leebigez, pull all the examples you want, but all you are saying is why can't we be a Top 1-3 defensive team in the League. Your examples, Minn, Lakers, Bulls are all fantastic defensive teams. The full court doesn't make them fantastic, the players make the press fantastic. It is sooo the other way around from your thinking. And yes, Francis cannot press. Enough with that. He sucks. He can't turn anyone, and he's not a very good open court dribbler, either. That is why a one-man press works against him.
Well at least we agree on something. I still think this team doesn't play to the speed at which it talent should dictate, but thats a another battle i guess.
I have Playoff Envy. Okay, so our allstar pg can't dribble, can't run the break, doesn't have good court vision and can't play a lick of defense. For some strange reason, I feel like Rudy has had some influence on the make-up of this team, rotations, offensive and defensive schemes. Oh yeah, he's the freakin' head coach. Blow up this team, please.
Actually the reason we don't run the press is one of the reasons that Rudy T. IS A GOOD COACH. I know that someone else they mentioned hearing on Rudy's radio show his response when someone called in and asked him about running the press. Rudy, unlike most of the posters in this thread, actually studied the idea. He didn't just see it done by one team and decide to implement it. Rudy mentioned studying all the teams in the past years that have run the press, and how effective it was. He and his staff went through hours of research and tape to find out if it would be worthwhile. Through Rudy's research he found out that it wasn't more effective to run the press as the mainstay of a defensive scheme. Not all bashing of Rudy is misplaced. Rudy has done things that deserve criticism, but this isn't one of them. Instead it's a case of fans seeing something done once by a team with different personnel and thinking that Rudy is somehow lacking because he hasn't implemented it. Rudy is way ahead on this one.
So we agree then, right? Maybe we can have an actual conversation rather than blaming everything on the coach and using "Opponent Envy" to try to prove some point that if we just did such and such, then Mobley would be smarter and Francis would be able to dribble, run the break, press like a speedy 5'8 guard, have court vision to run Utah's offense, and actually play some defense....in other words, be a "real All-Star son."
Only offense. Francis doesn't care about defense, because endorsements and notoriety aren't given because of defense.
You all made some good points! I think there is no magic wand that says if you do this, this gonna happen. I am not saying use a press because it will work 100% of the time .... run a motion offense because .... so on and so forth. I suggest that you have to have a full bag of tricks you throw at your opponents. If something works, use it. If something does not work, try something else, and that applies to either end of the floor. What I've seen from the Rockets for 10, 15 yrs is the same old tiring stuffs ... Don't tell me we don't use anything new because we can't get them to work in practice ... This is not Rocket science, it's just learning to run some BB plays for god's sake!
Sure, we agree on some things. But its my opinion that the head coach has an awful lot of influence of what happens on the court. He decides who gets playing time and when. He decides who gets a green light to create for himself or to pass to someone else. He decides who has to hang out at the 3 point arc, watching and waiting for a possible kickout pass, while mostly checking his temperature with his thumb. He decides what players he would like to bring to the team, because he knows their strengths and weaknesses and how they will be used. He decides whether to play for the short-term by playing veterans at the end of their career to maybe get an extra win or two versus playing rookies, so they will be able to contribute more in two years or not. Like the chief operations officer of any business, he takes ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of that business. And if he is just a figurehead, why do you care whether he stays or goes?
rudy's never wrong. it's always the players' fault for not being good enough to run rudy's complex schemes... haven't you all figured it out yet?
Didn't say that. I said we don't use *some* standard things, because we can't get them to work in practice, better than what we can do. How is that so unbelievable? It is just a coaching philosophy to use what "works" in games, while practicing things to add to that, or responses to defensive answers. There is a lot to practice on this team. Rudy described once about trying to get Yao to use a crossing pick to come across the lane for entries...he said, "Maybe Cato is just better at stopping that than most people in the league, but we just couldn't get it to work in practice. The timing had to be perfect." So what did Rudy do in late December instead to get the fronting off Yao? He came out with the "fake PnR" where Yao fakes a pick at the high elbow area and pushes his way down the center of the lane, shielding his man if he tries to front him. That worked well. And Yao called it "My favorite play." You know Rudy never criticizes, right? If there is one fact about Rudy, it is that. Well, once last year he said (paraphrasing), "It is getting really frustrating. We can't add anything in practice that we want, because we have to keep doing remedial training. We keep having to drill the same things over and over." This is eye-opening because how many times do you ever read Rudy criticizing players. And this was last year when Rudy had an excuse of injuries to fall back onto. You agree that there is no magic wand to wave a King's offense over us without Divac/Webber as dual high post passers, or run Utah's offense without Stockton and Malone. But look at us. Our PnR seems to be just getting worse, or at best, stagnant. Smith and Thorpe ran that very well. It's not like Rudy's teams can't do it. This is a sign to me that they have to be drilled over and over and can't learn new things quickly, leaving a reasonable coaching philosophy to just stick with what works the most consistently. There's a middle ground here. I'm convinced Rudy does not share coaching philosphies with me or other coaches, but I honestly believe this system was originally planned to be runable like Dallas ... and it has on occassion. We just have no consistency or ability to add wrinkles to the offense, or respond to changing defenses. You say coach; I say Francis. You say tomahhto; I say tomayeto.
I don't think anyone said Rudy is never wrong, including Rudy. I don't actually agree with his general philosophy as he states it, but I respect it. I think he and several coaches share a lot regarding philosophies. I'm just saying a full court press is clearly wrong. One argument at a time there verse. Hell, they are not good enough to run a PnR consistently like Kenny and Thorpe did, and you expect them to run a "complex scheme." Who said anything about "complex schemes." You know as well as I do that Dallas's scheme is not complex. It is a series of simple, yet decisive, decisions. We lack the ability to even string multiple simple decisions together to create consistently good team reads and sets. All you have to do is close your eyes and think of Griffin's taking a swing pass at the key then hesistating before he shoots or swings it. When is the last time you've seen a Maverick hesitate on a swing pass. But, yeah, that's Rudy's fault.
Flip Saunders is a an excellent coach - Period. The bad part of all of this is that Minny's present success is gradually making my dream of landing a "frustrated" Garnet here in Rockets gear next season. I wanted a sweep of T-Wolves and a subsequent breakup of the team - too bad that may not happen again with this valiant effort they have put forward so far. I ironically found myself switching from initially rooting for the Fakers to sweep to now rooting for the T-Wolves to shock the world or at worst give them a bloodly fight. Thank goodness they won last night - they definitely desereved it.
heypee, can you honestly tell me that you would ever have eddie griffin in position to make a swing pass in the first place? i mean, seriously, what the hizzell is eddie doing anywhere near the three point line when he can't dribble, can't pass, and can't (consistently) shoot? it's easy to say "oh, but he can't hold position down low". well, sit his thin, weak ass on the bench with some myoplex until he's strong enough to get post position on people. our player freakin' development sucks. sucks big fat donkey balls, man. that's one of the reasons jermaine o'neal couldn't get pt in portland - not strong enough yet. but rather than putting him on the court and telling him to jack 25 footers, they put him in, let him take his lumps in the post, then told him to get out the game and call joe weider. our team? nah! go out and jack some more 25 footers, without serious repercussions. sorry, but i have felt for, like, years that our player development is horrendous. absolutely horrendous. and that does point to coaching.
This coming from the man who was screaming murder when Rudy wouldn't play Eddie last year until December. Admit it. This city and this bbs would have been screaming bloody murder this year had Rudy kept Kenny and left Eddie on the bench with no PT like Jermaine. "Kenny/Rudy is stunting the development of Eddie." Rudy hypocrits, pfft but you know I love ya, and think you're the best talent scout on the board. :smooch:
I only watched last night's game, so tell me if I am wrong. But, it seemed to me that every time the Lakers had success was when they did "break" the press and Fox or Fisher, or Kobe got the ball on the sideline and had some sort of fastbreak (the breakaway jumper by Fisher in the first quarter, more than one or two driving layups by Kobe, especially in the 4th). What I'm saying is, it didn't seem to matter that Garnett was down there. On the other hand, they were successful mroe often than not because of what went on in the backcourt, causing a little confusion at the beginning of theshot clock for the Lakers and putting them off tempo ever so slightly.
I thought you said he couldn't play the low block? So where are you going to play him? Well, that of course begs the question, When would they ever have success when they didn't "break" the press? OK, so we having interesting to watch closer next game. What I'd be looking for is how much pressure Minnesota can apply versus how often the long passes break it. watching how far Garnett creeps forward like a cheating safety in football. It is breaking the press with passes that go through the center that really lead to easy buckets, that make you scrap it. If you can get the offense going down the sidelines when they "break it" that's considered somewhat OK, and easier to recover from. It is indeed an aggressive/risky defense.
heypee: what i'm saying is that you let him try to get in the low block. will he be successful? no. especially not the first time. but with each successive try, he should get a little stronger and a little better at it. he's able to see his progress (or lack of) directly - and as he progresses he gets more pt. when i complained about his pt last year, i wanted him IN the game - not watching the whole damn time! he couldn't work on anything while he's on the bench. and the times he did get in the game and try to get in the low post, i saw small steps of progress. then, he'd get bullied around a little bit, then retreat to the 3 point line. THAT is when he sould have been pulled.
Right, but did they break the press, but still not have success at scorign because Garnett was back there? It didn't seem like they broke the press up the middle much at all - it was almost always on the sideline. As for Yao playing this KG position - I think he has the tools to do it but would have gotten burned way too much this past year as a rookie everytime the press was broken. Yao was surprisingly good at kind of playing that long, you might be able to get of a tough jumper over me but I'll hold off the layup until some of my teammates get back defense this year. As he learns how to avoid contact and fouling better, he should be able to do this. Also, we should be able to run a more effective zone int eh future with Yao, imo. Not all the time, but occasionally.
btw, heypee: i understand why rudy does this. he likes to let players do the things that they are comfortable with, so that they can taste a little successful early in their career. i just happen to have a little different philosophy.
