Rogue
04-23-2009, 09:51 AM
The triumph of game 1 almost convinced those rockets fans they would easily sweep the Blazers in the first round, but Brandon Roy said no aloud to the rockets fans and beat them to reality with a win in game 2. Although the game 2 was just a close win for Blazers and the Rockets also had a chance to win it, the improvements that the Blazers have made from game one really deserves a caution from the rockets staffs. After gaining one game's experience of the postseason, the blazers played much more maturely in game two and it's expectable that they will be even better in game 3 with 2 games' experiences, and that young team will only get better and better as the postseason goes deeper and deeper. In the first 3 quarters of the game 2, most of the minutes were under the control of the rockets team. The rockets had dug several leading gaps of 5-9 points during that period, but still not enough to stop the Blazers keeping pace with them. Obviously the Blazers speed up the rhythm of the game, which brought the rockets tons of troubles to the rockets especially to yao who is amongst the slowest players around the league. It was a good move for McMillan to make those strategies aiming at the flaws of the rocketst team, and they worked pretty well in game two. In responce, Rick Adelman also has got to make some adjustments to cope with the Blazers that have already gained plenty of playoff experiences in the first two games of this series. Even though the rockets have stolen the home court advantage and the next 2 games will both be played in houston, the coach and players of the rockets still have got to make prudent analysis and strategies on their opponent if they want to end their 2nd round vriginity this season, and I'm sure they do want to put an end to that shameful honor as soon as they can. Here are five keypoints I have got to offer Rick and the rockets, hopefully they will ignore the feud between the rockets and our boys in blue for a moment and make serious considerations about my suggestions.
1) The usage of Yao
With Deke out of the season, Yao is the only big guy in paint that the rockets can use to cope with Greg Oden who played pretty good in the first two games. Certainly Yao cannot play all the fourty-eight minutes of the game so he will have to share a dozen of minutes to Scola, that's may not be totally a bad news for rockets though. Although Scola isn't as dominant as yao or Deke at center spot, he still can be a solid presence in the paint that can keep this team afloat at least. If the rockets pick up their small-ball that they used well last season during the 12 yaoless winning streak, Scola will be even more efficient than yao in such a systerm. When Yao is down on bench, the other players are unescapably required to play good team work which is the keypoint for their outstanding records achieved without tmac. Yao's minutes should be limited to 20 or some in the first 3 quarters, in order to put in a 100% energetic Ming in the fourth quarter when the shooters generally get tired and less efficient ourside the paint.
2) Defense on Roy
Brandon was inarguably the Rockets Killer in game two, 42 points is even higher than yao's career high which is only 41pts, yao got the 41 pts a couple of seasons ago in a game vs. the hawks which were absolutely a scrub team at that time. Rockets have two great defenders in Shane Battier and Ron Artest, but neither of them is professional at guarding the small/quick guys like Roy, they can both take good care of the bigger F/Gs like Lebron and Paul Pierce though. With his awesome speed and quickness, Roy penetrated/slashed into the rockets paint time after time and dropped tons of points unstoppably in game two. Only their small guards like Wafer and Lowry are quick enough to keep Roy from breaking into the rim, but Roy's beefy body will help him eat them alive at low post if Rick throw either of them on Roy. The best choice for Rick is just to make a dense double team on Roy, just like what the other teams used to do on tmac. For the worst scenario, I would rather to let Roy make wide open shots off them paint than allow him to break in, his rate for jumpers are not nearly 100% at least. between two evils, Rick has got to choose the lesser one.
3) Ron at low post
Ron has taken enough shots in the first two games, but seldom of them were launched around the paint. Ron is also a pretty good shooter compared to his teammates but the low post is the place where he is most efficient, for the same reason JVG forced yao to give up midrange jumpers and to make every shot in the deep paint, yao is pretty good at jumpers though. In terms of defense, Ron's low post attack will definitely cost many calories of the blazers players whoever guards him, which will make their offense less dangerous as a result.
4) Aaron Brooks as an x-factor
Before the postseason began, many rockets fans were concerned Aaron would become another playoff choker like Luther Head who only scored 4 points in the entire series against the Jazz in 07. With his awesome performances in game 1 & 2, Aaron has already proven he is capable enough to take resposibilities in the real tough games like the playoffs. Of course the blazers will strengthen their defense on that 2nd grade PG who is also very light and skinny. Bigger challenges are right around the corner for this young PG, it's very unknown whether he will conquer them and continue to make the contributions he is supposed to make to the rockets, or start to play bad like his predecessor Luther Head. To some degree, his performances will influnce the game more than Yao and Ron's.
Believe.
1) The usage of Yao
With Deke out of the season, Yao is the only big guy in paint that the rockets can use to cope with Greg Oden who played pretty good in the first two games. Certainly Yao cannot play all the fourty-eight minutes of the game so he will have to share a dozen of minutes to Scola, that's may not be totally a bad news for rockets though. Although Scola isn't as dominant as yao or Deke at center spot, he still can be a solid presence in the paint that can keep this team afloat at least. If the rockets pick up their small-ball that they used well last season during the 12 yaoless winning streak, Scola will be even more efficient than yao in such a systerm. When Yao is down on bench, the other players are unescapably required to play good team work which is the keypoint for their outstanding records achieved without tmac. Yao's minutes should be limited to 20 or some in the first 3 quarters, in order to put in a 100% energetic Ming in the fourth quarter when the shooters generally get tired and less efficient ourside the paint.
2) Defense on Roy
Brandon was inarguably the Rockets Killer in game two, 42 points is even higher than yao's career high which is only 41pts, yao got the 41 pts a couple of seasons ago in a game vs. the hawks which were absolutely a scrub team at that time. Rockets have two great defenders in Shane Battier and Ron Artest, but neither of them is professional at guarding the small/quick guys like Roy, they can both take good care of the bigger F/Gs like Lebron and Paul Pierce though. With his awesome speed and quickness, Roy penetrated/slashed into the rockets paint time after time and dropped tons of points unstoppably in game two. Only their small guards like Wafer and Lowry are quick enough to keep Roy from breaking into the rim, but Roy's beefy body will help him eat them alive at low post if Rick throw either of them on Roy. The best choice for Rick is just to make a dense double team on Roy, just like what the other teams used to do on tmac. For the worst scenario, I would rather to let Roy make wide open shots off them paint than allow him to break in, his rate for jumpers are not nearly 100% at least. between two evils, Rick has got to choose the lesser one.
3) Ron at low post
Ron has taken enough shots in the first two games, but seldom of them were launched around the paint. Ron is also a pretty good shooter compared to his teammates but the low post is the place where he is most efficient, for the same reason JVG forced yao to give up midrange jumpers and to make every shot in the deep paint, yao is pretty good at jumpers though. In terms of defense, Ron's low post attack will definitely cost many calories of the blazers players whoever guards him, which will make their offense less dangerous as a result.
4) Aaron Brooks as an x-factor
Before the postseason began, many rockets fans were concerned Aaron would become another playoff choker like Luther Head who only scored 4 points in the entire series against the Jazz in 07. With his awesome performances in game 1 & 2, Aaron has already proven he is capable enough to take resposibilities in the real tough games like the playoffs. Of course the blazers will strengthen their defense on that 2nd grade PG who is also very light and skinny. Bigger challenges are right around the corner for this young PG, it's very unknown whether he will conquer them and continue to make the contributions he is supposed to make to the rockets, or start to play bad like his predecessor Luther Head. To some degree, his performances will influnce the game more than Yao and Ron's.
Believe.