ak- past allstar boozer - allstar okur - allstar/borderline deron - to be allstar. who were you going to "go to" last night? tmac and yao are the only ones that did anything significant.
This is about a game plan. Our scrubs are paid NBA professionals, and only shines under a good game plan. Superstar shines anytime. And they did yesterday but just not that bright. Jazz's borderline stars did not win them the game, their bench did.
people make too big a deal about being blocked. Yao is shooting right in the face of defenders time after time, punishing his defenders more times than not. Against this D, you have to go right at the defense, not fade away, in order to draw fouls...otherwise, you're playing right into their hands. Who cares about being blocked a few times, if your overall strategy is effective? Would you rather have him not shoot or not take it right to the defense...we would have lost by 30.
Without Yao, it is a magic team, 1st round playoff team. With Yao, beyond 1st round. We just need a better game plan to make our bench shine. 0:33 is inexcusable for coaching.
Yao looked tired, I thought. He wasn't able to get position as close as he'd like (part of that was bad entry passing, though we did stop trying to bounce him the ball as we did in games 1 and 2). They roughed him up and he didn't seem to have enough energy to either take it strong and overcome it, or find the open man, like he usually would. Maybe it was just the fact that the Utah Floppers were mugging him all night and the refs were letting it happen more than they normally do... I don't know... that would wear on me. What I do know is that even when Yao has a "bad" game, where it doesn't look like he's playing to his potential... he still contributes well. Blaming him for anything at this point is useless, when we all know that we should do much better than 67 points (was that the total, looks so silly) and none from the entire bench. I look for EVERYONE to step it up and play our first game to our full potential, and take one on the road, as I suspected they would all along.
ooliverb1, thanks for the list. I can live with Yao's TOs due to Traveling (offense), Offense foul (offense aggressiveness), and 3-second violations (defense), but 5 TOs due to Lost ball are not acceptable. Hope he can do better on Saturday.
He hasnt had just one bad game. He's having a bad, bad series. Boozer is simply destroying him offensively Games 2 and 3. Yao is doing nothing to affect Boozer. Offensively, Yao has yet to shoot 50% in even one game, despite being single covered basically all series. He's had huge turnover problems, been stuffed numerous times by a guy 7 inches shorter than him on heads up (not weakside) blocks. Yao's not fighting for position and letting Okur muscle him out. Okur has never been known as a physical defender until this series. Yao wont fight back for position. Instead of making a decisive move when he gets the ball, Yao is waiting for a double team which he should know by now is not coming. All in all, Yao gets a C or C- for this series. He's been very dissapointing and at times just brutal. On paper, the Jazz looked severely overmatched by Yao going into this series because they dont have a quality interior defender besides Millsap (who hardly plays) or a shotblocker and they do not like to double team. It hasn't panned out this way, however, because Yao has failed to seize the moment and step up. If Yao would actually step up and make 2-3 shots in a row on Okur, the Jazz would probably start double teaming which would make for easier looks for the struggling Rockets gunners. Yao's shooting 41% for the series. That's a bad shooting % for a guard, much less a 7'6" center.
He has been playing sub par. it is a testament to how far he's come that he is still averaging 27/12 while playing well below his capabilities. The blocked shots I can live with. The low FG percentage is ok since he is getting to the line It's the TO's that drive me batty. I wish he would just immediately make his move sometimes after catching the pass. Maybe he's waiting for some defensive adjustments (aka double team => open guy somewhere). More often than not - someone will just strip the ball or the open guy will brick the shot. I dunno about Tmac. It's easy to b*tch about his shot selection when he misses a lot (as he has been), but if the support guys can't even hit their open jumpers .. well
Analyzing a player who scored almost half of our points last game... So far we've had T-mac, Yao, Head, Juwan, rafer, and JVG bashing threads.
Just see a long analysis for game 3 by a Y'F fan . I think he has a point. To see the full analysis, click the link below: http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=sports&MsgID=155360
man, I can not believe people here BLAME YAO for the lost. how many points/rebounds you want to get from him? 50/20? this is insane. Come on, JAZZ got all-star front court! Boozer/Okur/AK47. This Jazz team live with their front court. Compare to that, their guards are not that good. DM/DF, maybe DM is all-star, but not as good as CB and Okur! What about TMAC and Alston? especially TMAC, he got mis-match on Fisher and he played like crap, he was so soft even can not get layup going. Stop blaming big man
Yao had a subpar game. I don't blame him for the loss. But I blame him for not playing like a future all-time top 15 centers which so many of you believe he'll be. he's going no where if he keeps bricking those single-covered fadeaways.
Yao needs to do this on Okur... <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9fgEiDY8b5w"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9fgEiDY8b5w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> Cue the "I want Calvin back!" posts. "That's what you call ATTITUDE!"
There is 2 threads that are absloutly slaughtering mac. mac is getting alot more blame then he deserves. both yao and tracy are both sdeserving in the critisisim there reciving. there both not playing to there ability.
Maybe you should open you're eyes and see the Why Tracy cant win a series thread. there blasting him way more then there blaming yao here. jesuse, there are other players on this team then yao.
I agree besides the turnovers yao wasn't bad.....No wt mac and that 3rd quarter kinda blew the game if you asked me.
