Are you kidding me? Honestly? In that video there were 3 plays between Yao and Gasol....on 1 Yao was about 3 feet away, the 2nd Yao was 5 feet Gasol put it on the floor went around without Yao even challenging it, on the last one, Yao was 5 feet away as I said. What I am talking about is playing CLOSER before the pass, not giving so much room to operate... DD
Maybe it's just me, but it looks to me that when Yao commits he does an okay job of dissuading shots. At that point though there is zero chance of him getting back to the basket if the guy goes around him or dishes it off. If Yao commits somebody else is going to have to rotate to cut off drives to the basket.
I watched a few games for Shaq, from those game I think Shaq and Yao are similar in those defensive parts of the plays because they are too big, but the problem is on the another side of the play, Yao can not hold the ball, can not receive a pass. What else can he do if he can not have the ball? The guy is just a slow learner or never able to learn something in the life.
Yes, agree with that....but he is either reluctant to commit, or too slow? Not sure which....but I wish he would commit. DD
This is exactly what I would do. As soon as the other team starts a high pnr with Yao, switch to the zone immediately, but switch back to man-to-man when they stop. There is a strategic part of basketball that Yao doesn't understand very well IMO (I blame JVG). What Yao and JVG tries to do is force their gameplan on the other team, but sometimes is doesn't work and they don't have a counter. I like the analogy that Yao is like a video game boss. He has strong abilities but he plays like a computer AI. Once teams figure out his weakness, it's easy to beat him.
No DD your quote I don't, Yao was 5+ feet away and Gasol was shooting wide open shots..... Where are the wide open shoots while Yao being 5 feet away? Pls dont change your thoughts
Please watch the game and look at the 15 other shots Pau had and not just limit your discussion to 3 on a highlight reel. Thanks. DD
My hunch, and I feel pretty strongly about this, is that he's afraid that if he plays too close he's going to get beaten off the dribble and the guy he's on will go straight to the basket for a layup/dunk. My suspicion is that the Rockets' coaching staff have told him to lay back, figuring that if Yao's out there they're going to eat it on the pick and roll or with bigs that can shoot and that they might as well eat a jump shot instead of a layup. I'm not sure what the solution is, if there is one. If Yao commits guys like Battier and Landry have to realize what's happening and get ready to leave their guy to guard that layup. Defense is mostly a team thing in my book.
As long as Yao is on the court and the guy who plays closest to the basket can knock down a mid-range jumpshot, there will be problems. I think his best defense has to be to punish the team on offense. That's how a slow big man has to handle the situation.
I think Yao has no problems to guard Okur type players at the 3 prt line as long as we have a Cato (Sheed is even better) type PF to protect the paint. I also think Yao needs to mix things up, forget about the paint area for a while if we are killed by high PnR. Actually, Scola and Landy become the better post players day by day.
on offensive end, the slow big man will be easily limited by physical plays and simple fronting. A slow big man could be a big liability on both ends.
This seriously underestimates the amount of practice and knowledge that goes into running an effective zone, much less switching back and forth regularly, much less in the NBA, where there is still, zone or no zone, the defensive 3 second call, AND players are too good for an even great zone to be really effective. Would using zone a little more be helpful? Yes. Out of timeouts. Off of a stop in the game or free throws. Sure. But only for one possession in that case. Frankly, the ONLY reason a zone ever has any success in the NBA is because of the shot clock. When you can surprise a team with a zone and they only have 24 second to find a way to get a good shot, you can have some success. If there was more time, though, a decent offensive team should be able to get an open look against any zone. And 2+2=4. This isn't a Yao issue...this is how it is for any player/defender.
DD, do you watch Cavs games? big Z is comparable to Yao, he and Bron often run Pick and roll together and Z can reliably hit those jumpers and there is no stopping it because help defender needed to guard Bron. If Yao can restore his shooting ability( I don't see why he cannot, he is the higher FTer on the team), why Aldeman not run p&R more using AB/Lowry with Yao. With AB sharp shooting and Lowry basketball attacking ability , they could be very dangerous, and hard to defend. What y think?
I think the Rockets should be doing that a LOT more, especially when teams are bringing a help defender like the Lakers. It is funny but whenever Brooks has the ball late in the game, good things happen. Wafer hitting 3 at Boston off his pass, Brooks hitting 2 big 3s against the Mavs.... I say we need to put the ball in Brooks and Lowry's hands late, and go from there....if Yao is fronted or being doubled hard. DD
Kudos guys. There are many good posts and counter-posts in this thread. This is what we used to do on a regular basis a few years back. Hope we'll see more of these than those knee-jerk reaction, gloom and doom threads.
The crux of the problem is the inability of our guards to adequately make an entry pass. Yao does a pretty decent job at pinning his single defender to be ready to receive the ball, but when all 17,000 people in the building and all 5 defenders see the pass coming, defenders can dash in and try to disrupt the entry pass and/or immediately trap Yao with a double-team. The passes need to be decisive, quick, and not always come from simple sets. Could a guard drive the lane, kick the ball out to a shooter on the 3 point line (and continue running to corner of court), and have the shooter immediately look to fire it into a deeply-positioned Yao? Or any number of other possibilities? In the first half, Yao was dominant. Even when he wasn't scoring the Rockets had wide-open 3s. If we can just get Yao the ball and let him work, he is unstoppable by any single defender. It's unconscionable to have him only touch the ball maybe 5 times in the second half. A little motion in the offense would be nice when things start to bog down. If players are occupying specific spots on the floor everytime, it's easier for the defense to play the passing lanes. We have the team. It comes down to coaching.
I remember reading an article on Larry Bird and his first practice with the Celtics, all his passes were flying by his teamates into the stands, or out of bounds. They were just not looking, so at the very next practice Bird started throwing his passes at his teamates heads. The guys were making their cuts, but the ball started hitting them in the head.... Apparently he hit a lot of them in the head that day, and by the 2nd half of that practice EVERYONE was looking on EVERY cut to the basket. IMO, the Rockets should be doing EXACTLY this....if you miss the ball on the catch, you get konked in the noggin.....eventually they will learn. DD
I think the key here is variety. The Rockets seem to be very predictable on offense and defense at times. I don't think you can zone over long stretches in the NBA and be a premier defensive team (please see the Mavs for the last 5 years), but I do think you have to mix it up. Double on the post occasionally with both bigs and smalls, zone them up occasionally, switch off on picks then fight through them, when you have the right personnel on the floor even put some pressure on the ball. I think the Rockets might look att the percentages and say to themselves that a certain defense or set works more foten than another. While this is true in the macro sense, introducing the element of surprise is very effective. Think about how team's defend Yao. He seems to have the most trouble with teams that chnage the defense up on him frequently. Ones that front a good bit but then double after the catch at times and then put a hard double team on on the entry pass from a lot of different angles. Defense is all about making the opposition uncomfortable and being a little unpredictable helps that out immensely.
I'm basing this on the zone they ran against Toronto, which I thought worked quite well. I know it's not going to work every time but if teams are trying to exploit Yao on the perimeter, they need to mix things up a bit when things aren't going so well. Staying man-to-man while Yao continually gets scored on is just as bad. What i was trying to say is that Yao (and the Rockets) shouldn't be so predictable. A play that works for awhile may not work later. It's easy to exploit Yao if he continually plays the same way. I'm sure the zone won't work after awhile so they need to keep countering. The team with the last counter move has the advantage. Sometime we don't have a counter but it's better to try new things than to keep repeating what doesn't work.
Very well spoken, when things are going south, I think it is good to mix it up a bit and give the other team a different look. DD
