The biggest mistake and one of the main reason we lost the game was the execution of the offense from the 9:00 mark in the third, after which shaq had picked up his 4th foul, yet remained in the game. No adjustment were made and no attacking of the paint took place. Instead of following the strategy which had worked so well in the first half when the offense ran through Yao's post up, we started running the offense with Yao at the top of the key, either setting screens or not involved on the play, thus negating shaq's foul troubles and the rocket's strengths. While LA's offense was starting to catch rythym... Our offense was utterly pathetic, consisting of strictly perimeter and passive play. Yao who was now gaurded by malone and on some instances oneal, did not even post up in the paint and instead ran useless picks, useless because malone was now gaurding him, therefore leaving shaq to controll the paint and deny all penetration. Where in the first half yao was effective and what phil jackson called "such a big presence" with 14 points from playing inside, he was the total opposite in the third from the outside... missing both his perimeter shots and rarely getting touches, becoming almost invisible. So the question is, who do you believe is to blame for Yao being nearly invisible and so ineffective?? Is it Yao's fault? Was it his own decision to not post up any longer? due to lack of effort? fatigue etc? Was malone's phsyical play causing him to not want to post up? Is it Steve and the other players fault? Were they calling yao out of the post? Or were they not feeding him the ball, thus discouraging him from doing so? etc? Is it van gundy's fault? Was it his plan to have yao away from the paint? did he tell yao to be at the top to set screens and stay on the perimeter for kick outs from the gaurds? did he no longer wanted yao in the post? Personally i think the fault lies with each of them, but much more so on van gundy for either not wanting yao in the paint or not getting yao in the paint. Yao and his teamate deserves some of the fault also though not as much; Yao for not demanding the ball and becoming lost on the perimeter and his teamates for settling on the outside shots and stagnant play.
this should probably be in the game thread, but here's my take: I would be shocked if it wasn't JVG's decision as to what sets we were running at that time. I wondered myself why we didn't punish Malone when he had to guard Yao, although the times we did Malone stripped the ball from Yao. The one thing I noticed that really upset me was the ISO with Kobe on Steve and Walton cheating over that nobody moved AT ALL. Especially considering the way Steve was ditributing the rock it makes no sense for the players to sit around and watch rather than give Steve no alternative but to go up with the shot. JVG has got to do something about this, atleast send a cutter to the bucket against Walton. As it was Steve was doubled and three lakers effectivel covered the other four of our guys.
