The Rockets' offense has looked like complete garbage this series. One guy brings up the ball and it's dribbble, dribble, shoot, dribble, dribble, shoot. What happened to the passing? What happened to the assists? Back during the streak they were getting 25+ assists some games and drawing praise for how unselfish they were. Now for the series they're at 15, 15, 20 and 14 apg for the four games in the series. Is it any coicidence that the game they did win they get 20 assists? My advice for game 5: go back to the motion offense. Move the ball and keep it moving. No ball stoppers! A little more offense and the Rockets have a chance. And move anybody who can't play the system this off season.
yeah it looks a lot like jvg's offense of last year except with more passing to the high post and handoffs. i get a feeling that they're still reverting back to the old offense whenever times get tough. which means they're still not comfortable with adelman's system. like jon barry said it takes about 3-4 years to fully grasp adelman's system. problem is our window of opportunity is closing fast
If he doesn't like the system, he should be a man about it and keep his mouth shut during the season and do what the coach says. Then ask for a trade after the playoffs.
We haven't ran the offense the entire year...it has just been the T-mac PNR system, just like last year. This includes the 22 game win streak. In game 3 Adelman went to the offense we ran early in the year with a lot of T-Mac iso plays. I like the system we are running...running through our best player, and we are getting a lot of open shots. Guys like Bobby Jackson and Luther Head just need to captalize.
It is always easier to point fingers than to look in the mirror. Tmac points a lot of fingers.....just listen to the way he talks. He never says "I need to do better" it is always "We" but when he does well it is not "We imposed our will" it is always "I" Tmac is a conundrum, wrapped up in a riddle. Oh come on, Tmac is still the best player on the team with Yao out....Rick Adelman is not stupid, but I would be shocked if the team does not force the issue by next season. When Tmac was out, Adelman said "Screw it, we are gonna run my stuff" and the team started having success with it, we won for the first time without TMac.... Tmac came back and fit in early, and we went on a winning streak, but gradually over time, Tmac went back to what he likes, having the ball in his hands....and choked the offense. He can not do that and win..... DD
T-Mac makes it into slow-motion or no-motion offense. It's weird. When T-Mac's out, the Rockets moved the ball better.
You act like T-Mac completely said "screw the offense, I am going to run the PNR 100x and rebel against Adelman's system." That is false. It was Adelman's idea to go back to JVG sets because when T-Mac was running his system, the rest of the team stood around waiting for T-Mac to score. On the PNR T-Mac attracts more attention and gives our shooters more room. It is a major reason why our offense was scoring more once Yao went down and more of the offense had to go through T-Mac.
Actually, if Tmac didn't play Adelman's motion offense, but Adelman still played Tmac heavy minutes, I think it would mean Adelman's motion offense doesn't work at all in this playoff series. We all see that we were losing when Tmac was on the bench. I think Tmac is trying to play Adelman's motion offense, but because Jazz's physical defense, it doesn't always work. But sometimes, I think I did see some Adelman's motion offense. Of course, if the rockets want to that motion offense work better in this situation, they need to run more and need new strategy. I have confidence in Adelman and Tmac's talent, and believe they can find an effective way soon.
And when he was in the offense scored mored and at a more efficient clip, along with going like 20-8 without Yao.
As I said when Tmac first came back, Rafer was running the show and everyone was involved, but slowly towards the end of the streak, it had begun to revert to the old Tmac at the top of the key with the ball offense. And once the team lost, or faced some adveristy, Rick's offense went out the window for the most part. If your best player won't run the offense and play off the ball, or commit to it fully, you adapt.....but I have to think that Rick will force Tmac to adapt by next year or trade him. DD
As I said N times, If Tmac didn't play Adelman's way, but Adelman still play him heavy minutes, it would mean Adelman's way doesn't work at all in this playoff series. Actually, we were 1-2 to the Jazz this regular season. The only win is the 2nd game of the season, and I don't think they played Adelman's way. I am not saying Adelman's way will never work. Actually, I have confidence in him and always believe he is a great coach. The passed 4 games, the rockets' play were getting better and better. I believe he can find an effective way soon. Maybe, next game.
Rafer was only running the show because T-Mac wasn't healthy enough to carry the offensive load. Even before Yao went down we were back to the old JVG sets. Because Scola and Landry (and Bonzi before the trade) are our only great off-ball cutters, Adelman's offense is not a good fit for this team. T-Mac attracting double and triple teams and getting our 3pt shooters open shots is. Our success without T-Mac was moderate (8-6 with Yao as the centerpiece and T-Mac out), but it was against bad teams and the Alston was playing way above what he is normally capable of. It also looked good because Yao was straight ballin', and guys like Brooks and Head were really playing well. We could never sustain that level of play in this system because the defense would zero in on the shooters, Yao would be controlled by being fronted, and without T-Mac dominating the ball no attention would be drawn away from those guys to make their games flow easier. There has never been a Rick offense...just early in the year when everyone stood and watched as T-Mac lit it up with his scoring but the team was losing. And nothing changed after we had the decline after the 22 game win streak...just guys like Rafer started going back to sub-40% shooting, T-Mac himself shot like crap, and Landry got hurt. He does run the offense...the offense is the T-Mac PNR. It has been like that for months, and we have had our most success over the last 2 seasons with it. T-Mac himself had his best success early in the season when he was running off ball and getting iso's on the wing, but that was bad for the role players.
The motion offense was being integrated very slowly. The addition of Bobby Jackson was at least this year supposed to help with that integration. Then Yao got injured and it was a big setback. I look at the King's motion offense and all 5 players on the floor had strong offensive games... Bibby, Stojakovic, Divac, Webber, even Christie wasn't bad. From what I've gathered, we just don't have the right personnel to play the motion offense that well, especially given the injury to Yao. That's my take on it at least.
Stolen from Pryuen's thread: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D90B5C900.html
