After last night's defeat to a club team from Australia, in a press conference, Yao Ming severely bombarded his national team mates for lack of discipline, passion, endurance and tenacity. He said on the court, alot of his team mates did not carry out/execute the game plan/set plays of Jonas Kazlauskas, and were playing their own game and the back-court players still could not break out from the zone defense/press of the opponents, and caused turnovers again and again for fast breaks from the opponents. He also complaint that his team mates are still relying too much on him, not daring to display what they have learnt in the long months of closed door training. He said he is very very very disappointed with the national team.
Yao Ming's stats: 34 minute of play; 28 points (8/13 FG% 12/17 FT%), 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks, 1 turnover, 0 fouls.
YUP....he was angry, disappointed and frustrated. He was p!$$ed about losing. He said after leading some 15 points in 3Q, but then got reversed, these bad habits of lapse of concentration and loss of intensity will come back to haunt him and the national team in the 2008 Olympics.
In 3 quarter, Team China lead 12 points. With hard press of the opponent, losing the ball and killed at last minute.
Maybe he was so frustrated also because he cannot come back to the trainning camp on time. Now, I only hope he wouldn't have any injury when the season starts.
If we can't solve the problem of Guard, the result of 2008 must disappoint everybody. The miracle of World Champion last year will not always happen.
I love it when YAO gets angry and calls out his fellow Chinese teammates. It shows how much dedication and passion he has for the game. He wants to let it be known that just because the Olympics are in their backyard, nobody is going to lay down for them.
CNT is becoming worse and worse year after year. The more money they spent, the more "games" they played, the worse they are. CNT= a group of man whores, officials just use them to earn money around the world.
Well, I could only agree with what you've said about CBA official exploiting on the national team too much. Bear in mind. These group of players had been asked to gather in Beijing for 5 months now as far back as April this year (including the time they spent playing in US NBA summer league and Europe) without getting back home to spend time with their families and beloved ones. They have played around 40 games in the months of June up till now. After rejoining the natioal team, and playing against the Australian Melbourne Tigers in early September, Yao Ming stepped out to criticize the CBA officials for exploiting the national players too much. He said the reason why the national team kept losing was due to this continued closed door training, and playing exhibition games endlessly that most of the players are physically tired and psychologically bored and they really need a break. Their defects need to be corrected through some systematic training, and surely not the way they are now being exploited, playing games after games without really looking into ways of how to improve.
The Center for the Bullets outscored yao. how can they only get yao only 12 shots in 34 minutes?. i hope the Chineese team in the next game start feeding the big fella.
Well, Craig Bradshaw did not outscore Big Yao. I think there was a mistake in the Xinhua News Agency game summary. The guy scored 26 points and not 31 points. Craig Bradshaw, a 2007 NBA prospect, is the centre of the New Zealand national team. Quite a few of his shots made were 3-pointers. As to Yao Ming, he did not just get 12 shots. His FG% was 8/13, and he got fouled 8 times, I believed. He got 12 of his 17 free throws made. So basically he got somewhere close to 21 shot attempts. But you're right. The guards of the national team just could not break out of the zone/court press of the Australians in 3Q, could not even bring the ball past the half court, made several turnovers, and could not feed the ball to Yao Ming. As Yao Ming himself said, he got 8 to 9 shots in 1H but then the Australian changed strategy, and tightened up double- and triple-teaming him in 2H, and as a result, he got only 3 to 4 shots in 2H.
^^ Yep, Pryuen, you are right. The Bullet center did not outscore Yao. Yao Ming led all scorers with 28 points. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/22/2040596.htm?section=sport The Brisbane Bullets have beaten the Chinese national team by one point in the first game of their three-game tour of China. Bullets guard CJ Bruton hit the game-winning shot in the dying moments to give Brisbane a sensational 93-92 win. New recruit Craig Bradshaw scored 26 points for the Bullets and Bruton added 18 points. China's NBA star Yao Ming led all scorers with 28 points.
Thanks. makes more sense. the onus must be put on the CNT backcourt players to improve there skills under pressure. if they cant take care of the ball, how is yao supposed to be effective.
That was what Yao Ming was p!$$ed about. He sort of criticized his back court team mates had not learnt how to overcome those zone/court press of the opponents, and did not know where and who to pass in order to bring the ball past the half court. And once under pressure, they started to panic and made numerous turnovers, which resulted in alot of fast breaks from the opponents. That was why they were 25 vs 34 in 3Q, wasting a 10-point lead by 1H. But one of the more gratifying scenes I noticed by watching the game live on TV was that Big Yao already started to mix it up in high post and low post in this game. When he got double or triple teamed, he sometimes passed the ball to the exterior, reposted, received the ball from his team mates, and then scored or drew fouls from the opponents; or he would pull out from the low post, pass to his penetrating team mates like Yi Jianlian, Ding Junhui, Sun Yue to score down at the low post; or he passed the ball out to the perimeters for Zhu Fangyu, Wang Shipeng, Sun Yue or Liu Wei to shoot their 3-pointers. If his team mates could be more accurate, Yao Ming could easily get > 10 assists in this game. That sort of gave me a glimpse of what will happen if he plays like this under Rick Adelman with the Rockets with more no ball movement from his team mates. Big Yao said after the game he felt he is improving on his physical strength, conditioning and his game, but he thought he is still not yet there, i.e. back to his competitive form and shape. Let's hope he could be there in the future few games before he returns to Houston for the preseason training camp.
The national team arrived at Xinhui this afternoon, and had a team practice and scrimmage. Wang Zhizhi, while still rehabilitating from his injury, rejoined the team practice.
This morning, Yao Ming, Liu Xiaoyu and Li Qun appeared as honourable guests in Zhongshan for the opening ceremony of KFC National 3 X 3 Street Ball Competition. Big Yao said when he was young, he used to play on the streets near his home some street ball. He hoped the young kids that had enrolled for this tournament will enjoy the fun of basketball and sunshine. While Yao Ming was away for this activity, the national team were in Xinhui visiting kids at a social welfare institute.
