Yao should take some no so high percentage shots! e.g. 16-18 footer open shot, forced the shots even there is double team and try to drew the foul.
Can you read at all? It seems everyone else understand my point except you. We lost the game because the pace was too fast for us, and the quick shots by Tmac/Sura/James were the major reason for that fast tempo. Just look at the teams ahead of us in the west, the Suns, Sonics, Mavs, and the Kings, all of them are better suited for a fast tempo game than us. We have to control the tempo, slow the game down a little to make it uneasy for them. This doesn't mean we don't want to run at all, it means you want to look for your best shots, instead of the first shot comes to you. This has nothing to do with passing to Yao, or anyone else. It's about the tempo-control of the game, and we sucked big time in this department.
Fine, I understand your point now, I still think that was by no means a reason why we lost. We were able to keep up with them for the most part, they just were shooting lights out, especially towards the end. And B. Davis was just blowing by our guards at will pretty much. I still think playing a slow tempo type game is hurtful to the Rockets' chances to win games night-in and night-out. I am not asking for an all-out fast-tempo runnin-n-gunnin offense, I am simply saying that for this team to be competitive they have to show (like they have all this season) that they are capable to play BOTH styles and be able to compete whether the game has an up-tempo style or not. I think for the most part, we have proven that we can play both ways and do it successfully: we have won uptempo style games against teams like Dallas and Suns, and have slowed it down and won games like against the Spurs and Sonics.
We need focus on defense for playoff. Has anyone seen many 100+ games in finals? Playoff is much different in style. who can we beat in playoff if we rely on outside jumper? Sun, Sonic, Mav are much better than us outside. If we don't adjust now, we are going to suffer.
Okay, we can agree on the disagree on this one. It's obvious this team was not built to run with an inside presents of Yao, but that doesn't mean we have to walk up the court, run the clock down to the last few seconds. We should push the ball when the opportunate is there, otherwise, we should always look for best shots available instead of the first shot available. Compare to teams such as Mavs, Suns, Sonic, and the Kings, our strength is our defense, where Yao & Deke's interior defense can make opponents a jump shooting team, and history has showed that you can be hot for a couple of games, but you rarely can stay hot for the entire series. The tempo of the game was not the real reason for our early season failure, it was the lack of coherence among players. Now, we have that chemistry after playing together for 60+ games, it's time to play the right way, instead of the fast way.
In many cases, Yao fighted hard to get a good position, but the guard just had a look at him and then pass the ball to the outside instead of passing it straight to Yao. I just don't get it. Maybe it's sometimes too fast to bring the ball to him when the ball isn't moving around. However, considering the shooting percentage of Yao, we should give him enough trust and bring the damn ball to him, making him more dominant
yao got some positionings problems, he still has no clue how to get good position sometimes, however, houston guards, or JVG, still don't get it yet, yao may look like no influence to this team most times, but he is THE difference of between a good houston team and a bad rockets team.
JB talked about this a few days back on 610....that is by design alot of the time....they prefer to swing it aroudn and try to let Yao get better position on the other side rather than go immediately into the post at the beginning of the play. I dont remember the exact wordings....but if Chance would put the Barry segment up ojnline, we could hear it from him directly. how bout it Chance?
Brian Grant did show up some Yao weaknesses in establishing position against a shorter but more athletic opponent.
Yao will not get more shots if our guards cannot make outside jumpers. Defense can simply DT Yao and dare you to take peremiter shots. I hate to say this, but if Wesley doesn't get out of his shooting slump quickly, he will be given more open looks and Yao won't be able to touch the ball many times in a game.
Not really. They only had some success in defending Yao in the 3rd quarter by double or triply teaming him and dare our guards to take open shots. Later in the game, our outside shots started falling, they had to come out to defend the perimeter and Yao became effective again.
People who say that the fault is primarily Yao's right now are incorrect, I think. That was very true his first year, and fairly accurate much of last year. The problem is: now he does flash open on most plays. For example, when we played the Lakers on Thursday, he usually did g et open for a couple of seconds. And our players were usually in a position where they could have delivered the ball to him in the post. But they didn't. We don't have anyone who's really good at putting the ball in the post. In fact, we lost our player who's best at it (Nachbar). Yao isn't strong enough to continually maintain position against a shorter guy with better leverage who's consistently trying to move him out of position, fouling him in the process. He is strong enough now to get position for a couple of seconds. Our guys have to be able to deliver the pass when he does it. They can't. Robert horry, I think, would add 3-5 points to Yao's current totals.
Actually, we can play a two-man game with TMac & Yao. Tmac is tall enough to look over his defender, and good enough to make his defender honor his shots so he can make an easy enrty pass. When those two play on the same side, it's not easy for the defense to double Yao since TMac would be as big a threat with one defender. The problem is everytime we got those two on the same side, Yao moved out to set the pick for TMac, then it's all TMac. Yao needs to call the ball, and TMac needs to look for Yao first in that situation.
