Early on Yao's shots were dead on. Then the Celtics got more physical with him and it distracted him. He needs to be physical back. Deke should show him how to swing those iron elbows. His 'bricked' dunks are beyond embarrassing. Yao needs to get over dunking is not the 'chinese way'. Most Chinese arent 7'-6"! So do it your way Yao and dunk the damn ball! I have a feeling if Yao were another race we wouldn't be giving him such an easy pass on his poor deep post play at times. There is no reason any 7'-6" Center should miss a WIDE OPEN UNDER THE BASKET dunk. Its worse than blowing a fast break lay up IMO. Those guaranteed two points cost us dearly. As well did Rafers tacky trash talking technical in the last few minutes. Skip needs to know when to shut up. Nevertheless, we only lost by 4 pts to the defending champs when our superstar had one of the worst games of his career. I think we are going to be alright. Being the avid video gamer Yao is, maybe he just couldn't focus on the basketball game. A lot of the 'must haves' for this holiday season dropped yesterday. Xbox 360 November 4th - Quantum of Solace November 4th - Tom Clancy’s EndWar Playstation 3 November 4th - Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm November 4th - Quantum of Solace November 4th - Resistance 2 November 4th - Tom Clancy’s EndWar November 4th - Valkyria Chronicles
Damn, you'd swear that missed dunk was like 4 missed field goals. its just 0 for 1. Yao was off of his game. Plain and simple. To start doubting him after one bad game in the first few weeks of the season is a joke.
It would be one thing if he had a bad game due to something special Boston did. No special double-teams, no fronting defense, nothing really special about the defense on Yao in any regard, he didn't get run up and down the court. He just had a bad game. It would be one thing if this was Golden State running Yao up the court and we could pull the old "you can run him off the court... he sucks" line.
i agree yao sucked at offense, but imo he didnt do a bad job defending the paint. ya sure perkins scored at will, but dude was on fire from mid range. even yao on a good day would not go out and contest those shots, dude was just hitting shots he wouldnt have any other day.
He was fronted quite a bit actually and doubled quite a bit. He had two really bad plays on the interior where he botched a dunk and pissed away an easy two points by tossing up a sissy layup. Other than that, he was defended very well.
Are you willing to settle for Yao's sub par play just because of your a fan? Good thing Coach Adelmen doesn't feel that way. A true fan wants Yao to correct BASIC mistakes, and play up to and eventually beyond his potential. There is no excuse for Yao not being able to dunk the ball while the surrounding Celtics curl up in a ball to avoid an easy foul. These are the Celtics, it is not Shaq and Ben Wallace we are talking about here. There is no reason Yao should be allowing them to man handle him like that. Clearly he was rattled by playing the 'World Champs' and could not deliver. If you are 7'-6" and having a bad game... Drive to the hole! If your offense is suffering try to force shots from point blank range. Hustle on defense and loose boards! Yao allowed his man to take wide open jumpers with out even flinching. These are inexcusable mistakes from a player of Yao's caliber. I am not bashing Yao, but I whole heartedly think he is capable of playing at a way higher level than he did last night. And even if he is having a 'bad game', a lot of his mistakes were basic basketball 101.
Yao's performance last night is totally unacceptable. Someone might argue everyone has an off night. True, but last night is not a simple off night. He looked totally lost on the court. He didn't defend, he couldn't grab balls falling to his hands, he couldn't dunk with no defenders near him. Of course, Rafer is worst so far. Yao at least had a couple of good games and still probably recovering from injury.
As a Chinese fan, I almost smashed my 50" LCD TV when I saw Yao was blocked by the RIM when he was left alone underneath the basket. Oh, it was an atrocious night for Yao! And it was supposed to be a statement game? I have seen bad games by Yao, by T-Mac, even by MJ, but none of the bad games are like this. Yao just lost all of his self-confidence all of sudden. To me that shows mental weakness. Yao need to gather himself fast, because he is losing trust from the fans and his teammates.
Hey, Yao expressed it was his worst game. I think our 20-10 guy can be excused from a crappy game from time to time.
Poor stats are acceptable from time to time, but Yao letting his performance get to him so much that was reduced to looking like a panicked kitten out there is not. I was very disturbed by how mentally weak he was in this game.
im disturbed by how your disturbed another man was disturbed. anywho seriously one game...i swear when yao has his ridiculous stat lines im coming after you haters.
spydermex, For the frustrated fans out there, myself included, I wish it were just only ONE game. Reality is, we've seen this weak pansy-ish side of Yao for a couple of years now, thinking/believing/hoping that he'll be a more consistent beast, vs. Boston or not. that's the frustration. we don't need layups. we prefer dunks. we don't need fadeaways. we prefer moves TO the basket. we don't need the Perkins of this world shooting open 10 foot Js. insofar as last night... if Garnett was on Yao all game, I could understand the matchup problems better. But Perkins???? Big Baby???? C'mon... You're 7'6" for chrissake and you still can't do better than 4 for 14 and 7, that's right SEVEN freakin rebounds in nearly 29 minutes of play??? ZERO blocked shots??? to say it was an offnight would be an understatement. theSAGE
I have been one of Yao's biggest supporters ever since he came to the Rockets and last night made me rethink about him. Sure, everyone has a bad night but this was not just a bad night. People have bad night when their shots don't fall, the ball bounces the wrong way or their opponents play out of their mind but this was not it. Missing dunks, layups, getting stuffed on jump shots, having rebounds taken away time and again, doing nothing on defense, not against Perkins or any guard driving the lane, the list goes on ... Yao clearly lost his confidence, he was intimidated, he hung his head and he resigned to doing bad half way in. In other word it looked like he gave up. I was embarassed for Yao. If you have a bad night, you fight and fight, you find way to do the little things to help your team, you don't give up. If this is the beginning then so be it, Yao will not lead the Rockets anywhere. Either Tmac or Artest needs to lead this team. Yao will have to be a role player. On offense, if he is on and can make his shot, play thru him. If he is not, you can't waste a lot of possessions trying to get him going. Save the little energy he has for defense. Actually, if we had another option at defense, I'd use it but since we don't,we will have to use Yao as a big body to at least clog up the lane. That's just my 2c.
Adelman really needs to readjust Yao's playing time. There is absolutely no way he can play 18 minutes straight in the beginning of a game (all of the first quarter and the first half of the second quarter). He's just physically not capable of it. Now granted, that was not the case last night. Maybe the early foul troubles got to him mentally or maybe the previous excessive minutes he played in other games got to him physically. Who knows for sure. Whatever the reason though, it's not a good excuse. Yao undoubtedly sucked it up last night.
