Okur is not a random scrub.. the guy can play. He also watched a lot of Yao's tapes and you can tell he knows exactly what Yao was going to do most of the time. I am not saying he can stop Yao but at least he knows most if not all Yao's moves. If you watched the game yesterday, one time Yao tried to do the post up spin move on Okur and Okur anticipated and defended it perfectly. Yao ended up with a turnover cus he dribbled the ball out of bound.
I think part of the problem with Yao last night (besides not making shots) was his lack of physicality due to the refs. He wants to be physical but couldn't earlier in the game b/c the refs kept calling fouls against him. All in all, Yao did a decent job on Boozer last night, and was not dominated. I think Boozer's points were more off of offensive rebounds and broken plays rather than a set play where he was to go one-on-one with Yao.
Why has no one mentioned the zone. DD, I thought you were a strong advocate of that last year. It never does any harm to switch it up a little once in a while.
boozer scored 30 last night, he was 13-25. this isn't a question if yao is doing a decent job, it is how boozer looks throwing up the 30 points, and dating back to last season's playoffs and games, boozer looks extremely comfortable against yao, that hasn't changed, whether yao does a decent job on boozer or not, boozer scores, and scores easily. going 13-40 would be doing a decent job and not being dominated. yao was dominated last night, has been dominated by boozer. and what you think is wrong, those shots boozer kept on making were from the pnr, that is not a broken play. back yao all you want, he;s on the rockets i like him too, but i am super glad that you are not his coach, false sense of security
Yao did very well against Boozer at the beginning of last playoff. The only solution I think is to let Yao watch tapes with coaches and develop a strategy against Boozer. Yao should not leave paint in defense. He is very good on defending the paint, just not great yet.
The issue here goes beyond Yao's defense on Boozer. Confidence is built on both sides of the court. If Yao is guarding Boozer and gets burned most of the time that has to play on his confidence. Even if he gets to score on the offensive end it would be on Okur (Scoring on Boozer would boost his confidence) which is good but would not have that revenge factor of "You just scored on me, now I'm going to score on you!". I don't think that Utah plays exceptional defense on Yao they're just able to shake his confidence on the Defensive end.
The three early fouls slowed Yao down, other then that, he was getting his shot, just not making it. Also, like Barkley said, Boozer mostly goes left when he drives, so Yao should be ready for that.
You can't play a zone successfully on people who shoot 3 pointers well... ie everyone in the NBA. Did you watch the Spurs against Portland... they just tore apart that zone... and it wasn't because of poor play by Portland, its because if you can shoot over a zone, it's useless.
Well, I'd still have Yao out there for 30 minutes per game. He'd have his chances. What would be limited is his time spent playing against Boozer/Okur. By bringing Yao off the bench, Boozer and Okur would have to stay out on the court longer-- Boozer to attack him, Okur to defend him. When Okur finally sits, Yao can go to work on whoever is trying to guard him. When Boozer sits, the Rockets can shut down the paint. Obviously the Jazz are going to play those two guys for the vast majority of the game, so it's not like we'd only put Yao in when one of them is out. He'd never get to play! The main thrust of my little plan is to prevent Utah from jumping out to an early lead like they did last night and to take Yao out of the game during specific periods to help prevent runs by Utah.
Hello.. do you remember how many points Boozer scored on the Rockets in the first game of that series. Let me refresh your memory... 41. That's not doing very well against him!
Everyone can see that when Boozi is on the floor with Yao, we tend to lose. Thats why we need Chuck Hayes in there, who is actually a pretty good low post defender and has provided some needed stops against him when he is called on. Again, as I've been saying on my last 5 posts today, whenever we vs. Utah we cant afford Yao to lose the ball to them 5-7 times a game. Thats also the reason why they always have a higher offensive rebounds spread than us, Yao gets abused in the post on offense and defense.
yao was getting his shot last year as well, don't be mislead by the stats from the playoffs, yao had to work hard for every one of them, he was not comfortable in the offense last year. the defense of the jazz really bothers him, this isn't a solitary occurrence. simply put, yao has not been able to dominate consistently when playing the jazz. but this year the rockets can withstand that, they can bring in scola, bench is deeper, so i am not worried about rockets because of that, not because i think yao will play better against the jazz, yao will play better, but most likely the odds are he will be more uncomfortable than comfortable.
That was second game. He scored only 11 on 4 for 17 shooting in the first game. Probably just nerves (he missed a ton of jumpers he usually sinks). basketball-reference is your friend!
no doubt, but the real disconcerting area is that yao looks uncomfortable on the offensive side as well...
Boozer is just too good. Yao's defense is OK. problem is: Boozer can make all 15 footers with Yao in his face. Yao can not make 10 footers with Okur's single coverage. Yao was still in JVG mode.
Of course he is, Boozer is a badass. 30 and 16 last night! My question is-- would you rather have Chuck Hayes sitting down with 3 early fouls, or Yao?
