Lineups, Matchups & the McHale Substitution Pattern

Seems that way but isn't that why he has a coaching staff Are they seriously that incompetent that our offense is coming down to a handful of set plays and the rest free flow? That's basically a lesser version of what Adelman did here.

 

I agree with the OP. Scola at the 5 is not working in the small ball lineup.

If McHale wants to go small, I wished he would run out Patterson and Morris at the 5/4 and let Morris have some time in the low post.

One thing about this team, McHale has known for a while that his only real low post back-to-the-basket player was Scola. So, he should have been developing someone else. Now, grant him this, he has worked on getting Patterson in the low block but Patterson still lacks in planting and catching the ball low. He typically starts his post move by catching the ball at the free throw line extended to the baseline and trying to dribble his way in to the low block. Takes too much time and isn't effective enough. I don't understand why McHale hasn't run Morris out there in the small ball lineup with Camby or Patterson at the top for the face up jumper. And I do know this, that small ball lineup with Scola may have worked once the whole season. Any quality team (which PHX is a quality team) is going to figure out how to get the ball low to their bigs and nullify it.

The other thing that is noticeably different now about McHale is he is leaving guys in there even when they are missing shots and fouling on the defensive end. Earlier in the season, he would yank someone who was doing that. Now Lee goes out there and clunks shot after shot, comes down the other end and hacks someone a couple times and he leaves him out there. I don't understand that one either.

If Lee isn't hot, why not yank him and run Morris out there at the 3 and move Parsons to the 2???

McHale has given everybody on the team the opportunity to play and then to play themselves out of playing time.....except Morris. Morris hasn't gotten any run with any of the main players, only a few smattered garbage minutes. I don't understand that. Especially when you are needing another post up threat and I would bet he's the second best post up player on this team right now.

On another note, we saw the Camby/Dally twin towers lineup a few games back now and it was very, very, very effective. We were able to shut down the paint entirely and get some runouts on someone and go on a run. Yes, it was during the game, I think the end of the first half. But it got us up in that game. And we haven't seen it since. Don't understand that one.

In my opinion, if I were McHale right now, I'd gently slide Patterson into the starting lineup. Goran, Lee, Parsons, Camby, Patterson. Our starters at the beginning of the year were Lowry, Martin, Bud, Dally, Scola. And all those guys can still play. But bring them off the bench together. Run that starting unit for 10 minutes with the floating adjustment being Parsons or Lee, if one of them is cold and we need shooting, get Bud in there earlier. Make sure we are getting Goran 35-38 minutes, make sure Camby is playing a rested 36 minutes, make sure Lowry gets 30 minutes, and it would be nice if Scola got 30 minutes playing against our opponent's second unit where Scola could have a much better chance of dominating in the post early.

If McHale brought Scola off the bench to play against the opponent's bench brigade and let Scola be the post option where the ball flows through, Scola would probably get it going and be able to give us a good 15-20 points off the bench in a much more efficient manner than he is currently doing. And he might just actually get hot out there and be able to carry us for a bit.

Coming down the stretch, our soft underbelly is being exposed. And it's the same thing it's been all season. Our interior D is just not good enough. We are much improved with Camby. But Dally has a head full of rocks and Scola can't defend a fence post out there. Patterson is doing okay but not great. And Patterson is a true PF. He's not a center.

As you go down the stretch, quality teams that are trying to make the playoffs or are trying to improve their playoff positioning are simply not going to settle for contested low percentage perimeter jumpers. They are going to penetrate like crazy and they are going to force the ball to the rim with post ups and back downs. I'm not saying they won't shoot the 3. They will. But it will be more and more wide open spot up 3 shots because the defense has collapsed in the paint and left a perimeter guy uncovered to set his feet, square up, step into the shot and take it at a true 45+% effective rate.

In other words, quality teams start valuing every possession and they eliminate the slop play, the cheap jumpers to get out of the possession early and not have to run through the paint again, etc. And defensively they start digging down every possession. And that is what we've seen the last two games, quality teams that are playing quality ball, taking care of the bball, penetrating ad nauseum, forcing their opponents to defend for 24 seconds each possessions and getting high quality shots. In that environment, you've got to have multiple quality bigs to go along with quality perimeter players. We've got one quality big that can defend (Camby) and one quality big that can score (Scola) and his game is looking very weak right now.

From here on out, every game against a quality team is going to be a war....a playoff game essentially. So, we are going to see what true warriors we really have.

As much as I hate to say it, it is time to make Patterson the starter and turn him loose.

 

we just need to make our shots and we'll be fine

 

That's not how I saw it. They iso-ed Patterson in the post like they sometimes do with Scola. That looked like a set play. Sometimes I felt like they thought Patterson was Yao Ming.

Someone may get the stats of how successful Pat has been in iso post up situations. I am guessing less than 20%. I don't remember a single time he scored on that play.

 

HE DIDNT PLAY EITHER CENTER AT END OF GAME. THATS THE POINT. I am about to start a thread

"Wheres camby and dalembert in the 4th?"

 

Scola needs to start. He usually comes out the gate on fire in the first quarter. Keep that going. But Scola's PT needs to be cut. I suspect that he has no legs in the 4th quarter. He's getting old and the cramped season is getting to him. He's not helping much on offense in crunch time and the only thing he can do on defense is grabbing. You need to keep him fresh as a scoring threat at the end and you need a paint protector playing alongside with him.

 

It seems to me that he likes to go small when we're down, which makes some sense. More drive-and-kick opportunities, more 3-pointing shooting, you can play at a somewhat faster tempo. None of that matters, though, if you can't get stops.

If you're up and its a close game, you should definitely close with Camby on the floor.

 

You can still do all that with Camby on the floor....it makes zero sense to go small with Luis at the center position when the other team has a true center and it NEVER works.

DD

 

Very good point and observation. McHale needs to get a good rotation going between Camby and Dalembert. Also Scola and PPat should play the PF positions.

 

The team wasn't getting many stops with Camby/Dalembert by the time they went small. They affect shots inside, but the Suns were spreading put the D with the use of shooting bigs like Frye.

In any case, the small lineups worked in the last 3 games. It was some of the big lineups that didn't work so well and got the team in holes as far as I could see

 

I was frustrated while watching it as much as anyone. I'm just explaining the reasoning behind it. Its not like McHale just puts players on the floor without thinking. Scola is a better offensive player than Camby and probably more familiar with how to get quick scores in the flow of the offense. When you're down and need to get back in a hurry you have do so with a quick, sped-up offense, which might mean using sub-par defenders and gambling that you can get enough stops.

 

So, why are people b****ing about the team going deciding not to stay with lineups that dug themselves a big hole and instead going with a lineup that almost dug themselves out of that hole?

Scola's flopping contributed to at least 8 free throws by the Rockets down the stretch by my count (6 on teammate 3 pt attempts, 2 on an lose ball foul). Scola was also playing better D on the pick-and-rolls than either Camby or Dalembert.

There are ways to second guess decisions that make sense. There are also always line-up experiments that dig yourselves into bigger holes. This is rather strange: people b****ing about line-up experiments that actually worked? Hmmm..

 

Camby is not a post up center. He's a face up high post center. If you're gonna go small, you need that one low block post up threat to space the floor. Without it, the opponent can simply scramble the perimeter and help on the perimeter. Because the defenders can move faster than the dribbler most of the time.


The reason our small ball lineup isn't working with Scola is Scola is not a 7 footer with post skills and athleticism. He's 6'9" and anchored to the concrete and a one-way player. You have Gortat guard him defensively, he's got to turn and shoot over Gortat. And then on the other end, you've got Scola as your big defending the Pick n Roll between Nash and Gortat. No contest.

That's why I'm wondering about our twin towers lineup. Where is it? We scored 105 points. That should be enough. We gave up 112. That's way too many. Our small ball lineup doesn't work when our opponent is scoring with the efficiency that PHX was scoring at last night.

 

Wait, you mean put the center at the high post and give Lowry and Dragic room to get to the rim, instead of having Scola down there trying to beat a true center.

What a great idea......wish I had thought of it......scratch that, wish McHale could figure it out.

DD

 

Nope! What will happen is Gortat will hang out down low and let Camby have the 20 footer.

Now do you really think we can win with Lowry and Dragic feeding Camby for the 20 footer after exhausting the shot clock trying to penetrate around Gortat?

Think back to Hakeem man. Or look at Orlando today. You get 4 shooters on the floor with a big man that can post up and dominate the paint. The idea is you move the ball in to the post for the nice little hook shot or up and under layup and when the perimter defenders help out, you burn them with the 3 ball.

 

My thoughts are why didn't we see this poll or post after the Chicago LA or 4 game win streak but it pops up now?

 

We were down double digits in the last quarter, so Mchale's solution is to put in our best 4/5 scorers, Pat/Scola. Their defense and rebounding costs us more points than they can create since their shots aren't falling... deeper hole dug... no way out, and Camby/Daly benched throughout closing time.
That's what I saw atleast.

 

You can space at the elbow with Dally or the 12 foot angle with Camby, both shots they can hit, and Gortat can not play in the lane, that is a 3 second call on the defense.

DD