A study in lethargy; lackluster play, uninspired coaching, just a hate-session, all the way around. The place was a mausoleum. Really, the traffic that made me late and ensuing race-car driving I did to get there was waaaaayyyyyy more exciting. That, and the half naked Chinese guy dancing to the bee gees... that was actually worth a good giggle. Nets should be ashamed. Michelle even looked pissed and sullen. And that hurts me more than anything. Yao v. Yi = Yawn
I just got in too. I don't mean to come off wrong- but there was an article mentioning that it was in the Chinese culture on maybe why Yi isn't "aggressive" . That may be the case for the Chinese fans, as well. They were very quiet, and only cheered when Yi or Yao scored. No chants of defense, "let's go Nets" etc. etc. That's just my general impression based on the entire section I was in which was 95% Chinese. Yeah, the highlight of the game for me was the disco dancing as well. That's bad. Is it me, or are the foul calls REALLY obnxious when the female ref does our games?
I've been home for awhile, stewing over the game. So the white guy dancing in front of the chinese guy without the shirt I thought was better...better than even the silver haired guy. And the "dance contest" was way better than the so-called basketball contest. And yes, Violet Palmer may be one of the WORST refs to ever don the striped shirt -- in any sport. The last game she did here (can't remember which one), she was overruled by the other ref no less than 5 times (literally they had at least 5 ref huddles and each time her call was overturned). She is a menace to the profession. She even got a few calls wrong tonight in our favor. Last part of my game recap. Two things stood out for me. One...benching both Devin and VC with 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter (I actually went back and watched this on TIVO...didn't seem to even prompt a comment from Marv and The Czar. This hasn't happened in ANY game this season. And Frank never gives up this early. I didn't mind it. The other guys needed the minutes. Second...I thought Najara gave us some energy. He was aggressive offensively going to the glass (instead of forcing his rusty 3) and he wrestled away a few rebounds and trapped nicely and forced at least one turnover. For a guy out of the rotation for so long, I think he earned some minutes (and we really needed the energy).
To the last two posts: Najera is a 2 minute a game guy. He is done. Liability.(then again, we have a couple of those). As for Yi, he went up strong on one drive against 2 defenders; one of them was Yao. Yi scored. I started to jump out of my seat, when I realized that we're lucky to get one hint of aggressiveness a game. It is getting tiresome to know that he has the capability(not potential, but capability), but it only comes out once in a blue moon. As for the Chinese dancing-dude. I'm sorry, he wins. He took his shirt off and was dancing with his stuffed animal. He wins. As for Chinese fans. They were the only fans in there who deserved to be there. The only time the rest of the crowd got interested and got vocal... when sly and sly-midget threw crappy oversized t-shirts into the crowd, ironically, they were made in China.
That's something you shouldn't have said, because it might generate some bad feeleings towards chinese people.. By the way, Yi is one of the chinese people, who clearly didn't deserve to be there... I was one of his supporters, hoping he will become something, but i'm really starting to give up on him. He just doesn't fight at all... until now i wanted to upgrade our starting SF position through trade, but our starting PF is a much weaker link in our team right now... Bring on Nenad, Thorn! (and use 2 of Stro, Sean and Boone to get a starting SF also: Devin-VC-GWallace/Nocioni-Krstic-Lopez!!!)
I'm not Chineses and I was cheering louder then all them in my section and not for Yao or Yi, I said I hate Yao, and I didn't get killed
I went to the game with my family...first game I've been to in years...and yeah, I was pretty shocked at how quiet things were. It was the first game ever for my wife and kids, and based on the quality of the game, it will probably be their last for a while. :-(. My daughters (ages 6 and 4) became huge Rockets fans last night, though... especially for Yao Ming. Definitely the loudest cheers from the stands came when Yao or Yi scored... Half-naked Chinese guy won the dance battle. I thought the other guy was a "plant" (hired by the Nets), whereas the Chinese guy was clearly improvising. Old guy came in second, because his date was super-hot.
This is semi-true. Native Chinese in the stands will be the opposite of rowdy soccer-hooligans because they are, for the most part, not drunk, in a foreign country, etc. Additionally, last night, I'm sure most of the Chinese fans were there were NEITHER Nets fans, NOR Rockets fans...they were just fair weather fans that wanted to see Yi vs Yao (ergo clapping for both players). As far as culture is concerned in affecting Yi's style of play, I would estimate it is partially true. However, Yao himself sems to have been able to break through that constraint. There have been plenty of ESPN highlights of Yao posterizing someone and celebrating the and-1's. So yes, there is a bit of truth in Yi's lack of aggressivness, but it is NOT an excuse since Yao IS more aggressive.
But Yao's also older than Yi, and has been playing in the NBA a lot longer. It took Yao a while to learn that aggressiveness - I think it's a fair point that it might take Yi some time too.
