Rudy's offensive adjustment gets credit for Mobley's rampage

Rudy was quoted two weeks ago that the losing streak was a "perfect storm." They were in the middle of 12 games of no practice time, and getting hit with more and more injuries. Few adjustments could be made by the coaches without practice time or enough players to even practice. But, he did say they were going to make adjustments to get Mobley better opportunities.

Well, they did. 25ppg in the last 11 games and 34ppg on 49% in the last three is evidence. Sure he still had troubling nights, but that's expecting when the coaches were repositioning him and making him think more, imo. The result is that Mobley is getting the ball more out front, especially in his 3rd Quarter-timed rampages. He is averaging around 15 ppg in the last 3 3rd quarters. The difference Rudy is talking about is placing him more in a position to pass so that the defenses cannot double early. If they don't double, then it is a matter of driving into the seams or getting little Francis-eque 15' jumpers over a single retreating defender.

The defenses *must* respond to this. The more reps Mobley gets in the middle of the court, the more comfortable he is going to get. They cannot allow a player to score 30 a game at 50%. The key then is our reactions once the defenses adjust. In this relatively simple repositioning, Mobley as playmaker has many more passing options than before to use when/if the traps come, while another option against the traps is simply to go with another playmaker. For instance, against GS after Mobley's 3 minute, 11 point 3rd Q blitzkrieg, this made it extremely easy for Moochie to just drive. Look for Francis to be positioned here without a picker sometimes, as well.

<b>Moral of the story is</b>: Don't try to be what you are not.

Like it or not, we are a team of one-on-one studs, like Boston. With reps, we can add more complexity like Milwaukee, over time. One-on-one studs can destroy defenses in many ways. Mobley apparently needed only to be repositioned, which took practice reps with the team. Rudy is making the defense adjust, and from there will add more and more wrinkles. Rudy's philosophy now appears to be to win with your power first, and then adjust your system to more complexity by exploiting defensive adjustments to you. That is a philosophy many coaches use with young teams. The learning comes by building confidence in your power, and making adjusts as the team sees defenses adjust to that power. Do not give up on your power by scrapping an entire system to play like the Kings, pretending you have a team of great passers/shooters or sumpin ala Rick Pitino's great disaster, because going back to the blackboard is not guaranteed to produce something better . . . especially in the middle of a losing streak with no practice time, much less a full complement of practice squads.

 

And this becomes a matter of number. Sometimes the defenses will force us to beat them with Mobley/Francis, sometimes they will try to take them out of the game. Every game will not look the same. Sometimes we will have more face-ups than others. As long as we keep our turnovers down, like we've been doing, I'm fine with continued simplicity, and slow growth to complexity.

What we want to see is more complexity that creates more defensive mistakes, but we will never see the Francis, Mobley and KT/Mo face-ups go away entirely, nor should they. 24 second clocks favor the teams who can win with simplicity when needed; ie, just give the ball to Duncan when the Spurs bog down. Simplicity is required in 4th quarters and very useful to start the game as well.

How often do you see other teams pass around, with a lot of movement, then nothing because a poor offensive player got the ball too late in the clock? Then how often after that bog down do their fans think...just give it to so-and-so.

I want all our wing, guard ISOs to go away, which they largely have. I also want to see less and less 3-pointers. But when you think how sucky we are at the center position, I mean, they can't even help with passing; I have a lot more patience with Rudy's growth plan based on proving the power, first.

 

OK then,