nice post, but i think it's too late for both of them to get to the finals. i've said this for 2 years now and here it comes again. tmac will never be "healthy" again. posters have been saying "when he gets healthy..." he won't. he has injuries that wont go away, he doesn't rehab. its best for tmac to walk away from the game before it starts affecting his every day life. tmac was 15-5-5 this year. after micro-fracture surgery, when every player comes back as a shell of his former self at best (at worst is career ending) you can expect tmac to be more of a role player has been star like michael finley. that's not worth $20M. the rockets should trade his ending contract this summer.
I don't think TMac will be dealt in the Summer and since his time table of coming back is more till Feb. 2010 I believe he will be dealt during the trading deadline next year.
I don't have the stats to back it up, but Tracy got Yao a lot of easy shots. On that pnr, he would come off, jump, and fire it to yao under the basket. Also, tracy would penetrate and basically spoon feed yao shots close to the basket. A healthy Tracy is a really good player and great decision maker. Shane,Yao, and scola played better when he's healthy vs not in the lineup.
Yes, of course there was. We damn near beat Dallas in that playoff series running just the Yao/Mac Pick-n-Roll alone.
If only we can turn back time. That is still the best set play ever. And what did happen to the Landry/Lowry PnR? I cant remember it once in this game.
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Artest can't do that. He can't run the P&R. In fact a P&R should be a staple in any offence and most of the teams run it. The fact is we don't have a single person to run it. I remember one game we lost this year I forgot who it was it was in the last month or so. Last play of the game was AB taking the ball and then Yao coming up for a screen and not rolling. There is no point of him rolling, noone can get ihm the ball efficiently anyway?
Yao didn't roll against the Spurs in the final minute and the Rockets scored 2 straight baskets to win the game. So i don't see why it's absolutely necessary for Yao to ROLL. It all depends on the situation. Sometimes it's better to roll, sometimes it's better to pop. If Yao was a horrible shooter like Dwight, then he should always roll, but that's not the case.
Actually, I am always thinking why Rockets doesn't play pick and roll when Yao is fronted. I mean not by Yao and the back court that tries to feed Yao the ball. Scola and Landry are both good at mid-range jumpers. If the power forward and the guard play pick and roll when Yao is fronted. The guard has too many choice to defend. He can penetrate to the basket and get easy layup because no big guy is under there. If the defender rotates, he can pass to our shooter, our power forward. If they miss, Yao is in the good position for the rebound. That might be a solution for fronting of Yao. As we have seen recently, even Dwight Howard started to front Yao. I am sure we will see this more often in the playoff. But so far I don't think we sovle the problem well. What do you guys think about it?
its been mentioned before who the hell is going to run the pick and roll with Yao. The pick and roll is only effective if the person is able to be a triple threat after he runs past the pick. T-mac is essentially the only person we have who is able to as listed before by someone: 1. Bury the mid range jumper 2. Slash to the rack 3. Hit the roller 4. Hit an open man You can argue Artest and Brooks can marginally do this. Landry can only hit the mid range, Scola should have no business running the pick and roll with Yao. Try look at Brooks run a pick and roll with Yao and it'll end up with a shot from Brooks 90% of the time. Artest will dribble it out most of the time too. Its a weapon lacking in our arsenal badly which is why in a way we need a wingman like T-mac
Yes. I agree T-mac is the best one in the team to do so. That's why I think we can only be a championship contender when T-mac is healthy. But right now, I think Lowry may do this. IMO he is better than Brooks in this situation. At least we should try. I hate to see the whole team is panic when Yao can't get the ball.
we'll have to wait and see. his time table for returning to action has little affect on his trade value. everyone will be interested in his ending contract, even if he never played a game again. still, i don't want to turn this into a tmac trade thread. the point is not having yao roll. yao not rolling is just a sign of the guard not being a threat on offense during this play. if the guards who run around yao's screen would look to shoot once in a while rather than just drive all the time, they might force yaos defender to step out on them. with no big man on him yao can then go to the basket and it doesn't take magic johnson to hit a 7'6 guy in the paint with no other big man around.
as the tallest center in NBA, yao reasonably needs a big guard who is relatively bigger than other guards. but our starting PG is among the shortest ones in this league.
I think the most notable use of the pick n roll was the dallas series and the third game of our 3-0 start last season against Bobcats. I think I remember the Bobcats game most because Yao, McGrady and Adelman specifically said the Rockets lost the game but got a win. I can vaguely remember Yao and McGrady repeatedly using PnR, and somehow we won the game when we were down. I think the video was on Clutch's old youtube account before it closed down, but I can remember them running the same McGrady-Yao PnR where we won because of our two stars and not a team effort. Then again, back then we could never win games because it was only McGrady and Yao scoring (remember 07 Jazz series?). Though that PnR was always executed perfectly. It's definitely because both McGrady and Yao are above average for their position, which makes the passes when Yao rolls almost impossible to intercept. A switch between defenders is also probably the worse thing the opposing team could do, due to Yao's size, a foul is the only way of stopping him (and Yao hits his freethrows better than anyone else for his position and in our team). There were so many options available for scoring with a McGrady-Yao PnR, but so little ways to defend it.
JVG said that like 2 years ago. a hobbled, post micro-fracture surgery T-mac is NOT the best player available for yao. this is a really good point. tmac was a great passer with great size. brooks is neither and lowry is just one of the two. however, no one said that only our PG's can run a PnR with yao. the player to run a PnR with yao should have the ability to pull up for the jump shot and finish at the rim, along with play making ability. the rockets should look for a player who can run this play effectively, then trade tmac's ending contract for him.
Not necessarily. Guards usually look to penetrate off of screens to get to the basket or make a play instead of settling for a jump shot. Our guards do draw Yao's defender sometimes. Just look at the spurs game where Duncan and Parker doubled Brooks. If Yao had rolled, Brooks wouldn't have the angle to pass it to Yao. There's no point in Yao rolling all the time. Even Shaq doesn't roll all the time because he understands spacing. The roller also has a responsibility to get to an open spot to receive the pass and sometimes rolling to the basket won't create a good passing lane.
Actually, the high pick n roll with McGrady and Yao has been a pretty ineffective play for a couple of years now....especially againt good defensive teams. At best it only creates opportuinites for the others not for McGrady or Yao. After the 04-05 season teams started to "trap" or "blitz" McGrady (with the bigman) on that play knowing he couldn't split it and rotate down in the lane to cut off Yao thus forcing McGrady to either reset or pass out to another player. Before, the big would stay back and his defender would get laid out on Yao's screen and McGrady would have the jumper all day...and if they did trap him the rotation wouldn't be there, Yao would roll and Mac would hit him with a bullet pass for an easy layup. The wing pick n roll with McGrady and the PF has been way more effective the last few years. I personally miss those pindowns and catch n shoot opportunities McGrady used to get before Adleman got here...I think they could run a few of those plays for Ron.
