I don't get it. I see the ball being held and dribbled out at the 3 point line for 15-18 of the 24 seconds. Then we just jack up some crazy shot so we avoid the violation or try to get an offensive rebound. What gives?
The Dallas D has something to do with that(esp the traps). The Rockets walking up the court(in part from playing more minutes) has something else to do with that. Still isn't as bad as the fancycat era though.
James holds onto the ball sometimes too much. When he's hitting his shots, it isn't so noticable. On Saturday, Mike couldn't hit crap so his propensity to over dribble was killing me.
Don't forget about Sura. I have seen him so many times dribbling out at the 3-point line and the time just runs out. T-Mac just needs to take the ball, drive it in, foul out Dirk and Dampier, and hit his free throws.
The Dallas defense is really disrupting things w/ the full-court traps and defending the picknroll much better. In the 4th, it comes down to guarding TMac. He makes our offense run and if you take him out of the equation (like they've been doing in the 4th), the other guys are good enough playmakers to make the offense run smoothly.
It's not Dallas. We have too many violations against any team. Two reasons: (1) if the ball doesn't go through McGrady or Yao, we lack players who can always create their own shots. They end up passing it back and forth aimlessly and ineffectively until there's no time less. (2) McGrady is so good at making his own shot, that every now and then he's unable to...and it completely takes him by surprise...so he passes to a guy without giving them enough time to take a good shot.
Yao takes 15 seconds to go from defense to offense. If plays are run for him, there are only 10 seconds left on the shot clock by the time he establishes position inside and gets the ball.