I have found that I am incable of short posts. The one most glaring weakness in our team is obvious. Fearlessness The only player who has it currently is Tracy Mcgrady. Luther Head is off and on with his clutch play, and that's about it. As much as I love Yao, at the current time it always feels like a gamble when you feed him in the post towards the end of the game. Does anyone else feel as nervous as I do when he has it in the post in crunch time? Even Battier, who seems amazing all game long, seems to a part of this "deer in the headlights" effect. Snyder seems fearless at times, but is not skilled enough to really make a difference. Today, Tracy Mcgrady was on fire, and saved us. Against San Antonio, their superior defense forced others to make the plays, and they crumpled. Our other superstar, Yao, needs to step up in this department. He needs to gain the respect of his teammates so that they can rely on him to be assertive and dominant when it matters most. The strange thing is, I have seen Yao absolutely dominate players in the past, but the way he keeps going to his fadeaway of late drives me crazy. He is often pushed way out of the paint and receives the ball 15 feet away from the basket, nothing like the way he was muscling in players in the second half of last season. Yao is getting great stats, and he is trying hard, but I would love to see that physical assertiveness that I saw from the previous season to help us shore up this deficiency. Maybe Yao still needs to hit midseason conditioning, but it honestly seems like more of a mental issue than anything. I want him to STRIKE FEAR in the hearts of opponents. I want them to feel HELPLESS as he plays with such aggresion that they run and duck for cover. I know Yao is not this kind of player, but what I saw in the 2nd half of last season gave me such hope. He said himself that he saw how he could improve after watching game tape of himself for the 6 weeks he was injured. And he really did it for a while. He absolutely carried us on his back. Even when losing, he really kept us in the game and often delivered down the stretch. One thing I have noticed is that he is no longer bumping off his defender when going to his moves. If I remember correctly, one thing Yao seems to have regressed in is "hitting the defender before he hits you". Of course it is not this simple. The physical play allowed on Yao is borderline ridiculous as well as the ticky tack fouls that Yao is assessed. However, I really felt that he overcame this last year. Yao walked that fine line of physical play where he would bump off his defender on his fadeaway, but not so much where they could flop, as well as shield off defenders with his off hand and body. Another thing that I am seeing a lot of that has changed in Yao's game is his post, pass out, dig deeper and repost move that was so effective last year. Wait, let me restate that, I see it still, but defenders are constantly poking the ball away from Yao negating the heavy effort in establishing this position. I would love to see Yao seal off his man better in the deep post, and see our passers laser it in instead of throwing those soft lobs in these situations. Bottomline - I think we have a great Yao - I'm just greedy and I want a dominant Yao. However, if he does not step up in this department, then we need to find it elsewhere, whether it be Bonzi or Vspan or whoever else we can find to help Tmac carry the load down the stretch.
That's a good post man. I have nothing Yao at this point because he can't do everything, neither can T-Mac. JVG needs to find a way for the team NOT TO GET MURDERED when T-Mac is on the bench for some MUCH NEEDED rest. He's too tired to take over at the end of games, not to mention he's not in the best physical condition of his entire career. JVG has to find a way for both Yao and T-Mac to be fresher down the stretch because we need them to have some energy to close out games otherwise we'll be collapsing all season. We'll do fine until the air runs out... Come on JVG! It's been 9 games! Get it cranking you defensive minded beast!
Great post. I agree with most, but one thing: The reason Yao is not as effective late in the game is: he plays too many minutes. He plays 37-39 min every game now, up from around 31 last year. That's a lot for a big guy like him. 37-39 is tiring even for guards, let alone for a 7'6" guy. Blame it on JVG again. JVG is so afraid of losing, he actually causes his team to become so fatigue, causing them to lose - what irony. He has to rotate more players in.
last year yao ave. about 35 min a game.. and 38 minute a game late in the season. i'm not worried about yao's conditioning. somehow i think the amount of fatigue for 35-40 min are not much different... yao will know how to adjust
I think the ESPN top 10 and the physical dominance of Shaq in the past ten years have really changed people's perspective for centers. It seems like the only way to be dominant is to outmuscle defenders and then dunk over them all the time. However that is not the case. Every great center has some ways to score away from the basket and they rely heavily on that. Dream always shoot the midrange jumpers off the fakes, Kareem skyhooked his way to a few MVPs, even shaq in his prime has that turnaround babyhook that was effective and unguardable and good within 6 feet. Striking fear into the opponents' eyes by dunking over and posterize them is not the only way to dominate. It is equally dominant when you can hit fadeaway junpers in their face over and over again, and make them feel desperate, frustrated and helpless. Yao has shown that he is capable of doing it. If Yao can do that on a nightly basis, there's nothing wrong for him to shoot all the jumpers. Of course I'm not saying Yao should settle for jumpers, he should try to cash in any oppotunity that he has to get easy dunks and layups, but there is nothing wrong with his jumpers because he CAN knock them down and there's nothing the defender can do about it.
You make some valid points. But keep in mind, nobody is going to outmuscle Shaq (especially since he's so fat now) and outmuscling Timmy and Ben Wallace is no small matter, Wallace especially. He's looked like he has a bit of a strength disadvantage these last few games, but before that he's done a good job at getting deep low post position. A problem with that though (and I saw this with wallace today) is that the defender will allow the deep post position, but as the pass comes in the defender (Wallace today) uses his quickness to come around and steal the pass. So maybe Yao was setting up farther from the basket just to be able to catch a pass, since so many were knocked away. I don't think we have enough game action this season yet to say how Yao will execute in close game situations. I think the jury is still out on that.
The Rockets have blown people away and they have held on for a few nailbiters. They've blown one. I think they are doing fine. The key thing is that they show that they are capable of beating the crap out of elite teams. They haven't put the wood to the best of NBA like this since Hakeem's day. Despite some inconsistent play, the Rockets still have a much improved team and Yao is rounding into an MVP candidate. This whole issue of handling pressure is really moot, as far as I'm concerned. The Rockets blew *two* 20 point games in the 4th quarter in 1994 against the Suns and came back to win it all. The important thing is that the Rockets have the horses to get those big leads and dominate. If the Rockets made a few more of those wide open threes tonight, the Bulls would have been put down sooner. I trust the inside/outside game they have with Yao and TMac and the defense will be one of the best in the league. We'll be alright.
