admittedly, this is the first "live" rockets game I watched. in fact, this is the first "live" basketball game I watched since I came to canada quite a while ago. It was quite an exciting and nice atmosphere in ACC. There was one such toronto fan sitting on my right being very vocal and shouting out "defence" loud every time rox got the ball, but most of the chinese populations are pretty quiet all afternoon -- which was a bit surprising and disappointing for me. I finally decided to start shouting by the end of the 4th quarter, and tried my highest voice to shout "Yao, get a basket!" in chinese with about 2 minutes remaining in that quarter. I guess that was a bit surprise to everybody around coz our corner has been pretty quiet all game. quite several raptors fans turned their head and gazed me with some kind inexplicable look. I was so frightened to got beaten up and didn't speak another word bah! you can't blame a first-time-going-to-stadium-fan getting timid by all those raptor jerseys around me, can you? honestly, I just so hoped there would be a section full of chinese and so I can safely shout there. lol and what's bad about this, after I shouted, yao didn't make a basket until the closing seconds. in fact, he didn't do much at all in the last 12 minutes or so. My friends were all laughing at me and saying I scared Yao so much that he decided not to touch the ball again. several impressions: 1. as bad as their shooting percentage goes today, Yao, SF and Cat are really among the elite class of shooters. while SF and Cat missed quite several difficult shots, they've made a lot of impressive ones as well. and Yao, oh my Yao... it seemed he missed every single shot for a while. and when you look at the score board, he is right there with a 20/12 performance. I mean, can we say yao is having an off-night for only getting those numbers? That's just scary 2. we really lacked ball movement today... if I remember correctly, francis had his first assists in late 4th quarter? and Cat was leading the team with 4? I'm pretty sure there was a time our starting 5 had a combined 8 assists in total, while Carter had 9 at that time. -- as I mentioned in 1, as talented as our big 3s are, they make some tough basket, but they miss more. and I really thought they could find some way easier way to shoot the ball instead of iso all the way. 3. It seems very weird that while Yao was pretty agressively demanding the ball in the beginning (he took 8 shots in the first half while shooting terribly, I think), he stopped going to the basket in the end of the game. It seems the only thing he does in offense is setting high picks and watching ball flying around. I was really wondering if it's due to Yao's lack of conditioning to constantly attack the basket? or due to JVG's changing of game plans? or due to communication reasons with other players? it just doesn't make sense to me that JVG didn't shout at Yao and demand him go back to low positions for the second half of the game. Anyone can enlighten me? I will try to see if I can post some pictures from the game later. and in the mean time, let's hope rockets can win their next game tomorrow -- well, today.
i think that fear factor is normal. at least you didn't get death threats like that guy at the cubs game in chicago 1. thats why everyone is so excited about him and can't wait for him to fully develop into the force he will become. 2 & 3. that seems to be the common complaint about the game & the regression they displayed. just when we thought they were beginning to "understand it"... it seems they were not actually listening to the coach and the result reflected that. the ball was meant to go inside but was dribbled/held onto from reports. thanks for your post. alwasy nice to hear first hand comments
i noticed that whenever cuttino has the ball, then yao doesnt bother posting up. thats when he goes to set those high screens and pics. i guess he figures that why waste energy when mobley has the ball -- its not like hes going to get the ball to yao.
