LOS ANGELES — The ball and bodies moved rapidly, bouncing from one side of the floor to the other. Finally, a scorer was in a position from which he could not be stopped. From Luis Scola in the high post to Rafer Alston on a back cut to Yao Ming for a slam, everything clicked and the Rockets led the Celtics 2-0 on Tuesday. The problem? The fact that the moment became so memorable. If the Rockets could move through their “motion” offense reliably, such highlights would be routine, like the simple Yao jump hook to begin Friday’s game against the Clippers, to stand out. Offense not clicking So far, however, the Rockets have shown only glimpses of that significant part of their offensive plan. Getting the ball and player movement that Rick Adelman values so greatly has been the ongoing issue since he took over as Rockets coach before last season — and one of the problems that has kept them in the bottom third of the NBA (22nd in scoring and 27th in shooting) offensively. “We just have to find ourselves,” Artest said. “We’re still searching. It’s coming together. We haven’t played our best ball yet.” Despite assumptions about his offense — and his frequent displeasure with the ball movement — Adelman does not plan or even want to run his Sacramento offense. It would make little sense for a team with Yao, Artest and Tracy McGrady to run an open-post attack full-time. That would take them from their offensive strengths. Instead, Adelman wants the motion — and the ability to read and react to what it creates — to be a portion of his offense with the Rockets. “I think (the motion) is a part of it,” Adelman said. “That’s a good way to put it. (Sometimes) it’s a missing part.” Some of that will change as soon as Shane Battier is healthy. As much as he is recognized for his defense, he also offers spacing with 3-point range and is a rapid “ball mover.” It also improves greatly when Aaron Brooks and Brent Barry are on the floor, with Barry bringing the spacing and ball movement that comes with Battier in addition to being an effective cutter. Slow with the motion With the starters, however, there has been a tendency to rely on the stars’ one-on-one and pick-and-roll strengths. At times, that can help opposing defenses swarm, especially to Yao, as the Celtics did . On other occasions, it lets the stars take over, as Yao did against the Mavericks and McGrady did against the Celtics and Trail Blazers. Adelman compares the adjustment to his current stars’ styles to Phil Jackson’s changes to the triangle over the years, taking it from the Bulls with Michael Jordan to the Lakers with Shaquille O’Neal to the Lakers team the Rockets face tonight. Kobe Bryant leads this one, with Pau Gasol a very different frontcourt scorer than O’Neal. “It’s just happened,” Adelman said of how his offense has evolved. “You have to go through the experience and see what they revert to with the games on the line. We have to work on that so teams can’t just lock in.” http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/6102876.html
Scola moves well without the balll I think once artest and Mcgrady start moving we will be fine Those guys are he main scorers.
My complaint: I don't like starting the season with.... "We're still not 100%" "We have a long way to go/lot of work to do" "We haven't built chemistry yet" "Our players haven't recovered from surgery yet" "We're still finding ourselves" To me, that's completely inexcusable. On the first day of the season (every season!) we should he healed up, healthy.. we should know the offense in and out... we should have developed chemistry... we should hit the ground running.
Because he's the coach, trainer, teacher, mentor, boss, Don, General. Everybody needs to listen to him and he needs to man up, stop letting the players do what they want; let them do what you want them to do. Last year, during the 22 game winning streak there was great ball movement, along with the great chemistry. The chemistry will come but the ball movement is gone, so let's start moving. It's not like the addition of Artest and Barry changes a lot, like some people want to use as an excuse for the lack of chemistry and good basketball. They've had since the start of training camp to get acclamated and the only difference now in the rotation is Brooks instead of Bobby J, Yao instead of Deke, Artest instead of Battier, Barry instead of Head. So that's 2 players who were already there last year and 2 new ones. So stop the excuses and start running the offense. Also, get Deke back asap because we cannot survive much longer. Move Head asap and bring the finger wagging back; Phoenix is going to kill us without Deke as a back-up
I'm very glad RA sees the issues we're facing. Why doesn't he do something about it, instead of waiting for something to happen, though?
The most interesting part of the article was Adelman saying that we have no desire to resemble his offenses in Sacramento because of our personnel. He simply just wants to add more motion within our basic offense. This is a good thing. Getting Shane back will help.
What makes you think that will ever happen? Even when healthy, those two are statues on offense. It's all about one-on-one with Mac and Yao. If there is a double team they pass the ball. That is how it always has been and always will be with those two. Of course, if and when T-Mac's knee gets better, that will help but you will never mistake him for the Rip Hamiltion type. Tracy loves to play on the perimeter. He teases you every 10 games or so by playing agressive then quickly returns to his old habits.
