[chron] Post-Yao offense continues to be a work in progress

I agree that Yao's defensive impact is overstated. He is great at clogging the lane defensively and picking up some blocks but you're right about his speed killing this team in team defense. I got so sick of watching him being beat by smaller guys over and over that I would plead with my TV for Adelman to bring Chuck Hayes in. Everyone remembers the nights where Yao was dropping 25/12 on people but nobody wants to talk about the nights when he would go give almost nothing offensively (or on the boards) for an entire half while having some no-name player drop double digit points on him using speed and cuts to the rim. Never happened to Hayes.

Offensively, we're kinda screwed. This team just does not have the personnel to run Adelman's offense. Need anymore proof? Look at the guy who moves without the ball the best (by far). He's a rookie who was drafted in the second round. Hayes and Andersen are great post passers but people will be playing Chuck for the pass when he is in the high post and other than Chase who is going to give him a moving target to pass to? Certainly not Battier or Ariza and probably not Brooks either. Hell, the best guy we had at moving without the ball (until Budinger) was Luther Head. That's sad.

The offense is going to be one of the following:
throw to Scola in the post and watch
throw to Landry in the post and watch
AB clear out (my favorite)
throw to Andersen/Hayes in the high post, make one cut (that the defense will guard) and then stand there when that didn't work

It's going to be painful to watch when teams learn that only Scola, Landry, Brooks and I hope Budinger can score a bucket without the defense literally napping. Defense will give this team a chance to win but the games are going to be painful.

 

There seems to be some misreading of what Chuck Hayes and Lowry said regarding Yao as a "crutch in the offense". The context of their statements was that they did execute the offensive sets but when there is a breakdown they had Yao to throw the ball to so that he could make something happen in the broken play. They did not imply that all they did was to dump the ball to Yao and get out of the way. That tactic was a Rudy T and Olajuwon staple albeit successful for a certain period of time.

Yao's absence is felt in that opponents tend to focus their whole defensive scheme on stopping him constantly double and triple teaming him, which in turn, opens up space for the other Rockets to penetrate, and especially, to shoot open three pointers.

I have watched the preseason games and it is quite noticeable that the flawed theory that it is difficult to penetrate when Yao is in the game because he clogs the lane, is not evident. On the contrary, opponents now just zone up the Rockets and there is very little space in the paint to penetrate because there is no one to double team in the Rockets offense. For all the hoopla about Brooks, he is himself having a hard time penetrating because it is obvious that the opponents just pack it inside whenever he or any other Rocket penetrates. They now don't have to constantly account for Yao in or near the painted area so they could just key in on whoever ventures in the paint.

On the defensive side, the middle is so porous without Yao, and Anderson has not shown any defensive ability to stop any penetration. Hayes is often overpowered by the bigger opponents. So there will be huge adjustments this year due to Yao's absence and the current roster does not have the size and talent to compensate for such a gaping hole both offensively and defensively. I can't wait for the 2010 season to start.

 

They should be improved in the pick-in-roll defense. They will have a hard time stopping penetration, but if they can rotate and stay in front of their man this will take some pressure off the defense. Then after playing great defense they really need to box out and rebound. If they fail at these 2 things it will be a long season. They really need to keep people out of the paint and force them into contested shots and keep them off the line.

As for Brooks, this guy needs to gamble more on defense to compensate for the lack of size. He has the quickness and speed and this should help him.

Iverson does the same thing, Brooks needs to do the same thing as well.

It's hard to jel with a philosophy for so long when so many new faces is in and out of the team. I'm quite suprised they been able to maintain that edge for so long as a team defensively.

With Yao out it's like trying to implament an entirely different offense and with his injuries it can be confusing at first for even some veterans, but i have faith. We have guys with good basketball IQ hopefully they will jel quickly.

 

Finally someone gets it.

People thinking our offense is going to be fine is up for a rude awakening. Tmac is our only hope, even than we going to miss our best defensive center on this team and Hayes is not a center.

 

our offense will not be much of a problem
actually, in the past 3 seaons, our winning percentage did not suffer at all when Yao sits. Stats don't lie
On offence, there maybe be times, say against a slow center such as Eddy Curry, that Yao will be missed, but for the most part, the guys will pick it up and make up for that 20ppg or so

 

Stats are also deceiving, unless you really think Zack Randolph is an elite 20-10 player.

Stats=50%, playing the game =50%

If we all thought our offense was better without Yao, we wouldn't be wondering if we can win 40 games or having Chron post articles about this.

But if you are just stat guy, than I guess you should bet that the Rockets will win more than 50 games.

 

Oh no
our offence is not better without Yao, don't twist my words
Offcourse its nice to have the big fella, who shoots almost 90% from the line!
but not having him won't be that much of a setback. and the stats prove it

 

The fact the Chuck Hayes is on the court indicates that the offense will struggle. Duh.

 

He can pass......

 

i havent been able to watch most of the preseason games, but is there any motion out there especially with yao and tmac out? because from what ive been reading, there havent been many.

and here i thought tmac's ballstopping and yao clogging the paint was the major reason why RA cant make the rockets go all out motion offense out there.

 

the Houston offence without Yao either flows really smoothly with lots of quickness and fluency, or it's like a headless chicken with no plan to put the ball into the basket and will probably end up with brooks chucking up a bad shot.

Before when we get into a scoring slump, we dump it into Yao to get the flow back into the offence, now we can only hope that brooks make a fadaway three

 

If Brooks learns how to be more a more well-rounded player in terms of passing than I think our offense has a chance of being effective enough to get us an 8th seed - assuming Tracy is either average or ineffective in his return.

 

Motion offense does require capable passers in addition to moving without the ball and getting to the basket. Our passing isn't good. Tracy is a ball stopper, but he is the best passer on the team despite that.

Adelman's Kings had a fantastic passer in Webber and Vlade was very good too. They made Bibby's job easier. Andersen,Chuck and Luis/Shane can help here,but if Brooks is taken out by his primary defender,(and we did see quite a lot of that in the playoffs despite his scoring),then we will be really dependent on Lowry for the most part in the backcourt.

 

It may struggle a little bit but it won't struggle as bad as the defense will when he is not in the game. Any combination of Scola, Landry, and Anderson in the game together spells disaster for our interior defense and a layup/dunk drill for our opponent. If there is one player that is critical to our success this season and will make the biggest difference, it is Chuck Hayes. Wait and see.

 

If we play all of our defensive minded players together, we are in danger of not scoring very much at all. In fact, we might set record lows.

If we play all our offensive minded players we may set records the other way, for most points allowed.

And unfortunately, a blend of the two, I'd guess would make us strictly an average team at best, which saddens me to say, because I'd love to see all our defensive minded players out there together (except I fear I'd have to only watch half the game).

 

agreed