Yao Post Plays (vs LAL 3/11)

Wow great post!!

Yao is doing the best he can.
The rockets just need to work on making the passes crisper to yao so its an easy catch, and Yao needs to work on catching it at diffferent angles.

Maybe Yao should catch it and count to three and pass it out since we all know a double is coming and he usually he doesn't see it so if he counts to three he wont even have to know anyone is coming lol

 

Why is it that noone on the Rockets can pass to Yao? You never heard Parker not being able to pass to Duncan or Fisher not being able to pass to Shaq. Maybe passing to Yao is extremely difficult since you have to pinpoint your pass.

 

Yao has to move a lot more to beat their defense. no other way around. Also, we need a PF to get those damn rebounds while Yao was fighting with their bigs.

 

Oh, on the contrary, Battier and Lowry are great entry passers.

Yao is not athletic so you have to pinpoint the pass. The window is short.

But still, I don't remember any game this year where we have trouble pass the ball to Yao without the defense fronting Yao or doubling Yao.

Lakers is the only team that can give us trouble without having to front Yao or doubling Yao.

It has everything to do with Lakers' defense.

 

There were so many backdoor cuts that could have been made...

 

Yeah, typically the poor entry pass is the exception rather than the norm.

 

Great idea there Durvasa. I don't have time to watch each of the plays right now... but I look forward to re-evaluating it later.

The complaints that Yao can't seal his man I think are overblown. It's all about timing, between the passer and yao sealing down low.

 

During JVG's era he had, on multiple plays, yao flashing right in the middle of the restricted area for a quick shot. I have yet to see them ever run that play. Why don't they you that play ever (or more often, because truth be told I watch a lot less games live now than during previous seasons).

Yao needs to seal off his man, but he can't be doing it for 24 seconds. Seriously, you try sealing off someone for that long. Now try sealing someone off who's quicker than you. If they want to get around you, they eventually will, unless you turn around and grab them (offensive foul).

 

I've noticed that the guards, in this case that annoying dood fisher, made it impossible to throw a nice entry pass. why not have scola make the entry pass? I would rather have scola's defender go on the double team, than those pesky little guards.

 

sometimes yao kinda waits for the double teams to come. i guess sometimes it's our gameplan, since adelman doesn't want yao to bang hard in the low post every single time. but i wonder if yao should mix it up and split the double teams a bit more.

 

I think the Lakers saw this and capatilized on it. I noticed quite a few times where the defender at the top of the key faked the double team to draw Yao's attention while Kobe or Ariza brought the actual double from baseline.

Effective in this game, but I think that in a 7 game series they will have a harder and harder time confusing Yao and the rest of the team on how they are doubling and what the best way to counter it is(I hope )

 

Yao reposted, but was ignored:
#13, and #32

#20 was fouled but didn't get the call which caused a TO, while a similar play in #24 got a call finally on Gasel;

Unable to pass to Yao:
#36, #38. Especially in #39 Yao battled for the position and held it for a long time but the ball never came to him.

Sure Yao committed a few TOs (e.g. #11), but overall he did a good job getting the positions. Either due to tunnel vision or selective attention, a lot of fans just exaggerated what they saw.

 

Thanks for the amazing work. From the the clips I saw:
(1) Yao played not bad at all. He did what a center should do. Every time he touched the ball, he brought up some opportunity for the team.
(2) We need to train whole team how to pass the ball to Yao. Those turnovers were pgs fault most of them. If Yao was doubled, just attach the rim right away.

 

Yao HAS to share some blame for that, even if it's .0000001% of the blame. Gasol didn't just step in front of the play, he hung out on yao's side without Yao doing anything about it and then he just pushed Yao to the side to get by him. Yao needs to do a better job of using his body to actually block the player out and not just lean on him because then it's too easy to just use his weight against him.

 

Very good point above! As Hayesfan said, the timing is really critical for an entry pass between our undersized PG and the big fella.

In addition, Yao needs to review this game tape over and over to improve his decision making when facing different double-team defense which is also our coach's job.

 

There aren't a lot of offensive 7'6 guys for the "rule" to really be a rule. Yao's a moving target at times. You can't hit a moving target with a straight pass unless you get lucky. That means sometimes you need to fire a bounce pass to an area and let the target get it. I kow aaron isn't the best entry passer out there, but it's like killing the messenger. The team wanted to go to Yao, Yao didn't have solid position, and i think AB's was the best he could do with what Yao was giving him.

 

look at clip #19. Same thing as that play where everyone says AB messed up by throwing a bounce pass instead of an overhead pass to Yao's hand. Same side, gasol is once again hanging out on yao's side and Yao's asking for the ball. Battier makes that overhead pass and Ariza comes over from the weakside to steal it. Yao's waiting for the ball to fall on his hand instead of stretching his arm out, that's evident by the way his elbow bends when he catches it, that's all the time weakside defenders need to steal it. The entry passers just can't win here.