the ball rebounding from the board is not necessarily intended for Yao (so is the jump ball), but the guy who makes an entry pass should aim at Yao. when a defender is fronting Yao, the ball should be tossed up so that it passes the defender at the highest point and then goes down for Yao to catch it. it's not easy, but certainly not that hard, especially given the height advantage of Yao and his improved ability to better position himself in the post.
JVG wanted that way too. He probably wanted to open up outside shooting and let inside loose, and tear up the suns inside, and then finish them off with outside. Too bad the 1st step didnt work. That shows we are a one dimentional team.
There are times when the ball comes straight to Yao, he gets two hands on a rebound in traffic and still doesn't pull it down. This happens a lot. Oftentimes it doesn't take much for an opposing player to knock the ball away. When ONE player is guarding Yao and is fronting him, it still can be very difficult to feed him the ball because he doesn't jump. When one player fronts Yao, ANOTHER is behind him and a 3RD PLAYER slides over as soon as he makes a catch, Yao will not get off a shot. It's that simple. It really is. Rafer and the others want to pass it inside but sometimes they just can't. Of course, sometimes they do miss him.
there needs to be a replay of the fourth quarter and someone needs to put that up on youtube so that we can see how difficult it was for yao to get things going in the low block. could someone be so kind as to do that? thanks
The truth of the matter is that many of our players are inept at passing into Yao Ming , so much so that on occasion, mistakenly, I have accused them of refusing to pass to him when he is calling for the ball. The only players that seem to have the knack and make a determined effort is T Mc , V Span and Novak. V.Span and Novac get minimal playing time and are often required to play a game which is not natural to them. V.Span is a whirling dervish, free lance player who is being stunted by JVGs requirements, you can tell by seeing how many times he is about to shoot but thinks twice about it and passes the ball. Novak is being encouraged to try and play the traditional Power Forward position, he is but a role player who spots up and shoots the three ball. Novak could be encouraged to spot up and take the role of Robert Hory and pass into Yao Ming, which would help us out a great deal.
The question is who is the one to shoot 3s. It should not be Alston for sure. Why can JVG see it? It should be Shane. In normal case it should be Tmac, but at this moment it should not be him either.
I really think that it is a matter of discipline. JVG can't control his players. Look at Laker's tonight game, nobody but Kobe dares to take more than 10 shots. Do you think that those players don't have ego to do that. They do, but I am sure that PJ will be pissed if they take 10+ shots and brick alot of them.
That's because Kobe is the leader and captain of his team without question. His strong personality makes teamates defer to him. The Rockets are still in search for a leader: T-Mac? Not mentally strong enough. Yao? Not yet. Van Gundy has also preached that a team is better than a single unit.
>>Why can't we get the ball to Yao more? When will Yao learn how to use his body and begin punishing smaller defenders like he did in the early 3rd quarter against Suns? If he continues to setting those moving screens and not park his arse in the paint, he will never be a superstar, an MVP, and NBA champion. Blame Yao and T-mac for last night loss. As leaders of the team, they failed. Yao continued to get muscled by smaller players. Most if not all of his touches were outside the paint. Worst of all, he was NOT aggressive. In fact, he waited for the Suns to double-team him so that he could pass the ball to his teammates even though everybody saw they were throwing up bricks after bricks. Perhaps, Houston could be called the "brick city" instead of "clutch city".
I haven't had to do this since Francis and Mobley's last season in Houston. No one here will ever confuse me of being overly kind to them in my criticisms. But not passing to Yao wasn't one of the criticisms. Let's look at the Rockets first 10 offensive possessions vs the Suns... 1) Yao FGM // assist Battier 2) Post entry f TMac // TO 3) High PnR w/ TMac // TM miss 4) Battier postup // Kick out TMac miss *In this entire sequence, Nash stayed closer to Yao than Alston. 5) Alston 3 miss * This sequence had some high post screens and eventually TMac wound up with the ball at the top of the arc. Nash doubled off of Alston and left him wide open. Plenty of time on the clock...Alston should have driven. 6) Alston missed lay in. * This play started out as 3 man strong side action among Yao, Alston and Novak. Diaw was guarding Novak and totally disregarded him as Novak moved to the weakside. The play was then 2 against 3 with Diaw picking up Alston and Nash doubling Yao. 7) Yao was fronted. Post entry and fouled from weakside by Diaw. 8) McGrady TO in transition. 9) Novak post entry to Yao. Novak made 3 on return pass f Yao. 10) 3 man game with Yao, Battier and Yao. TMac post entry pass, Battier's defender doubles, Battier dives to basket and is fouled by rotating Diaw. There you have it. 7:22 in Q1, Suns up 14-11. Yao has taken 1 FGA in 10 possessions. Those not used to looking deeply are crying WTF. Those used to watching deeply have observed that Nash and Diaw are not guarding their man and shading Yao. What isn't obvious by looking at FGA's on a stat sheet is that Yao has a TO, an assist, two FT's and a pass to Battier resulting in FT's. Like I mentioned way early on. FGA's on a stat line won't tell you anything about how the games are actually played. The criticisms to be made are slow passing back to the weakside, lack of transition tempo and not making the Suns pay for doubling off Novak with Diaw. Those were the real problems...not ball hogging.
Sanity has pervailed. thank you. i rember how people were calling sura "Racist' for not poping into yao. it's upto yao not to get pushed around by amare and a 6'8 diaw.
How many times have you seen the Lakers play this season? Kobe's 3rd quarter explosion is not typical. Also, the Lakers can give Kobe the ball outside the 3 point line and he can go to work off the dribble. Yao has to receive the ball much closer to the basket. Do you see the difference? On the last possession he played in the 3rd quarter, the Jazz finally doubled Kobe when he touched the ball. Guess what happened: He was forced to give it unless he wanted to jack it from 30 feet. He passed to the other wing (Odom) who fed Maurice Evans for a layup attempt.
I put this in another thread but i prob works here a bit better.... The rockets have improved dramatically over the past two years in getting Yao the ball. They basically use a flex-cut (back pick) with Yao coming accorss the blow or the high pick in roll... Problem is they go to him about 3 times in a row then stop for whatever reason... whcih leads to the post from another thread... There were several times in the game verse Phoenix when we made the third quater run when Yao would run the flex cut to the low block and T-Mac would call him out for the high pick and roll. Two things have happend from here, one which I really like. When Yao rolls to the block, they reverse the ball back to Yao's side and he has great position. This is how they were getting Yao open when the SUns adjusted as you mentioned. the PROBLEM is when T-mac comes off that high pick and roll and heaves a bad shot to the basket without Yao ever getting a chance to get to the low block. T-mac can get that desperation heave whenever he wants, ie: with 2 seconds on the shot clock. In that case it's not a bad shot. When there is 10 seconds on the clock and you break off the Yao pos tplay to heave the shot, then its a BAD decision. I am not saying T-mac is selfish or a "ball-hawk" but he has to know that he is not the guy he once was. Keep feeding Yao and play off of Yao. He will get that same crappy shot once Yao kicks the ball back out o him.
the real problem here is yao IS THE ONLY OFFENSE now, the other teams not stupid, if all other players shoot below 35%, while yao at 55%, there's no way they will give you the easy pass to yao. we just have two weapons, yao and 3pts shootings, we need a third weapon: attacking the basket, I am not sure tmac can/will do it, I know skip/head cannot do it, that's leave us with wells/snyder/vspan.
What is being missed out is simple- The timing at which Yao gets the ball is horrendous. Atleast 8-10 times a game Yao sets up camp and the ball never comes to him directly- for whatever reason. The lob pass is the best solution for Fronting- and they dont do that as frequently as it is being touted by some. Sure if a third player joins in- it does become difficult - but what would you have Yao making them foul him or pass the ball and brick it. Open shots only make sense if we take advantage of them. If they are leaving 2 players open- what else does it take to score? It might not be ball hogging per se- but Rafer shooting 12-15 shots is just plain harakiri! I can understand Tmac getting shots- at some point he needs to drive when his shots are not falling. We need another option that scores consistently. Luther has done well but he is not going to last against taller SG's. Snyder at best is a defensive specialist. That does not leave too many options to prevent the 3rd person from piling on to Yao! There is a reason that Yao gets that much of attention. I for one am in favor of Yao taking a few shots just short of the Free throw- I will bet that his FGP will be better than what the others are doing for those shots. Also instead of taking a position, if the ball is tossed to Yao as he moves to the basket- that normally results in a dunk. Sure it means that Yao has beaten his counterpart- but these things can be planned early on.
I'll give you a big "amen". I've been very critical of the skill set we've put around Yao. Call them "racist" all you want, but someone with a bulldog attitude, a solid mid-range game and the physicality to finish at the rim would be a welcome addition to the team. Then again...not sure which is worse...charges of racism or a plethora of posts about how easy it's supposed to be to lob the ball into Yao when he's guarded by 2 or 3 players all of whom having 36" vertical leaps.
It's amazing so many people think the Rockets just decide not to get the ball to Yao in the fourth quarters. Isn't the simpler, more obvious, explanation that defenses starting playing Yao more aggressive in the final quarter, and because of his activity earlier in the game he doesn't have the stamina to deal with it as well? Also, teams naturally adjust their defense to a team's offensive flow as the game progresses. The Rockets are always looking to get the ball to Yao. Well, good teams will start to figure out how to counteract that. Yao isn't versatile enough as an offensive player to where you can just get him the ball anywhere in the half court and he can do something with it.
