Yao needs to concentrate on Defense and Rebounding

I'm not worried unless it's the foot. If it's bothering him then the Rockets are in big, big trouble.

 

too sad, i can live with a guy who has a bad shooting night, but miss open dunks, man, i feel i want to dig a hole to hide as a rocket fan.

this game is so important, people keep say last season we took off after lost to boston, man, that is crazy! i found too many people even our own experts are liveing in the dream. clearing i got the problems. we just prove everyone who think rocket is not going to be succeesful , they are right.

being a rocket fan, i always want champion, say me wrong, i found some fan, even some players who think get out the first round is enough for this season.

 

Yao sucked last nite...he came out strong, but i think he got worn down by trying to fight for position...we've seen this too many times last year. Yao needs to A get smarter and not waste effort on something that isn't working or B....Rick A. needs to manage the team better and user our other guys so Yao can be more fresh and give us less but higher quality minutes.

I really think against teams like celtics and jazz we need a guy like Joey Dorsey...we get punished and out rebounded by strong utility guys like perkins, baby davis, and millsap type players.

Yao sucked last nite...only person to blame for the loss

 

with yao its all mental.

Luckily enough for us, this is one of his very worst nights. Which will only comes once a year.....hopefully this season as well.

I take it that Yao plays bad today, but what about Tmac? He gets hot on offense, on defense? Other than some nice steals and hustle plays, its like no one is guarding ray allen. His injury some might says, but when tmac attacks the rim, i cant see any signs of his injury. Look at the 1 man break with KG just beside him, look at the 3 point play at the end of the game.

And AB... what can i say? House blow past him.

Rafer is just bad.

All in all, a very bad day for our players and us rox fans, but think it as this way, with all the negatives, rox only lost by 4 to the def champ.

 

I have to agree. Yao was terrible on the boards and worse on D. Those first 2 fouls were just stupid. I don't mind if Yao fouls out playing tough D down low or aggressively going after boards--he's a big man, that is what he is supposed to do. But he was soft last night.

What worries me is that this happend vs the Jazz 2 years ago, and it is STILL happening now.

The worst part was it seemed like after he blew the dunk, he just completely crumbled mentally. Bad games are ok and part of a long season, but he just wilted out there, and that is unacceptable.

Maybe Rocket fans are spoiled because we witnessed the greatest 2-way player in history. I don't know, but it doesn't seem too much to ask your big man to play tough.

 

Yao's defense cannot be separated from his offense. After watching him all these years, we should know his tendency. When he plays well on offense, he is more alert and energetic on defense. TMac seems to have the same tendency. Our guys either dominate on both ends or suck on both ends.

It is not good. Like I said, that's the only disturb thing about Yao last night. He got rattled and his whole game, offense and defense sucked. It has nothing to do with his desire or his effort. It is all mental.

Also, you cannot expect Yao to be Hakeem. Yao is a 7'6 dude who is big and has great touch. He is hard working. He is dedicated. That's his strengths.

He also has his limitations. He doesn't have good reaction time. He doesn't have good balance. It is simply physically impossible for him to do things Hakeem did. (I don't know how Hakeem would move if he was 7'6 300 lb.) It is not because he is lazy or "soft." So just accept that fact and move on.

BTW, don't tell me Artest's shooting wasn't hurting the team. If you just want defense and rebounding, I'd put Chuck Hayes in there.

 

I don't understand why the coach didn't put Yao on bench. It was evident that Yao was struggling last night.

 

i have not read all posts in this thread. but what does "Yao needs to concentrate on Defense and Rebounding" mean? if it means yao should've tried to contribute more last night on the defensive end since his offense wasn't going at all, then i agree 100%.

if this means yao needs to focus on defense and rebounding in the long run from now on, then the idea cannot be more wrong. yao's strength is his scoring (though a decent rebounder and defender too). if one thinks as a general rule yao'd better become a defensive center, he's never gonna get it.

 

It's so very early in the season and we showed that we can hang with Boston despite McGrady's still recovering knee, and Yao needing to shake off some rust. I meant we still don't even have Shane back and are awaiting Deke's return and we ALMOST beat boston. Yao and Ron were awful in the second half and we almost beat Boston. I don't know what everyone is so upset about, cuz I saw us play a very incomplete game and we were neck and neck with a Boston team that was fucntioning at a very high level.

 

Why is there a video advertisement on skiing that says Utah right under the first post?

 

This post is for you Tinman,

I agree that Yao needs to step up his defense as well as his rebounding, especially since the game is close but really man chill out. You seem to be forgetting or just blocking out that he has a pretty serious injury and he's playing his way back into form this season. Like it or not he's never going to be able to pull more than 12 rebounds a game consistently because heck he gets pushed out around in the post more so than probably any other center in the league. He's not as agile or "tough/aggressive" as everyone would wish he would be but come on fellas we did only lose by 4. If you want to talk about how defense could have won the game, I would be so quick to point out that if we scored more we would have won it as well. Why are you trying to grill everyone for saying Yao has had only one lousy game? Yeah you state that Yao needs to play better defense but realistically look at the Utah series. He can only do so much. Basketball is a TEAM game for goodness sake, he's not going to take over the game like how Hakeem did because HE'S NOT HAKEEM. Tinman and Mr. Pink ya'll should honestly exchange numbers because yall both love to clown on Yao so why don't you make it a private matter so the rest of us don't have to hear it? kthx

 

IBM- I think the job of any center is to rebound and protect the paint first and foremost. That is something that he can control every game on every possession. If the the big guy doesn't rebound the ball, then the team can't setup the offense. If the big man doesn't control the paint, then again the team can't run the offense. No one asked Yao to be Hakeem, but when Davis and Powe takes the ball away from you, when U never put your hands up after the guy has made a couple of jumpers, that's not acceptable.

Effort isn't a talent, but you need to exert it when your under the goal and trying to get a rebound. The reason why they shot 50% is because they had a lot of offensive rebounds. With amount of shots missed by the rox, they should have had a field day with offensive rebounds. Grabbing the defensive rebounds is the last phase of defense. A lot of teams play good initial defense, but the really good teams limit you to one shot. I don't care about Yao struggling offensively, just shut down the middle and grabs 15 rebs. That would have been good enough with me.

 

all good points. but hey, no need to preach the basics of basketball here. not to me. lecture the newbies.

the thing is, yao played 28 minutes last night and grabbed 7 rebounds. that was about his reb. rate. and reb. rate is constant for every player. yao is never gonna avg. 15 rebounds a game. i've come to accept it.

i see your points as irrelevant to mine, though they're good. rebounding and defense is about the team effort, too. if we want to single out anyone on defense, then i can honest say this - a poorly as yao played on defense last night, he wasn't the worst individual defender.

 

You think Head played the worst defense last night?

 

Yao does need to hustle on defense and rebounding. He's 7'5"+ for crying out loud. You could wait in the paint and put your hands up and get rebounds. He's getting bullied by Kendrick Perkins. Are you kidding me? Yao should have completely dominated that matchup. I really really hope it was only one game and Yao comes out with fire the next big matchup.