I like your optimism. But don't hold your breath. He has not gotten better in the past 8 years or so. What make you think he will get better within this season? I am with the camp that low post play is not the bread and butter play for Dwight, so it should not be the center piece of our offense. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make the entry pass every now and then when he gets good low post position. But when he can't establish his position down low, he should just come out and set picks for a PnR or go to the weak side for a potential lob or ready for the offensive board. Force feeding Howard for post up is not going to work. It has not been working for years.
Our defense is the biggest flaw. We do not communicate well, keep missing our assignments, easily getting picked, and watching the ball too much.
lol @ clipboard warriors... you ever play ball on a team brother? I can't even count how many times I've been in a timeout where a coach draws up a play and within the 15 seconds it takes to get set up on the court 1 or 2 guys have already completely forgotten the play and force us to abandon the set. You all have this strange idea that because it's drawn up, it will work. Well what if *gasp* they switch the screen? What if they front? Oh my gosh, they may just blow up your play huh? The game is not some linear puzzle where every piece has a place and it fits neatly. Sometimes you have a guy like PJ Tucker who plays body-to-body and if your star player doesn't want to adjust, he will let that guy completely take him out of the game. I was on a team my whole life with a kid who won Mr. Basketball and he was the absolute worst person on the team at making adjustments or running plays. The first thing I learned when I went to play college ball was that timing was more important than the play design. You can set cross screens on the post (like Jones to Howard on the block as someone proposed), but if the ball is on the top of the key, you still have to pass it to the wing to enter the ball and usually they lose position. If you have the ball sitting on the wing waiting for the cross screen to happen, you will have an on-the-ball defender who will disrupt that play with ball pressure (not giving the passer a clean look). The key is to enter the ball to the wing as the screen is happening so that the ball doesn't ever "stick", but what happens if the PG out top has trouble entering the ball in to the wing? Seems a bit more complicated than the clipboard warriors want to make it appear, huh? Timing is much much much much much much more important than any stupid play design. Why does every single kids team run a version of the UCLA cut, but only certain teams make it work?
I did play in school, but not through college. If a play gets shut down, you adjust or you reset. I'm not sure what the point of your response is. Timing is important ok, but so what? Don't run plays? I didn't suggest that this becomes our only play nor did I say it was a guaranteed bucket. It's an illustration of what everyone has been already posting on this thread.
Yeah sorry about that - I didn't mean to single you out, but you had a pretty diagram that I couldn't resist quoting. I appreciate the fact that you were constructive and gave an example of what you would like to see done. I more so meant that to the people who are suggesting that we don't run plays, that we don't have any idea of what we're doing offensively or that the coaching staff at large is somehow less educated in the game of basketball than they are because they want to play off of Howard's post-up game. It's stupid that so many people in the beginning of this thread are bashing our near-league-best offense without ever comprehending the very basic functions of a professional offense or even the simple fact that players still have to execute everything that is drawn up. Setting up your defender for a P&R is an art, and CP3/Parker prove that on a nightly basis. Every coach can draw a P&R on a clipboard, but without the players executing the play, it is for naught.
lol that is funny actually. To Dwight Howard it will translate in is head like this. Mchale says "Dwight for each time you post up on the next play you need to do a PnR" Dwight mind translates it as "Dwight for each time I give you a candy the next time you go in timeout" It's quite clear now he despises the PnR and no I understand when Nash said he doesn't like to run PnR.
