I wanted to start a thread where we can discuss our offensive plays in more depth. To be frank, I don't feel I have the requisite basketball knowledge to talk about it in great detail, but I'm hoping I can learn from the more knowledgeable posters here. My goal is to, at some point, be able to view and analyze our offense, and how the players perform within that offense, at a much more substantial level than I am currently able. Unfortunately, my google search for "07/08 Houston Rockets Playbook" came up empty, so hopefully this thread can be used to compile the details of our offense. I think Clutchfans is a great resource for basketball knowledge, so I'm hoping many people can contribute. It can be any details about the offense you observe and would like to share. It can be diagrams you find (or, even better, create) illustrating some of our offensive plays. It can be video clips from our games. It can be interviews you happen to come across. What I don't want is for the thread to devolve into a debate on how certain players should be used (e.g. should Yao play in the low post or high post). My hope is that, in time, there will be a very informative compilation of knowledge about our offense. I know I'd definitely benefit from it, and I think others would too. Here's some stuff to start with: Feigen's article on our offense, with quotes from players/coaches. A nice, short overview. (source) Diagrams of some of the most used plays from Adelman's 05/06 Kings team. (source) Offensive Sets explained by Hoop Tactics: Princeton and Triangle That's what I got for now. I welcome any other information you guys can provide.
Here is a decent article from an AOL sports blog to get things started. Yao's Worried About Life in the High Post Posted Oct 27th 2007 5:32PM by Tom Ziller Filed under: Rockets, Houston Rick Adelman's arrival to Houston sparked plenty of outside elation, as the Rockets certainly have offensive talent which has been... underused of late. But life in Adelman's motion offense -- specifically the high post -- is making Yao Ming nervous, according to a story by the Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen. "To be honest, I'm thinking about this right now," Yao said. "Being in the new system, I think I don't want to take away my advantage on the low post. That's still my game. Adelman says Yao will spend two-thirds of his time near the basket, and the rest at the elbow playing the screen-roll, pick-and-pop and backdoor passing game. Even that deliberate shift away from the basket will put Yao in a whole new mindset: NBA.com Hotzones feature indicates Yao took 28 of his 819 field goals from the perimeter... and most of those were on the right baseline, which isn't in Adelman's playbook. Rough math would suggest Adelman wants Yao to take about five times as many shots from outside this year (allotting for lots of non-shooting touches out there). Is it smart? No one can stop Yao in the deep post, and he's certainly not going to shoot a better percent from the elbow than down low. Add in he's one of the best free-throw shooting bigs in history (82% on his career). But less time near the basket does two big things: it saves him some wear and tear, and it opens up the offense for Houston's role players. Yao has deft passing skills, but doesn't use them often on the blocks. He can play quarterback from the high post, and his unprecedented size advantage will allow him to read the floor and get the best angles on the cutters and on the holes in the defense. Just breathe big fellow, it's all going to be alright. http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/10/27/yaos-worried-about-life-in-the-high-post/ Here is the link to preview the Rockets players "Hotzones" http://www.nba.com/hotzones/ Here Is Yao's "Hotzone" Chart From The 2006-2007 Regular Season Just For Example... <img src="http://qulw7q.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pyJF8z9NYc40nLdQpxUvHFU87YDfTUOevSfbmWppA0-jBH8FlsBtpkb3kquNwJvkIZApXvwsjISDhR9CDJAxrKA"></img>
the offense the rockets use now is a "read and react" offense. adelman uses some motion and some triangle in it. right now it's all new to them, so obviously it wont look as crisp and perfect as the 02 Sacramento Kings or even the current Lakers offense (when everyone is clicking). all i know is yao, scola or hayes will get the ball in the high post, and they have the option to pass to a cutter, or hand it off to someone coming by them. i really doubt we will look as good as the Kings did in 02. that is too big of a transformation in one season, and we dont have the personnel or passing to look that good.
Wow, super cool post. That Mavs scouting report is really detailed.. interesting seeing it from more of a on court perspective, thanks.
The post split corner in that Mavs article is the one that I have noticed them using most in the preseason games, especially when they have Yao on the court. Also a couple of times with Yao they ran that first post up sequence with Bonzi (Luther and Chuck ran it a couple of times as well) I really enjoyed reading those analysis links durvasa thanks for sharing them. The triangle offense is similar to what we ran in high school so I have a pretty good understanding of it (well, a basic understanding anyway) but the Princeton is something I think I would have to actually be on the court running through to understand its quirks. Kim will be really good at breaking some of this down after a few games... and if he has time.
maybe post a video of a play taken from a game, and we could study it. and over time we could add more video of the same play done at different time, to see slight variations. only problem is we would be helping our opposition scout our team
I found this old thread, created by Rileydog, from last Spring discussing how some of the technical aspects of the predicted offense. There's a lot of interesting stuff in that thread. Here's a sampling of some the posts which I thought were particularly interesting: chinkman85 describes some aspects of the offense and how it relates to our roster. (source) ghettocheeze provides his observations about Adelman's offense. (source) JayZ750 chimes in on how he thinks Adelman's offense will help. (source)
I'm not worried about that. I can't imagine any NBA team looking to an internet message board to help with scouting.
Just a little snippet from the Chronicle today. Again, if anyone has anything specific to post about our offense, please do so: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/5270330.html
Maybe I have already posted this here. If I have please delete. Anyways...the synopsis of the high post offense as taught by John Wooden. BASKETBALL GOD of COACHING. http://www.humankinetics.com/products/showexcerpt.cfm?excerpt_id=4010 "For example, when Lewis Alcindor (now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) joined our team, I didn’t think that having him start at the high post was in our best interest nor his. Although the high-post offense would bring him to the low post eventually, I didn’t want him handling the ball up there at the high post; we had other players who could fulfill that responsibility better. With Lewis at the high post when the UCLA cut occurred, his defender would surely sag and stop the cutting guard from scoring if he received the pass from the forward. In addition, I didn’t feel comfortable having him pass to the ducking weak-side forward. I wanted him close to the basket for scoring and rebounding reasons. Determined to create an offensive system that would take full advantage of Lewis without diminishing the offensive effectiveness of the other players or sacrificing principles such as ball movement and flexibility, I came up with a variation of the high-post offense that we called the high-low offense. Although it did not have the degree of player movement I wanted, it was effective, both against zone and man-to-man defenses. Only two of my teams used that offense: Alcindor’s and Walton’s. The rest used selected plays and versions of the high post." Then there is this: http://espn.go.com/ncb/2003/0212/1507738.html. The high post offense of UCLA. Adleman runs a variation of it. I believe Adelman will have to adapt with Yao and run the same type of offense that Wooden devised for Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
By the way, here are some beautiful high post plays drawn up in flash by a Raptors fan. http://www.snoware.ca/bball/Raptors2.swf
Cool stuff, poprocks. Thanks. It would be cool if the Clutchfans community could put together something like that (the Raptors plays) for the Rockets.
If teams are looking here for scouting they are already in trouble! As it is, teams about 10 games into the season will know exactly what set plays the rockets will be running, it's just a matter of stopping it, that's the same with most teams. Plus if the rox are playing RA wants them to be, than we won't be running set plays, it'll be reading the defense and making cuts off that!
RA's offense is a combination of what they did best under JVG and his motion. If the get bogged down running the motion, he has them switch to JVG's pick and roll with Tracey and Yao or Tmac and Hayes. with Rafer and Battier spotting up. I definitely like the quick shoot mentality, which doesn't allow for defenses to setup. I would like to see Yao post deeper for a quick entry pass.
Woah, forgot about this thread. Here's some Rockets links from "The X's and O's of Basketball" blog: Rockets Hi-Lo Flex Baseline Play Rockets Stack Screen Play for T-Mac Yao and T-Mac Pick and Roll
I don't think Adelman's intention has ever been to implement a true Princeton offense at Houston. At least that's what I remember from reading articles at the Chronicle. A real Princeton offense requires all five players on the court to be excellent passers and outside shooters, and I don't think that's possible with the current roster. Also, I don't think many of the posters here realize that there's almost no dribbling--the ball moves around almost exclusively with passing. So if Adelman's not installing a "true" Princeton offense then what is he installing? It's going to be some kind of hybrid, but I'm going to guess that it's going to include some of the features common to both the Princeton and the Triangle: 1) Read and react. The Princeton doesn't really have any set plays. It's more a style of basketball where the offense takes what the defense will give them. This system has the reputation of requiring a very high basketball IQ. Pete Carill's biography was sub-titled "The smart take from the strong", lol. 2) Lots and lots of passing leading to lots and lots of touches. Everybody on the floor should handle the ball on each possession. In the Denver game one of the announcers marvelled "The ball just moved from one end of the court to another without touching the floor once". That implies a balanced scoring attack. 3) Spacing. The Triangle and Princeton exist to a large extent as attempts to create spacing. 4) Easy paints in the point. Bullard said in one of the recent games that Adelman's offense could be characterized by open layups under the basket. 5) Open shots on the perimeter. 6) Patience. The offense grinds down the defenders with passing and ball movement until a breakdown occurs, leading to an easy basket. Unfortunately it's tough to figure out what Adelman's ultimate ideal is because the Rockets are usually only good at executing his offense every other quarter. When the Rockets get the ball count the number of passes and see how many of the Rockets get to handle the ball. When the ball moves all over the place and a bunch of players get touches that's a sign of progress. When one player hangs onto the ball for too long that's a problem. Anyone else agree/disagree?
