I wouldn't be a horrible idea to start lowly, to be honest i love both guys and i think they are both very capable. But your worn when you say Brooks can only shoot, he can score by driving to the rim as good if not better than lowly. And although he's not a pass first guy, he can make some great passes (last night to Battier for the late 3 that lead to the win)
brooks looks very comfortable with the 2nd unit. he can school the 2nd unit of any team. Bringing him in early in the 4th is the bridge to the last 5 minutes when we add back in martin and lowry. It's a finishing approach that I think we should try over and over. lowry is a balancer and brooks is a scorer.Brooks is the mvp if he can score in bunches and lead our team from start of 4th to end of game. martin as icing that is a fun deadly team. More exciting than what mobley and francis gave us in their heyday. At that point who cares who the starter is? Does everyone think brooks will be okay with this? I say he will as long as his leg is wobbly, and as long as he scores and we win.. the challenge will be to see how he reacts if martin and or lowry lose a game and he is not in there. Will he protest and be a baby? I think so and I think in the end brooks ego might be the problem going forward. As much as I really would like to see a brooks lowry martin lineup closing 4th, for some reason I just dont see brooks taking a shared seat. geez I hope I am wrong. martin brooks lowry so be so much fun!
I see what you did there. Seriously, Cat was no Martin, and I think Brooks is a better scorer than Francis.
oh man..someone FIND and BUMP that thread about lowry v brooks concerning who should start. along with others, i myself have been saying all along that he's more of a 6th man off the bench. he'll get his buckets, and more importantly it's not who starts but who finishes the game. i see him as a j-terry, j crawford, JR smith, kind've dude. hmm too bad his name doesn't start with a j...he'd be a lock in the running for 6th man. :grin:
This post is plain stupid. You're a Brooks apologist and this post confirms it. Jet, Bobby Jackson, Barbosa, & Crawford have all contributed to their teams off the bench. AB can do the same. Btw, who continues to start? It's ok to eat crow once in a while.
Durv, this is how I see it. The starting group with Battier, Martin and Scola is a well oiled machine offensively. It practically runs itself. It is fueled by Martins uncanny ability to come off screens and wrack up points. For whatever reason people believe this is all because of Lowry who doesnt really do any creating at all, he simply sits back, plays spot up shooter, plays defense and runs transition plays if the opportunity is there. FFS Battier does the majority of the setup in the offense.To me thats a waste of Lowry's abilities when Brooks could play the spot up shooter role so much better and he doesn't have to handle the ball very much. I challenge you to go look at the starting five for a few quarters and see how little Lowry actually touches the ball. The bench group on the other hand is not very good at running the motion offense at all. Neither Lee nor Budinger come off the screens very well to get open, Hill isnt nearly as good as Scola and Hayes at pnr and being in the right spot, so nine times out of ten it turns into a bad isolation play where Miller has to drive or its a turnover. How many times has Miller been stuck with the ball when the shot clock goes off? Seems to me like atleast twice a game. People always say "well Brooks can be a scoring punch off the bench, like Terry!". That is so stupid. With Brooks - Lee - Budinger - Miller - Hill there are zero people who can create for others and the players arent good enough (at the system) to use the system to create for them either. The bench needs a true PG and the starters dont. Miller plays better with Lowry, Budinger plays better with Lowry because he can create. The reason Brooks caught fire late because he was playing with the starters in a role that suited him, ie off the ball. Once they subbed in Battier and started adding back in the starters, it all began to click. You will see once Brooks is fully acclimated back into the system. I can almost guarantee you that Budinger, Miller and the bench crew will be much more effective, while the starters will be more potent with the added shooter.
Cato needs to be traded before the Rockets can do any damage. He has proven to be a bust at center. A pass first pg beside Francis should also be a top priority. Seriously, the positive impact of AB in the second unit was in full display last night. The game also showed the importance of Lowry as a court general directing the offense even while playing with AB. The Rockets looked awesome with some serious firepower, through AB, from the bench, and a true court general, Lowry, directing the overall tempo and flow of the game. Go Rockets.
Brooks won't be playing off the ball with the starters, unless Lowry is also starting next to him. And I don't agree with you that Lee and Budinger don't move well without the ball or coming off screens. Also Miller is quite adept playing within the motion offense and delivering the ball to cutters or players coming off screens. Better than Hayes or Scola, for sure.
Who cares on who starts and who comes off the bench... Every team is different with strengths and weakness also AB and KL bring different assets to the table. So you go with the hot hand and who's playing well... Basically, from the old school days you keep feeding the hot hand until it turns cold. Plus Sam Cassell came off the bench while Kenny Smith started and most of the time Sam closed the games out... People put too much stock into who's starting and who's coming off the bench. T_Man
I think you would be surprised. Re-watch the game last night, the second unit could not execute a single motion play.
Your analysis is severely, horribly flawed. Let's ignore the defensive implications of starting Brooks alongside Martin and focus only on offense. You need realize the importance of Lowry pushing the ball. It's not something that can be easily dismissed (as your attempting to do). If it doesn't lead directly to points/fouls, then it forces the defense to guard the nearest players which creates mismatches that the Rockets try to take advantage of. Also, you stated that the starters' offense is a well-oiled machine that is best served by a spot up shooter. Are you aware that Brooks is shooting 37.5% from the 3 pt line this season and Lowry is shooting 38.5%? And don't forget that if you relegate Brooks to only being a spot up shooter, you're wasting his ability to create his own shot. Lowry touches the ball almost every possession. Whenever Scola/Hill/Hayes get a rebound, they try to outlet to him. You continue your analysis by describing the bench players' inefficiency in running the motion offense. If this is the case, doesn't it make sense to have a guy in there that is capable of creating his own shot when the offense breaks down? You don't need Brooks to create for others. You need him to create for himself. How can you make statements like this and get upset when people call you an idiot? Budinger/Miller do not normally take contested shots. They mostly shoot wide-open jumpers. If Budinger continues to miss open jumpers, the only one who can do anything about it is Adelman.
This is a very naive way of looking at it. It is very important which lineup starts, because it sets the tone for the game. When Lowry starts, the team offense simply looks smoother and more efficient. If one cannot see that, then he/she is either an AB fanboy or knows nothing about basketball. RA said it before that without AB, they have to move the ball more, which is what motion offense is. Anyone that thinks AB's game style last year and earlier this year is Princeton motion offense needs to watch some actual videos of how it works. I can promise you that it is not AB's typical dribble dribble ISO play. Princeton Motion Offense - Live Action Basic Principles of Princeton Offense
Re-watch the season. Courtney Lee and Chase Budinger know how to come off screens. That's what they do in our offense more than anyone else. And Brad Miller operates as a passer in the high post better than any player in the league. And, again, Brooks was playing off the ball at the end of the game because Lowry was running the point. Using that as an argument for why Brooks should start in place of Lowry at PG makes little sense to me. The reason Brooks is playing poorly with the second unit is because he is playing poorly. It really has nothing to do with the group he's playing with.
Agreed -- he's coming off a severe ankle injury and hasn't really regained his form just yet. That said, I could see larsv8's argument shifting into Brooks being more comfortable starting and not being able to get into the same rhythm off the bench. Of course, we'd need to see a few more weeks with Brooks in the 6th man role to really judge that.
