Think it's time to incorporate a ball-movement offense that gets everyone Involved.

More Gordon from that article.

“Last year was the best year I’ve ever had being a part of a team,” he added. “We just never had a bad moment. If we ever had a bad game as a team, you knew the next game we would blow somebody out. It didn’t matter who it was.”

But Gordon paused after that. He realized that making comparisons between last year’s team and this one are useless. This team is unrecognizable to this point.

“We can’t compare this team to last year, because we’ve had a lot of changes. More young guys, we just have to look forward to what’s next.

“Look how they’re playing, that’s how we used to play. Sharing the ball, getting up and down and attacking. We’re not doing that anymore.”

 

I don't have stats to back it up, but it seems to me that we played at a fast pace with more ball movement in the first half of last year. Then we got slower and slower with more iso as the season progressed. Now it's at a ridiculously slow and stationary pace with everyone standing around watching harden and CP3 dribble around. The same way the team played during the Dwightmare year. Is that true or am I just remembering it incorrectly?

 

October to January: 9th, 99.45
February to April: 29th, 96.21

October: 20th, 98.31
November: 6th, 100.69
December: 3rd, 99.70
January: 10th, 98.43
February: 30th, 95.67
March: 21st, 96.83
April: 25th, 95.75

 

That's BS. I'm glad he's talking.

Big ass contracts like Harden, CP3 and Capela have been playing worse especially compared to their huge contracts

 

who cares who's playing worse. EG's main job is literally the easiest out of the 3. his 3pt ability has literally gone down the drain sitting out there catching open looks. what exactly is his excuse? oh its he's not having fun. got it

 

Low key the best post in ages

 

What it is time for is to recognize what our defensive issues are.

It should be clear to everyone that the secret sauce for last year's team revolved around our defense being able to both defend the 3-point line and also help out on opponent drives and post ups as necessary. That was all about the thresome of Ariza, Luc, and PJ.......all whom are VERSATILE plus defenders and able to defend bigs in the post, switch on to smalls, cover the 3-point line, help out on drives, and still recover to the shooter enough to contest,.......and then box out and clear the defensive glass.

Those guys have been replaced with James Ennis, House, Clark, Hartenstein, and.......and..........and..........yes, it's true......yours truly......Clint Capela playing 25% more minutes than last season.

And it's killing us. Just killing us dead.

The fact is that the more minutes that Capela and Harden play together the more exposed we are defensively. We simply CANNOT afford to run Capela and Harden out there together that many minutes and expect to win games.

That's two defective defenders that, in combination on the court, won't get us past the upper echelon teams unless you limit their together minutes. You get them in PnR like Utah did last night....and it's a disaster. The better teams spread us out and attack one or the other because we can't hide both guys on switches and they're both a mismatch against us in iso defense. And Harden is absolutely awful in pick and roll switches. Just awful.

You can't play Harden and Capela together without having three GREAT help and recover defenders around them. I'm sorry to inform you but Ennis, House, Gordon, and Clark aren't those guys. Clark is showing potential. But he's not good enough defensively to help and recover the Harden Capela blow bys.

Capela is not a good enough defender in this scenario. He cannot take up the slack from Ariza/Luc to Ennis/whomever. He's simply not quick enough. He has to make a choice, either help Harden and leave his man wide open for gravy or cover his man and let Harden/Ennis/House get rin to the house.

You can point to Capela's jacked up numbers all you want to. They're hollow. The longer he plays, the slower we have to play, and the worse our defense and rebounding get. Regardless of the great PnR chemistry he has with Harden he's a net negative on court with Harden and we give it all back and then some defensively.

(By the way, Kenny Smith spelled all this out for you very simply and very clearly last night.)

We are dead in the water until we get two more defenders of the ilk of Ariza/Luc that can limit Capels's defensive exposure in tandem with Harden, while simultaneously getting more shooting. We need to upgrade the 5 spot to a faster, quicker player that has a higher motor, can switch, help, and recover and do more than just catch and dunk offensively.

And those moves need to start to materialize today.

 

here comes the comic relief above.......

rinse, wash, repeat, copy, paste

 

E.G. Is not the problem. The problem is you have too much money tied up in CP3 (harden and Capela too) and he is literally giving you NOTHING. It is either nothing on the bench hurt or nothing on the court.
Harden is just literally dribbling the ball to death like Steve Francis then passing to E.G. With 1 second on the shot clock or driving to the cup and missing then complaining to the refs.
Capela got paid and now he is coasting making layups when he should dunk and flaunting that contract with that bird **** stain on his head letting erry one know he got paid.
E.G. will play better when the stars on this team play better.

 

Biased poll. Predictable, yes, but should be unstoppable in spurts.

 

EG is not the problem? ok, someone definitely hasn't been watching him play. he's definitely a problem. so all these open 3s hes been brinking for much of the year is everyone else faults ok. the same shots hes gotten since hes been here and up until this point was fairly effective. his drives to the basket and constant flaring and over exaggeration is everyone elses fault also.

dont know if you're just on some EG biased but you'll get nowhere trying to say he's is immune to any of the issues. that notion is just ridiculous

 

Capella is the most capable defender on this team. He would be the centerpiece of this team's defense if it had a solid identity.

Instead we switch everything and teams take advantage and make Capella switch to the perimeter where is actually above average paint defense and rebounding vanishes because he is guarding the opposing team's pg behind the 3pt line.

 

W-r-o-n-g

 

If implemented. . . . WE BETTER PLAY MORE THAN 7 PLAYERS!
Cause I don't want to hear **** when all the shots are short in the 4th

Rocket River

 

I posted this in the 'Ego not happy thread'... but seems to fit here...

It's all the iso/sticky ball crap that pisses guys off - or chucking 3s without trying for a better % shot... when its successful then guys can shake it off and be happy with the win... when it just leads to turnovers and bricks - it burns yer biscuits...

Guys want to be involved - at least touch the ball every few trips down court....
The last game actually had a good shot disbursement - but the horse is already outta the barn at this point...

MDA has sold his soul to Moreyball. This is not an MDA offense. An MDA offense is fast paced with constant ball movement - not plodding, dribbling the air out of the ball, no passes before chucking up a shot or 1 pass and shoot... Hell, if thats the offense we're gonna run - then we might as well bring in JVG and at least get the benefit of the defensive focus... lol

Everyone keeps saying we're not doing this cause we're old - thats why you run a deeper rotation - to keep guys fresh and energized...

 

how do you run a deeper rotation when the depth sucks. play mcw to keep harden/cp3 fresh. awesome

 

An egotistical gm will all of a sudden be open minded, unlikely.

 

It’s the defense that is the problem. If we get stops, everyone will eat. That should be Daryl’s focus at the deadline.

Also, Holic is such a tard.

 

Blaming E.G. Is like blaming the janitors for the Enron debacle. You blame the leaders on the court and coach, gm and owner. If they did their job you would win despite of E.G. NOT because of E.G.'s production.

 

so what's EG's job then? not to play well. must not be to hit 3s either like he has been since hes been here. cry to the media about not having fun also apparently. damn must be nice.