article link Adelman the remedy Rockets need 10:14 PM CST on Saturday, November 10, 2007 Don't take this as a knock of Jeff Van Gundy. His greatest failure was geography. Any coach who is in a division with San Antonio and Dallas will have his playoff position undermined. But Rick Adelman is the right coach to nudge the Rockets past the first round, a place they haven't visited since Texas was a republic. OK, it hasn't been quite that long. But it has been too long for a franchise that grew accustomed to championships under Hakeem Olajuwon. I'm not making this proclamation because the Rockets are off to a 5-1 start. I make it because Adelman will build on the defensive identity Van Gundy established. I say this because Adelman's offensive creativity is what the Rockets need at this stage of their development. It hasn't materialized yet. Houston sits in the bottom half of the league in scoring at 96.8 points and ranks in the bottom third in field goal percentage. "I don't think we've been very good offensively," Adelman said. "We haven't found a really good balance to our team yet. That's going to take time." Houston's struggles to make the transition should come as no surprise. Adelman was blessed in Sacramento with instinctive passers on the front line. Chris Webber, Brad Miller and Vlade Divac often initiated the offense in the team's half-court sets. They would see the pass before it opened up. Yao Ming and Chuck Hayes? Not so much. So Adelman is simplifying what he asks Yao, Hayes and his other big men to recognize in order to get a play started. He wants to find a way to get Shane Battier more shots. And he wants to put the ball in Tracy McGrady's hands on the elbow a little more. "I think it's going to develop," Adelman said of how much he asks McGrady to take on in this offense. "I think the biggest thing with a guy like Tracy is you have to give him a variety of ways to attack the other team so they can't lock in on him so much." The other priority is to get a feel for the best way to use Yao – when to post him up high or down low – and for how long. "That is something I've got to find out," Adelman said. "I've played him both ways. I've given him a short rest where he doesn't play long minutes and other times I've played him a whole quarter. Personally, I think he's better not playing a whole quarter." The defensive principles Van Gundy instilled gives the players and Adelman time to figure all this out. Houston's defense ranks in the top 10 in scoring and field goal percentage. "The team's identity defensively is something I don't want to lose," Adelman said. "There are too many guys here, Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier, Rafer Alston who are very comfortable and smart defensively. "I know the offense isn't going to all come at once so we'd better keep that identity." Defense is why the Rockets are off to a 5-1 start. But a better offense is what should lift Houston past the first round.
I am starting to get really, really annoyed with all these premature proclamations that Adelman was somehow the "missing piece" all along, when statistically the Rockets seem no different from last season (may be even worse, in some cases). Oh well, it's the nature of sports journalism these days...
from this interview, u know he's emphasizing balance. so i really do think he asked tmac to reduce his shot attempts after that dallas game. as the team gets more acclimated, then he will resume the set plays for tmac. but i like what he wants out o yao now. just simplify it for the big guy.
They may be the same statistically but stats don't always tell the whole story. I think I've seen Yao and T-Mac get more easy buckets than they got all of last season. Ok, I'm going overboard a bit but they are getting easier shots, and the team is actually scoring off the break.
Along with the offensive rebounding, one stat is clearly not the same. Yao Ming's minutes per game During the JVG era: 33 This year: 38
