In NBA, most teams have their own identities, except for some blown up transition teams. Great teams have consistency in their organization and core, both in coaching staff and players, and they play the same style night in and out, to execute it to perfection. Young and growing teams with an identity have potentials to become better. Everyone around NBA says we are an overachieving team, so we must have done something very good. Power ranking just put us at 8th spot, and that's something we should all be proud of. Our pace is at 98.8 points per game, and ranked No. 1 in the league, ahead of Thunder, Spurs, Lakers, Mavs, Nugget and all the other 29 teams. Our offense rating is No. 4, but unfortunately, our defense rating is No. 24 only. So, what's our identity? What's our strength? What's our bread and butter? How do you compete? You want to utilize your strength to the fullest to compensate your weakness, don't you? Are we an experienced veteran team who can play lock down defense with switch flipping on? Can we make defensive stops at will to shut down our opponents? Hell no, otherwise we wouldn't be ranked at the bottom 20% in the whole league, defensively, would we? However, our offense is never afraid of taking any challenge, and we are able, and have proven, to run our opponents to the ground. Game situation changes all the time, one particular play/possession adjustment on the fly is absolutely normal. But how do you approach a game from a grand schema? You use your best weapon and keep pounding on it. You don't just spontaneously change your approach and throw away your advantage. Only rookies do that - let your one second emotion take over your brain. Worse yet, they start to collect all the excuses to "justify" such irrational decision. Patrick Beverly, as promising as he has shown in his limited minutes and contribution, he's no Bruce Bowen in his prime. With his addition, we don't become No 14 in defensive rating overnight. We still have a much bigger chance to beat our opponents with our high scoring, rather than playing a prime Piston style defense to shut down other teams. We are not talking about a few consecutive possessions to aim for stops, but we are talking about entire 4th quarter in an important away game. Mavs shot 9-17 in the 4th quarter, while Patrick scored 0 points in that period. You gave up your strength in offense, and didn't gain any noticeable difference in defense. I know it's hard to admit the coach made a mistake, even with clear logic and fact, as long as Lin is involved. Let's say we never had Lin, and AB was our starting PG all along, who's a worse defender than Lin. Then, let's all hold hands to sing high praise for McHale's decision of ignoring your well performing offense and hoping for a miracle in defense.
It's quite obvious what our strengths are - scoring. This team has no identity. You're not going to get consistency if your coach makes game-time decisions that run contrary to consistency. McHale, as well as what we have seen out of Sampson, strongly believes in giving more playing time to those who are currently playing well in the game. Unless you have a starting 5 of bionic robots, you're never going to develop a team identity when your players know that they have little room for error. Carlos Delfino, in his recent translated article, says that he has a lot more leeway and knows he can shoot 0-5 and still be relied on at the end of the game. Likewise, James Harden seems to have the longest leash in the NBA when it comes to making mistakes (esp. on defense). But looking at the point guard position, and on a lesser note the center/power forward position, you see something completely different. Ask Jeremy Lin and Asik whether or not they'll be playing in the 4th quarter the next game and neither of the two will tell you a concrete answer. It's nice and seemingly "the right thing to do" to give players who are performing well more minutes in a game. But as a coach, you cannot operate that way on a day-to-day basis. Over stretches of 4-5 games, if there is a pattern, then yes that sounds great, but to develop an identity and consistency on the defensive and offensive end, you need to know who your 5 games on the floor with 4 minutes left in the game will be. Players need to know who their closing team is. You can't have Jeremy Lin playing next to Harden one game, and then Patrick Beverely closing the next. It's unfair for both players AND its unfair for their teammates, who have to adjust to these sudden decisions.
Wow, well thought out and mature posts. Mirrored my thoughts exactly. Bench players play hell bent for the short spurts you need them to. Then you bring your starters back to close the deal. So when you play your bench 15 min straight, you hope to get 5 great min before 10 poor min. Why? because the bench player knows he's in there for 5 min so plays his heart out for that 5, because he does not expect to be in there 10 more min. Get it? How many times we want our players to know their roles? Well, how is that possible when the coach gives them no consistent rotations?
1. Lin/Harden penetrating. 2. 3 pointers When both #1 and #2 are falling you have totally lopsided wins. When neither doesn't happen, not very often as I can only think of the first OKC and SA games, it's the other end of the spectrum.
Damit, that's the reason we lost? Because Harden didn't butter his beard? Dam you Harden, get your butter on!!!
Damn Americanized Chinese food - In China, they don't pour soya sauce into every single dish, and Shanghai noodle is not really Shanghai noodle, and Beijing soup, there is no such thing
From the pass few games you gotta include Parson in it. He sure damn bail us out many times with the spectacular 3s. 1. Lin/Harden and Parson. 2. Asik monster rebounds
