Credit Where Credit is Due

During this win streak, certain players have stepped up, and we've been arguing nonstop on this board about who deserves credit. Omited from most of this discussion have been quite possibly the two most important "players" in the whole win streak: Adleman and Morey.

Morey has proven to be a great evaluator of talent and a shrewd GM. Carl Landry looks like a 2nd round steal, Aaron Brooks is loaded with potential, and Luis Scola has been HUGE for us. All three are rotaton players on a team 13 games over 500...as rookies.

Of course, some moves--like trading for James and picking up Francis--have been busts, but the mark of a good GM is that they give the coach as many weapons as possible in case one misfires. Compare this offseason and the avalanche of talent it brought to the two years past when we considered first Stromile and then Bonzi to be our lone savior, and you'll see just one way that Morey is a BIG improvement Morey is over Dawson.

Adleman took on huge expectations, maintained control through a bad start, and earned a huge amount of respect from his players. He did what any coach would do and gave the veterans (James, Chuck) a chance at the begining of the season. When that failed, he wasn't afraid to blow it up. All the while, he preached 48 minutes of intensity. He preached ball movement. He preached people movement. Now it looks like he's preaching to the choir.

Unafraid to tweak things, he's found a rotation that works, including 3(!) rookies. He's gone with the hot hand or the particular matchups of a game, and while he sometimes sticks with one player a bit long, we can't argue with the results. Everyone is scoring now. We're not a two man show anymore-- We're a team. It takes a good coach to make that happen.

Tonights game is evidence of both Morey's and Adleman's contributions. Our stars, Yao and T-Mac, shot a combined 9-38(for those of you playing at home, thats less than 25%, which is....ummm....gross), but we still pulled off a win against a defending NBA finalist. How?

We had more weapons, thanks to Morey. Scola was huge (15 pts, 8 reb, 1 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk) and Landy gave us a big boost (8 pts, 6 reb, 1 stl, 1 blk, and 1 citation for attempted rim murder).

We moved the ball well, thanks to Adleman. 23 assists on 32 made baskets is a spectacular indication of that. Combine that with only 12 turnovers, and it's clear that Adleman has this team in tune.

This thread isn't meant to disparage anyones efforts, i just thought giving a little love to people who probably deserve it is more interesting than arguing about who is/may be/used to be/is not soft. Thoughts are appreciated.

Htown.

 

Gundy does get some credit for establishing a defensive mindset. Adleman gets credit for adjusting it (keeping Yao low on pick and rolls, etc) and still making it work.

Rafer has played well. A lot of people have.

Despite all that, we don't win this game without an offense that shares the ball well.

 

I agree. Its far from perfect. I don't think any strategy is going to be perfect--Yao simply isn't mobile enough to gaurd a lot of high PnRs. I don't think that's a problem any one tactic will solve

What i DO like about Yao hanging back is that A.) He stops penetration--the open shot they get is a jumper instead of a layup, and, B.) Yao is in good rebounding position when a shot does go up (does this explain his increase in rebounds? Not entirely, but it may be a factor).,

Whether its the best strategy, though, is certainly still open to discussion.

 

Of course the players deserve credit for the win streak. I just started this thread because there was a lot of talk on the board about players and notenough was being said about coaching/the front office.

Players kept their heads up and kept listening through a tough time, and that's certainly laudable.