For last two games, 1. When we play Yao, T-mac, and three guards against mavs: We place T-mac on Dirk, and when Dirk and Dampier play pick-and-roll, Yao doesn't go back to cover Dampier right after the play. Instead, he stays at high post, trying to double Dirk for a few seconds. It is very confusing to me. We have no one to rotate to cover Dampier but our three guards, that means almost guaranteed 2 points for mavs. I know Dirk is not a good passer, but he is tall enough to make some passes. The only time this play is effective is at the beginning of the second game, Dirk trid to pass to Dampier, and failed two times in a row. After that, I believe, each time Dirk found a chance to pass Dampier, it is a easy 2 for mavs. Is the jump shooting of Dirk at 22 feet is really that lethal? Do we really need to double him after pick and roll?? 2. In game 2 and game 3, mavs uses Howard to match up with Yao on offense for a short streak of time. It is obviously a mis-matchup for us. I believe, Howard got 4 shots out of 6 attempts in two games to play one-on-one against Yao. My question is rox tends to double anyone who is driving to the basket. However, when yao is defending Howard's drive, I never see the double-team coming? Why do we expose yao single-handedly to defend a much quicker guard. We need very quick help defense under such circumstance. Any comments?
it worked in game 3 - DAmp had only 4 pts or so. I think Yao started flashing, then falling back to recover but staying in the passing lane to prevent the pass inside. I like the D they played last night - the problem was the offense. It should not have been a 20-ZERO run also, I think Yao has figured out (at the VERY end of the game) how to cover Howard. I was at the game and saw this. He was trying to play him straight up and Howard was challegeing Yao (trying to draw contact) - well at the very end, Yao let him go by and then swatted his shot ! THEY should be doing that every time
The problem at the end of game three was more our lack of defense. Our offense was a little rushed but Dallas actually stepped up the D on us to cause this. But we played lousy D in the end of 4th to allow them to score 20-0 on us.
