Ball moving better without T-Mac?

This is so wrong. McGrady almost never missed a pass to a good cut. Just ask Hayes. If you look at his best assist game this season, the triple double one vs memphis, he didn't pass any better than he did in other games, but the other players run better and create themselves open lane directly to the basket. This whole motion offense is about running through picks. It's definitely a huge transition from JVG's offense system. I don't get it why ppl want to blame it on TMac that the other players are not running enough.

 

The best evidence of better ball movement is the number of different players who have been the rockets high scorer and the fact that prior to this stretch only Tmac and Yao were averaging double digits in scoring. That doesn't mean we are getting more assists over all, but it does mean we are getting more assists to a variety of different players. Players are starting to improve their shooting closer to what they did last year too.

Alot of our improved play is keyed to Rafer though. When your PG jumps from shooting ~35% and 9 points per game to shooting close to 50% and averaging 17 points a game like Alston has the last 5 any offense is going to look better. Only time will tell if that is an effect of coaching and Rick's offensive system, or just Rafer temporarily elevating his game.

 

Look,

The ball is moving better, no doubt.

But, it is not just Tmac's fault, the guys could move while he is in there but for some reason they don't...probably because they don't want to bring their man to Tmac...

If you watched early in the year, Scola kept coming to set a screen and Tmac waved him off......but now I think Tmac can see that it is beneficial because it frees up Luis for a wide open look.

I believe it all boils down to the adjustment period, and once Tmac comes back the team will be even better.

Players will have grown confident moving without the ball, and Tmac will have confidence in them after watching them play so well without him.

The adjustment period, is finally OVER !

HALALLUEAH !!

DD

 

Rafer has started hitting more. He was shooting 20% from 3 and 30% from the field the first 20 games of the year. Head came out of his slump. Battier came out of his slump(then went back into it the last few games).

The kinds of shots THOSE guys were missing(save Rafer's newly found floater) are the exact same shots they are hitting more recently.

 

I dont know if it'll make sense, but I can try to......Lets start with our offense with Mac. When he has the ball, he's going to put himself up a jumper, drive, or work on a pick n roll. If he drives or goes round a pick, chances are, he'll find a teamate for a shot. As a result, his assists pile up, and more of our FGs that we make are assisted on.....

While this is good and gravy, the problem is Mac <b>needs </b> the ball in his hands to be successful. He's not exactly selfish, he's needy. He's a pituful player off the ball. If he's in the game, and he doesnt have the ball, the ball can't swing with one player just standing there. The offense becomes stagnant, and flow dies, even if its momentarily. Remember, the ball can't go around the horn if one player is not situated correctly. So the problem becomes, that while we get more assists with him in the game, most of the assists are also coming <i>only</i> from him. This would not be a bad thing if its coming from a player like Nash, who shoots 50% from the field and averages 12.5 assists a game. But if this happens with a player shooting 43% with 5.5 dimes.....not good. I think you see the same thing in Cleveland time to time.....

Now lets compare that offense to our current without Mac. The ball goes into Yao, who, when doubled, passes it out to Battier. He swings it to Luther, who swings it to Rafer. Rafer, with the defender running at him way out of position, pump fakes, and drives in for an easy floater. In this instance, Luther will not get the assist. But the ball movement, and the offense flowed much better.

I'll give you another example. This time for Luis. Lets say Mac is playing, and he's trying to give an entry pass to Yao. More often than not, Yao is being fronted. Scola pops out to the elbow, and waits for a split second for a pass from Mac. Mac, instead, will demand him to come and set him a pick instead. All of a sudden, the play changed from one to Yao or Scola to Mac. In our offense now, when Yao's gettin fronted, Luther, Rafer, etc, are passin to Scola, who will either put up a wide open J (in this case an assist), or do his funky spin and finish (no assist, but still good offense).

 

Scola was tentative with his shooting early on. I think a T-Mac/Scola pick n pop is a pretty solid play. They double T-Mac, hit Scola. They go under the pick, T-Mac gets an easy 19 footer. They switch, T-Mac burns the 4/5 on him.

Also, about the other guys movement:

You mean T-Mac doesnt have a magic aura that causes the other guys shoes to become glued to the court??

 

I don't think McGrady should be handling the ball that much in the new offense. If T-Mac calls for the ball in the backcourt I hope Rafer waves him off. That would be leadership.

 

LOL, durvasa with the usual stats talk.

Stats is like biaytches, you can often pick and choose manipulate them to the way you like. by using percentages of assisted goal as a stats for ball movement, you need to make several assumptions first. With that being said, what about the total field goal assisted? Number of shots? Shots available in position of score because of the ball movement but not counted as assist because it takes a simple dribble to two?

 

If I remember early on, there were very few times that T-Mac would command the ball in the backcourt. Mainly would be the end of the quarter where he would penetrate or take a quick 3 from the top to get a 2 for 1.

 

Durvasa's main point seems to be that even with the better ball movement(and I think its actually better movement without the ball) the stats dont really show it.

 

btw, my impression is that ball moves better(obviously you need also off-ball movement to achieve that) and the fact guys are being more aggressive after they got the ball that result in better offense.

 

He's questioning it. He has obsession with stats, period.

 

Rafer pumps on the 3 and drives past his man for a floater. He can do that with or without T-Mac.

 

Well, I would offer PPG. 95ppg before the shift(which everyone points to as the Denver game). 98.4ppg afterwards. Scored 100 points in a game 6 times before the Denver game, and 5 times including the Denver game since.


Edit: About the assist. If I remember right, you get one dribble before the assist doesnt count. Or maybe its if you drive straight to the hoop you get one, not sure. I do remember the one dribble thing though.

 

I'm all for giving McGrady some wiggle room. He's a legitimate superstar. For instance nobody really complains when Yao gets the occasional iso play, and McGrady with his ability to elevate on the jump shot presents similar mismatch issues.

But the system is working right now, and Rafer has done a pretty good job of stepping up to be the floor general. Yeah, I'm as surprised as everyone else. The point is when T-Mac comes back he should try to have a light footprint. Stuff is working right now, so don't try and change too much. The team has something good going so watch it, observe it and try and ease yourself into the flow without disrupting anything. And that means, for the vast majority of possessions, that Rafer (or Brooks if Rafer's on the bench) brings it up the court.

And of course the team looks a lot better when T-Mac is the beneficiary of the offense rather than the initiator.

 

I agree, I also think some of the reason T-mac was doing point forward duties back in December, was due to lack of solid PG play by Rafer/James/Francis etc. I really think you will see T-Mac go back to the first few weeks of the season version where he was really happy with the offense and it looked good, albeit a bit confused.

 

take Scola for instance, a play where ball is moved to the weak side into posting Scola and he backed down and scores. This may not happen if the ball wasn't moving earlier in the shot clock. Yet it's not an assist.

I mean simplely the FG assisted per game. It could be for example, the assists are up but we are also scoring more which would render percentage biased. Not saying that's the case, just one example of possible stats-bias.

 

It isn't right to look at the assists as a measure of ball movement. The best approach is to look at the time percentage that a particular player hold the ball and the average passes of the team when this player stays on the court. The player holding 12 seconds is less passive than other holding 6 seconds in the same 20 seconds possession. The player with 50 passes in per game is more passive than other with 30 passes in other game, assuming they all have same number of touches. Pass might or might not lead to score.