Yes, and it bothered Ralph Sampson a ton with Bill Hanzlick did it to him. Not so much Dream because he killed them on the glass when fronted, something I wish Yao would do more of... However, it is not just fronting that is the problem it is the weakside zone where a 2nd defender can cheat off his man and basically double off the ball..... That is what Yao is getting and where the new rules hurt him a ton. I think the Refs let players get away with 2 hands in Yaos back because they see his huge height advantage....he NEVER gets that call. I think Yao is the worst officiated player in the NBA......the difference is he doesn't retaliate and toss elbows, he is too classy for that..... And other players know this and take advantage of it. DD
We see what happened when Howard is treated fairly by refs. Normally Howard fouls way more than Yao but gets away with much more, and Unlike Yao, Howard gets the benefit of the doubt on offensive end as well.
You have gone off tangent. The discussion was how Yao cannot be guarded one one one. Examples were given of players who have had success in guarding Yao one on one to which you replied that it's because of 2 hands on his back. The problem with that theory is this.... The only way it works is refs are selectively not calling 2 hands on the back when played by Okur, Duncan, and Shaq. Because with others he seems to have no problem scoring against (without fronting ofcourse).
Shaq is the only one who really can guard Yao one on one. Okur fouled Yao a lot and got plenty of help from AK47 and other guys. Duncan doesn't guard Yao all that well as long as Yao gets the ball.
I agree with some of what you say about officiating and stuff. If you are a great player, you shouldn't have multiple teams u struggle against. We know dream had issues with Seattl from 94-96 because of the zones they played, but yao struggles against multiple teams. You brought up the fronting defense vs yao and how the backside guy is playing a zone, isn't this one of my reasons why shane should either be on the bench or traded? If that guy is a threat offensively to put the ball on the floor and would sctually move, he wouldn't be on the shoeblocks opposite waiting on the lob, correct?
Okur never got help on Yao until he was shooting the ball. That's not a double team, that's just contesting the shot. Also, go watch a quick guy front,half shade, or 3/4 shade yao and see how many problems that causes him. Go watch Philly both times with dalembert.
Yao got the ball stolen by other Utah players plenty of times when he put the ball on the ground against Okur, I don't see how you can call that "never got help". Your bias toward Yao make you blind.
Neither Okur, Duncan or Shaq can defend Yao one on one effectively. Just like Shaq or Duncan can't be defended one on one. They are to good offensively. Shaq is the only who guard Yao one on one the most, and Yao still get his points. Duncan pick his spot because he don't want to get in foul trouble or spent a lot of his energy on defense when he have to do a lot on offense and still get a lot of help from his teammate. Okur can't defend Yao at all, but is a good flopper, knows how to foul without getting caught and get a lot of weak side help especially from AK, Boozer and in the 7 game series vs Houston, Fisher. In fact in that 7 game series Yao score over 25 a game and went to the line 10+ times and should have been more. All this coming from a broken leg injury an playing alone zero offense Hayes and Battier alone 30FG% Luther Head.
Let me give u basketball 101 since you are having trouble understanding basic basketball. In team defense, when a post player dribble multiple times, the guards are suppose to "dig" the ball. When the big guy turns his back, defenders are also suppose to dig the ball. Teams employ this strategy to any big man when he's within 8ft from the basket. La did the same thing to howard and that's why he turned the ball over a lot. No team with good defensive concepts will let a offensive player dribble the spaulding off the ball and bump his man down until he gets to within 3 ft of the rim. Utah did not double yao. What they did was wait until he was in a shooting motion or if he was hesitant and dribble the ball a lot before they had guys dig the ball. If you watch the games, you will see ak-47 blocking yao shot once he was right in front of the rim. You can also watch the games and see the numerous times okur blocked yao staright up. When Dream played, they doubled him as soon as he caught the ball and even then it had to be perfect. Watch the games please.
Please throw away this "basketball 101" crap, you and DD seem to enjoy this when you have no good arguments. We are talking about help. As long as Yao is not guarded by one guy straight up from getting the ball to finishing shooting, that means the person who guards him got help. When Yao dribbles and a 2nd guy came in to stolen the ball, Okur got help. When Yao shoots and got swaped by AK47 from weakside, that's help. The 2nd guys must stayed closer to Yao than the man he's supposed to guarding. If you can't understand that, you don't have a clue about the most basic concept of basketball help defense, let alone your "basketball 101". Dwight got his ball picked by Lakers because Pau got plenty help from his teammates, you can't say Gasol guarded Dwight and shut down Dwight in this case. Same thing happened to how Okur guarded Yao. The only difference is Okur flopped more, and fouled more which got ignored by refs. Dream got doubled often doesn't mean Yao was defended by Okur straight up. There has no relationship whatsoever, so I don't know why you brought that up.
What i'm telling you and everyone else that bring up the lame argument is there is a difference between help and double teams. If you listen enough, people on this board believe teams always double yao and howard never get doubled. If u watch the games, u will see that teams do double Yao more than howard, but they also just help on Yao just like howard. Every good team defense rely on help and recover. Utah didn't double yao, thus it started the chain reaction of them being able to stay close to rafer,head, and battier. Those guys need space to be effective shooting the ball. Since okur didn't need a strong double, ak- 47 could wait until yao was in shooting motion before deciding if he was going to go for the block. If they were doubling yao, they wouldve had more space to cover.
why is this thread still open? and leebigez, what yao ever done to you man? why so much hate? should we trade him? get rid of him? what you think? one final point, Superman is averaging 4 TO per in the finals, ain't nothing super about that.
For those saying Okur "shut down" Yao in 2007, Yao was not really himself in that series after coming back from a broken knee cap. He could not elevate the way he usually did, and could not keep his position as easily, the way he did before he got injured that same season. Also, I believe Boozer played the best defense on Yao: By making Yao play defense on him for 30+ minutes on a much smaller, but quicker forward with a nice touch. I think that more than anything wore down Yao, not really Okur. Utah did use a nice defensive scheme with AK47 coming in from the weakside too. Yao is not used to having his shot blocked, so I'm sure it surprised him. However, when healthy, I don't believe there is a single man that can guard Yao Ming. I can't say the same about DH12. If you put somebody thats either bulky and strong enough, tall and long enough, and somebody who can run the floor with him, he can be shut down pretty easily right now. I think this series showed him that it takes more than pure raw athleticism and a couple of basic post moves to be a great post player. Yao can't learn to be athletic, but DH12 can learn a few post moves and foot work from Yao, Shaq, Tim Duncan, and Al Jefferson.
More importantly, Yao wasn't actually "shut down". His FG% sucked, but he shot around 90% from the charity stripe, and he shot a lot of free throws that series. I did the math once, and his TS% was something like 56% for the series - better than Boozer's. It was ugly and it was frustrating to watch, but ~25ppg on 56% is hardly being shut down.
I think Yao need not watch Howard. I watched Howard for the entire playoffs series against the Lakers, he is not as skilled as Yao. He can move better than Yao but when fronted he fumbles and turns over the ball like Yao. He can't shoot his freebies (FT) when his team is on the line. I just hope Yao does not get injured next season.
LOL, good luck with that. Yao needs to play less minutes and come off the bench, (become a role player). 2 years in a roll where Yao got injured. It's not a bad thing since the Rox play better w/o Yao anyways. The coaching staff are starting to see it, and everyone else is starting to. The Rockets are faster and play better as a team w/o Yao slowing things down, clogging the paint and fumbling the ball.
