is doing his job by working hard and freeing up teammates. He rebounded and blocked shots last night and that's how a big man can change games. Adelman said last night he don't care who gets shots as long as they are executing.
hmmm, it takes a miracle shot from way beyond the 3 pts line from Shane, and Roy having a bad game for us to win it. I don't think Portland would think Fronting isn't working. From Rockets standpoint, in the first half, they played pretty well against fronting, but not in the second half. Fortunately Shane and Scola stepped up. And Portland offense was..murrrrr
I would say the probability of Shane hitting that one shot is greater than the Blazers going 3 of 4 on 3 pointers over the last 30 seconds.... and Roy was defended well.
They're going to Front yao, but not sell out their entire defense to do so. Utah limited Yao with Okur 1 on 1. That means shoving, pushing leaning, and fouling, with the idea that Yao won't be as efficient. Pryzbilla/Oden can do that. Toss in Aldridge as a fronter, then Portland mihgt be able to force Yao into a bad shooting night, but scoring in the teens. That's better than what they are giving up. I mean really -- look at the team shooting percentage in this series. We are not an offensive juggernaut. Their perimeter D sucks and their scheme is exposing it.
We dictated this. We said No Brandon Roy. If fernandez hits, fine. But no Roy. I agree with the strategy.
Also, Rockets scored 80 some points by your lofty role players. I don't think you can beat many teams with that many points consistently. If Aldridge ever find offense...
Roy didn't have a bad game. We use elite defensive players and scheme to take him out. This is his norm against us. Game 2 was a career/lights out game. We won wire to wire. They hit crazy threes to make it close, but we led throughout. In contrast, Game 2 at their place was tied to start the 4th and with 3 minutes to go. Anyone's game.
Ok, let's rephrase, we played exceptional defense. If you are gonna use regular season performance as a benchmark, they usually scored more than that (83) against us.
I don't know for sure what Portland is going to do - but I'm sure they don't consider last night a success and will probably try a different strategy. As far as the Okur comments: that was a different Yao Ming. JVG turned Yao into Robo-Ming during his tenure - very efficient, but very predictable. Okur himself said that he knew exactly what move Yao was going to do by his stance when he caught the ball. That's why he kept blocking Yao. Then you had Kirilenko blocking Yao from the weak side, and it was just a nightmare. Thankfully Yao has gotten away from that and is much more dominant in one-on-one situations now.
You said it took a miracle shot from Battier for us to win the game. Battier wouldn't need to hit a miracle shot if they didn't go on a miracle 3 point shooting barrage in 30 seconds. If I understand you comment correctly, they HAD to do that to close the 10 point gap and for us to even have a conversation about the Rockets not dominating every facet of this game.
If they put Aldridge on Yao the Rockets will KILL them....Aldridge does not have enough sand in his britches to hold Yao, and it will wear him out, so much so that he will have nothing left on offense. And right now the Blazers are just not able to compete when the Rockets turn on the lock down D. We got this....Portland just can't matchup. DD
I think they might try different looks on Yao so that Scola isn't getting the exact same look every time. Thats about it, I have a hard time thinking that they would stop fronting Yao when it is working so well (at preventing Yao's shots). If they stop fronting him, who are they going to try and shut down? A different person dominates every game. First two games its Brooks/Wafer/Artest. This game is was Battier/Scola. And I think they will look at this game and think that if Roy had a better game this is a victory, completely forgetting that Fernandez had a career night from the 3 point line on the road. Although, Artest basically didn't do anything this game. He wasn't shutdown by their defense. Just didn't take it to the basket and couldn't hit anything.
I agree, Rockets defense kept them on bay for the most part. They played unbelievable in stretches, and bad in stretches. My Shane comment was more on who take the shot and what kind of shot. For them, hitting consecutively might be out of norm, but the shots are not...
Yeah... for those claiming that we gave up a lead in the 4th. I'm not really convinced. I think at one point it was a 17 point lead, but only for a bit and they got it down to 10 for the 4th (I think it was actually like a 7-9 point lead). It hovered around there, they got it to 6 with about 4 minutes left. And it essentially stayed that way. They obviously got it to around 2 or 4 points, but by the time it got that close it was too late and they were already fouling us to keep the game going. The quarter started at about a 10 point lead and the most they got it down to before they had to start fouling was like 6... I wouldn't call that choking in the 4th. We were never in any real danger to lose that game.
Yes... I wouldn't want Battier doing that all the time, where Robert Horry can let it fly every game. With the performance we had last night, I think we win it 4 out of 5 times.
