I watched the game last night. Everyone, except Amare and Steve, was walking up court after Amare's dunk. It's unfortunately that show-boating moron screamed and walked towards Steve and he responded. Who's standing up for whom? Give me a break. Someone is trying to color a spontaneous (and even bonehead) response into a heroic act. If people are so damn concerned about losing face, start playing smarter and not blowing big leads which is more stupid and humiliating than being dunked on.
This is ludicrous. I have never seen a group of fans get up in arms over showboating. Is Amare an evil guy or something that Yao must kill? Steve showboats all the time, but it doesn't mean the opposing point guard should punch him in the face.
I remember when Yao dunked into Theo Ratliff's face and yelled. Theo shouldn't be punching Yao. What's with the neanderthal reaction from fans? Yao has an image to uphold considering he is the McDonald's spokesman. The guy showed what kind of a player he is by coming back in the 4th quarter and put on an offensive and defensive effort that would make Hakeem smile. That's how you react. You don't go thuggish on people.
Yao was the reason why the Rockets were able to choke a 5 point lead in the last few minutes. If the other guys could freaking make a 3 pointer when Marion, Barbosa, and Joe Johnson were making Toyota Center like their home arena raining 3s, the game wouldn't have even been close.
It's sad enough SF concentrated on something else in stead of concentrating on winning the game. It's sadder fans here make a statement like this.
What to apologize? At that play, Cato was at fault letting his man storm through him and late arriving Yao came to cover up and help defend the rim. Amare did a strong play. But Yao really had nothing to be ashamed about it. The refs owes Rox an apology for letting Amare do that without giving him a T for taunting.
I like what Steve did. It was wrong but in morale he was just sticking up for Yao and the team. I was pumped.
Yao did dunk on Amare after he grabbed a offensive rb in the 4th quarter, but I won't call it a facial.
It wasnt a facial becuase Amare didn't jump up to play defense for it to be a facial, I'd call it more like a chestful, which was all that Amare got in his face, Yao's chest
Edit: My bad, after reviewing the tape, Yao dunked on Amare when Steve pass him down on the low block, he did a spin move to get Amare out of position, then dunked on him, again, no facial was shown. PS. Yao did call for the ball after he got dunked on, but our guard turns it over on that procession.
This has to be one of the dumbest topics I've seen around here. First of all, Yao scored 29 points, 19 rebounds, 6 blocks. He's 7'6" and does not need anyone much less Steve "Fancy" to defend him. Second, what SF did was to committ a flagrant foul - he was damned lucky the official didn't call one. In fact, the officials erred because they called a double technical on both he and Amare when this was all Francis' doing. Maybe if he'd approached the game itself with the same degree of intensity, he wouldn't have stunk up the TC last night. As for the dunk in question, it was a great athletic play - Amare simply rocketed right by Yao for the jam. This is the NBA and the other guys do have skills.
I don't get why people are so obsessed with "facial" dunks. It can only be a facial when the defender tries to defend. Is it worse than those defenders who duck out of the way of just stand there not doing anything? Also, I believe you should "stand up for your teammate" only when the opponent take cheap shots or dirty tactics. Getting upset at opponent's showboating is just doing what your opponent wants.
Just to let you all know, a while back I've started a ticker on all the so called dunks on Yao. I know that it isn't an exact science because it's hard to operationally define what exactly constitutes a dunk on Yao (especially if he's scrambling over on help D). What I basically used is any dunk/layup in which Yao had position to get a block/altered shot (ie. under the basket within 4 feet of the dunker). All of you would probably be surprised that (even with his supposed softness), with the exception of Shaq, in the last month and half or so, Yao outdunks his opponents by a fair margin. That is including last night, where Yao dunk 4 time over Amare (I didn't not put Voskul into consideration since Amare is the topic of this thread). The other fact you all might be interested to know is that, when the opposing team drives to the basket and Yao is around, >85% of their total shots are blocked/altered/challenged. Surprised? I was. What I am getting at is, although Yao is FAR from being perfect, so many fans (many that don't know what they are talking about) suffer severely from what psychologists call selective memory and availability heuristics (how easily one can remember examples of some kind of event indicates how coomon the event actually is), completely ignoring the base-rate information (data about the frequency or probability of a given item). Amare dunks 2 times on Yao on help D, people remember that, ESPN shows that. They don't remember how Yao blocked Amare's shots 4 times and dunk on him 4 times. They also don't remember, how in general, Yao alters so many shots it's not even funny.
amare was not showboating or taunting - he was showing some emotion after a mean dunk. for most of the night he could not make a shot and was pumped at finally making one. it would be one thing if he got up in steves face, but there is nothing wrong w/ showing some emotion. just like when yao screamed last year after that monster dunk in atlanta. did any other rockets fans think of that as showboating? most of us here were mad that he got a technical. amare's gesture was the exact same thing. steve was an idiot for elbowing stoudamire. not only cause it was unwarranted, but because stoudarmire would destroy steve if it came down to a fight. steve is lucky that he did not get tossed for that elbow - he is also lucky that amare is more mature than he is and didnt hit him back. rocket river
As I have said before, the best way to not being dunked on is to simply walk away when someone is ready to slam the ball. Is that what you guys want Yao to do too?
