Have any of you noticed that the Rockets are passing it a lot more, and racking up tons of assists? Against the 76ers, we had 31 assists, and against the Sonics we had 30, did Van Gundy build some kind of new plan, where you can rack up so many assists, Alston's assists these 2 games have gone up, so have Shane Battier's.
Plus Philly and Seattle suck. Philly gives up almost 100 pts a game and has the second worst average scoring differential in the East (3rd worst in the league). Seattle gives up 102.5 pts a game. It's no suprise that we are playing better offensively.
JVG is utilizing T-Mac on the wing more, posting him up or letting him face his defender up. They still use that high screen but I like the movement off the ball.
The new offense: Get the ball to McGrady and make sure he takes the first shot of the game instead of Rafer.
the chicken or the egg? do assists produce offense or are they an indicator of one? in this case i think the assists are a by product of our guys making shots that they've had all year. besides, if you can't look good against teams like phily, seattle, and portland then your not a very good team, much less the HOUSTON ROCKETS!
It's all about who you play. 5 or 6 games ago the only guy on our team who could score was T-Mac, who was busy dropping 45+ on the Mavs to no avail. The only difference attributable to the team itself, as far as I can tell, would be Bonzi starting to "fit" in more and more...
The offense looks smoother because Yao is out. When Yao played, all the team did was dump it into him and watch. Very boring, very stale and it put too much pressure on Yao. With Yao out, it forces the other players to be more active on offense and move the ball around. This is what happens when our offense revolves around Tracy. When Yao comes back, it's up to JVG to continue what we have now. Yao will get his post-ups, but forcing him to touch the ball every time down the floor like earlier in the season would destroy our flow. Yao must be integrated so that the other players maintain their alertness and still feel involved. At the same time, special attention must be given to re-establishing Yao's low post dominance to make sure he gets fully tuned up for the playoffs. It's a fine line. Not to bash JVG, but I'm not sure he is up to it. I love the defense and what he's done so far this season.
Let's not forget the obvious explanation for our silky offense. Chemistry. I prey we can continue to do this when Yao get's back. Not only that but it seems like we are getting much less turnovers with more touches then we were with Yao is out. Understandably since Yao is the league leader with 3.8 a game,I think.
It is not the same offense.......when Yao went out they changed it up considerably.... No more is it inside out, but more often than not it is outside in... DD
The overall offensive sets aren't that different. Pick and roll, back screens for TMac, post ups for Bonzi & Juwon. The only real change has been that they run a lot more sets for TMac than they did when Yao was playing (pretty logical) and they run more pick and rolls with two smalls instead of a big and a small - also pretty logical given their size. Most of the post up stuff has been taken out just because Yao was, by far, their most efficient inside player.
Yes, but JVG has changed a lot of it up, Bonzi gets the ball in different spots, he is not at the 3 point line, Tmac is posting up, but not in the paint, about 5 feet from the side between the elbow and baseline. And, they are bringing Tmac from the side around the baseline across a backscreen for him to receive the ball on the opposite side of the court. It is different, but all part of the same......just watch the games right after Yao went out and the ones now..... There are a lot of different offensive sets.....and it is working wonderfully. DD
Yao does take away a lot of the drives when he is posted up...I hope JVG incorporates a bit more of the high post pick and roll, I know Yao does it some time, but it is really creating a lot of opportunities for everyone on the team. DD
