Yao is a very underrated defender. He was actually doing pretty well in Adelman's defensive system before he went down. Another bad thing with JVG , is that he was not utilizing Yao properly on defense particularly on the pick and roll. JVG would always repeat his hopeless strategy of letting yao flash on the point guard or the dribbler, leaving the roller wide open. It is simply physically impossible for Yao to flash on the pointguard where he would have to go outside his comfort zone ( this happened frequently during JVG) . The best way to utilize a big man like Yao is in a zone system where he only has to guard space or the interior. unfortunately, we never tried this under JVG because of his rigid nature. The zone is a very underrated concept which even the celtics used last season to disrupt offensive rhythm. Just as zone defense is underrated, Yao is underrated on defense. I would also like to add that it is sometimes unfair to compare players who played after the rule change where illegal defense was virtually eliminated and those who played before the rule change. Under the present rules, it is easier to smother a talented individual player with a zone like what the celtics did to kobe.
For the guy who said Yao is bad against players with mid-range game think again because he has shut down David west before, Amare Stoudemire, and Tim Duncan.
Well, according to the "fair and reasonable man" principle, that would be a strange way to look at my post.
He is a good, "old school" type defensive center. He patrols the lane and guards the rim. He is a good shotblocker and alters countless other shots. There are several problems he faces defensively. 1. He is not officiated correctly. Most of that is due to his size I hope. 2. He is sometimes forced to come out of the lane and help on quicker players 3. His lateral quickness is poor (although great for his size). Throw Yao into the 80s or early 90s NBA and he would be a defensive beast due to the old rules and what was asked of Centers then. Ask Mark Eaton. Of course in today's NBA guards get every benefit of the doubt when there is contact (or perceived contact). Yao is also victimized by the Rocket guards inability to keep PG especially out of the paint. You can't ask a 7'6" man to guard jet quick PG when they just lower their heads, run into Yao and get a free trip to the line. I think Shane and especially Hayes help Yao tremendously by stopping guards before they get deep into the lane and getting cheap fouls called on Yao. Many of the charges those two guys take would end up being fouls on Yao. Hopefully, Ron can do that too.
How well Yao's D holds up depends on who he is defending and how that player goes about attacking him. He does a good job agaisnt the post-up game, even when we are talking about good post-players like Dwight Howard, Kaman, and Duncan. He gives up a lot of open jumpers because he hangs around the rim a lot, which allows guys like Boozer, Mark Blount, and PJ Brown to have good shooting nights when they are on. He especially have problem against guys who can both hit the J consistently and drive on him-- particularly one like Boozer who has a ton of moves off the drive and can finish with either hand. So, the question is how you deal with this problem.
The only problem he has against is Boozer and possibly KG. I'm sure yao can take on CB4, because CB4 is more soft than downy.
Yao's effectiveness on both ends of the court, but particularly on the defensive end, depends on the matchups. He can be a dominant defensive presence against some teams, and a total defensive liability against others. It's up to the coach to recognize it and make the appropriate substitutions when needed.
All 3 of those guys play big minutes at center but I don't really care about his defense. That's the downfall of having a big true center. He can't defend the smaller,quicker, shooting type of bigs. Yao's problem is that he doesn't make them pay enough on the other end. Teams roll out Dirk, Amare, Bosh, etc on him because he'll allow himself to get pushed around in the paint by guys who are much smaller than him. When Shaq was in his prime you didn't hear anyone say anything about shooting 4's being matched up with him giving him problems because he MADE opposing teams put a big man in the game.
He's never really a liability, more so not as good as he can be, Against the warriors though, Rockets should start using zone defense, like Fred Carter had said on nbaTv.
Biggest part of that was that in Shaq's prime the refs let still defenders put their hands all over the other player and there was no such thing as an offensive foul in the post, not even when leading with an elbow. People say they'd like to see Yao play more like O'Neil, but if he did he'd foul out in the first quarter in today's league.
I think it completely depends on who Yao is defending. Against a guy like eddie curry - i'd say Yao will give him big problems. Guys like Gasol and Garnett will give Yao problems because they have an outside jumper and the quickness to drive past Yao. That's where he struggles. But Yao also plays excellent help defense making him a good zone defensive player.
But Yao did shut down David West last season when he was asked to guard him in the 4th It was on the Houston Chronicle and it said David Was shooting 1-7 in the 4th quarter when Yao Ming was asked to guard David west.
Yao is a good defender. 1: he is willing to play defense. 2: he is tall and big. 3: he can say "no postup" to anyone. Yao will never be an elite defender, because 1: his physical limitations: slow, stamina, can not jump, not flashy. 2: Yao has to invest most of his limited stamina on offense. There are no more than 5 players that can play both good offense and defense. 3: Yao's defensive number does not look pretty. He is a below average rebounder and blocker. 4: he is a Chinese. Many referees, fans and sports writers are racists and wont give Yao the calls, on court or on media. Yao's weakness is exaggerated to a ridiculous level. Yao was burned by Boozer and Kobe; Yao was beaten by scrub centers shooting 3s; Yao was abused by Shaq. who was not? Now, Yao is in the top 5 most overrated players? who the hell overrated Yao except Walton and ~5% of Rockets fans?
If the team needs to switch to a zone defense to make up for your defensive limitations, I would say that makes you a defensive liability in that situation.
To some extent yes, but what would you say about Patrick Ewing and shaq then? I highly doubt Shaq in his prime could guard any of those warrior playes either and same with Patrick Ewing or even Tim Duncan.
I would say Ewing and Shaq could be defensive liabilities as well in some situations. The difference is that they were more capable of forcing the opposing team to matchup with them, so those situations didn't arise as often. Particularly Shaq. In his prime, there's no way he'd let Don Nelson get away with playing small ball against him.
Good point, but Yao is still capable of all-defensive just like those guys were Yao's Defense is highly underrated.
that's an interesting point. i can't recall the details but ya know, one of the flaws with having your center shoot outside jumpers (david west) is that do you really want your center shooting outside jumpers??? but overall, i say yao isn't a guy who is nearly as effective 15 feet from the basket as he is 5 feet.
