CHRON: Rockets wowed by Adelman's Offense

Rockets wowed by offense
There's freedom for players within Adelman's system

By JONATHAN FEIGEN

AUSTIN — Before Bonzi Wells learned to love Rick Adelman's offense, he hated it.

He hated chasing Peja Stojakovic on back cuts. He hated the ball movement. He hated the spacing.

He hated playing the Sacramento Kings when he was with the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies. For all he has said about Adelman and his offense and the affinity he found for both during his one season in Sacramento, Wells' antipathy for defending Adelman's offense might say more.

"I knew it worked because I played against it for so many years," Wells said. "In Portland, Sacramento was one of our rivals. We used to play against them all the time, and I hated playing against them, hated it.

"I hated guarding Peja, guarding Doug Christie who cut all the time. Then Bobby Jackson came in and you think, 'I can take some time off, I got a small guard in here,' and he would run you crazy. I knew this offense worked. It really worked. I hated it."

He could offer no higher praise.

What's your name?
It has been called the Princeton offense. But despite some similar backdoor cuts, it is often far different from the offense Pete Carril took from his 29 years at Princeton to Adelman's Kings staff and the Hall of Fame.

It has been compared to Phoenix's style, and Adelman similarly will encourage fast-break jump shots if they are open. But there are other aspects starting with interchangeable guards and high-post passing big men — that could not be more different from the Suns' offense.

The term "motion offense" has been tossed around, and there is a lot of motion. But a college motion offense does not go against a 24-second clock that rules everything in the NBA. And Adelman uses far more "two-man game" with more post-ups than any college motion offense.

It is basically a movement-based, read-and-react NBA offense. When run well, Adelman will resist calling plays, instead letting his players determine where the ball goes based on what they see in the defense.

Wing players cut to the basket. Centers and power forwards often play outside and pass toward the basket. Every cut is followed by more movement to maintain spacing and create open shots if defenders overreact to the cuts.

"Basically, it's a series of three-man game and two-man game," said Rockets assistant coach Elston Turner, a six-year assistant with Adelman in Sacramento. "If the three-man game doesn't work, you flow into a two-man game. And at the right time, it's one-on-one.

"As a general rule, we allow our players some freedom to show their skills. We believe the spontaneous creativity, things that happen in the spur of the moment based on what the guy in front of you does is the hardest to guard because you can't prepare for that.

"It's exciting to watch and it's exciting for the guys to play in. If you have the ability to play, we allow you to do that."

In a Princeton offense, many of those hard cuts are designed to set up open perimeter shots. Even passes inside to a cutter usually draw the defense and lead to an open perimeter shot. NBA players at the same point would only choose between laying it up and bending a rim.

Work with Yao
The Rockets will have Yao Ming on the low blocks more in one game than some Princeton centers posted up in a season, though Yao usually will take his position within the movement.

"I think the back-cutting is Princeton," Turner said. "There is a combination of the triangle, Princeton and other things going on. I hear we run the Princeton offense all the time, but if you saw the Princeton offense, it's not really that.

"There are principles, helping each other out, back-cutting and reacting based on what the guy in front of you does. That's all Princeton concepts. But the actual movement and some of the plays are different. Princeton is more dribble handoffs and ball screens. They pass the ball more times looking for a good shot. We're trying to get the first available good one."

There are times, as in the triangle offense Phil Jackson has taken to nine NBA titles, after there is a pass to the post, the two other players on that side clear through. But in Adelman's offense, they as often remain on that side, spotting up at the strong-side 3-point arc.

There are many chances to improvise. "Splits," for example, bring forwards together in position to screen before sending them and the defense in a variety of directions.

"There are a million ways to (defend) the splits, but a million ways to react to the way the splits are (defended,)" said forward Shane Battier. "You can do a dribble handoff, a tight curl around the screen, fake like you're going off the screen and cut backdoor. That's a lot for the defense to try to figure out."

That's just the primary options off those screens. Every set has plenty of alternatives.

"We're trying to keep you off-balance from the standpoint of not making a lot of calls and doing things off reads and cuts," Turner said. "It's based on all five guys being a threat with movement and passing the ball.

"It's not always the cutter open. If the defense is really screwed up, the cutter is open. If the defense is played properly, the next guy is open, not the cutter because he is drawing two guys. There's different kinds of cuts. Back cuts. Slices. Curls. Dribble handoffs. Back screens. But we're just playing basketball. If it's in the game of basketball, it's in our system."

Free at last
Adelman said his best offensive players, Yao and Tracy McGrady, will still be put in position to do what they do best. But players rave about the democracy and freedom in the offense so much, they might as well be running for office.

"It's a free style," guard Mike James said. "Coach wants us to figure it out for ourselves. He understands that in the game we're going to have to figure it out. He's teaching us how to do that now, in training camp. One thing about the offense, it's constantly flowing. Everybody is touching the ball. You use your teammates to help you get open to get shots. It's not like one person is creating, and everybody else is standing. It's constant movement all the time, and everyone is touching the ball.

"It's easier. The defense gets lazy. The defense doesn't like that much movement. They like when you are standing still, and one person is dribbling the ball and they can all key on that person. In this offense, the defense doesn't want to play defense for 24 seconds, and you're going to get a lot of backdoor cuts. You're going to get a lot of open looks. You're going to get a lot of times when there is a cut, there is going to be help and a double team and know you're going to be open for a shot."

There is a lot of everything, which tends to make players happy.

"Those were some long nights in Arco Arena," Battier said. "It will be nice to be on the other side of it."

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/5194395.html

hmm, i wonder where we saw that type of offense?

 

adelman does teach defense. his kings team (when they became great) and portland were always top 5 in defensive efficiency.

i think b/c we have SO MANY weapons offensively and this offense emphasizes a lot of things, it's critical that he has them have it DOWN PAT when the reg. season starts. he does not want to experiment much when the season starts. he wants everyone to know his system when the first game rolls around.

defense is MUCH EASIER to teach in terms all u have to be is in position and play with effort. we have great individual defenderes already so it's not something that can't be done. plus we have a ton of hustle players.

 

that's a great concern in fact. i think we all know tmac is a much better individual offensive talent than clyde. as adelman sees tmac plays more, he'll know that.

and u should know that tmac plays BEST without the ball. last yr, his best way to score was off the screen and jumpshot or rolls around the screen and drive to the basket. those 2 plays were basically automatic for tmac. but tmac had to initiate the offense b/c no one else can. trust me, tmac off the ball is VERY VERY SCARY. sure he'll still get isos b/c he's so good, but by playing off-the ball, he'll be much more effective. so in that sense, i disagree with you. i just felt that had tmac play off the ball more v. utah, we would have won EASY.

for yao, it's tough to say b/c we need to see him in this offense and how adelman tailored it to him. under JVG, yao only played one way and that was post up. so we don't know how he'll adjust.

but trust me, tmac won't be clyde. adelman used that example just to say tmac having "less" responsibilities (so he can focus on scoring) can just be as good.

 

trust me, MOST teams don't know how to defend the pick and roll. kobe/shaq and the lakers back then were CONFUSED EVERY YEAR on how to defend the jazz's pick and roll, spurs' pick and roll. and yet they managed to win 3 rings (though they got swept a lot prior to that).

we struggled to defend the pick and roll v. deron too (but luckily our rotations were pretty good in the playoffs).

yao will NEVER be great at pick and roll D but u can't stop other teams from exploiting that. that's why we always give them jumpers if they want. that's how our D was good under JVG - prevent penetration into the paint and force jumpers.

scola could be decent b/c he has the quickness to rotate better than yao.

james/francis/tmac might not try hard every game, but when they have to guard their individuals, they can. in fact, they're all above-average to pretty good individual defenders.

trust me, sure our D won't be as great as under JVG but when u sacrifice that much offense for defense, the D better be great.

we're not sacrificing offense for D w/ adelman. our D will score b/c of our motion set offense (we aren't gonna run like phoenix after a score). w/ better offense, we will have better defense. players get more pumped up (esp. tmac). players have more energy. and they want to play harder so they can score.

again, good defense is all effort. this team WILL give effort. it's too big of a year not to.

 

yes, if phil jackson coached this team, i pencil them for the championship IMMEDIATELY.

tmac can create for the entire team under this triangle offense w/o moving an inch b/c he will post up and all the movement will be around him. w/ JVG, he has to move to create. and the triangle fits tmac and yao perfectly. but too bad phil is stuck w/ kobe.

again, i think mike james will play primarily w/ tmac and yao more b/c he's more of a shooter. and we saw how mike meshed w/ the team 2 yrs ago. he made our team better.

francis will play more w/ bonzi and the 2nd unit b/c he needs the ball more (it's hard to change your style) so adelman knows that. he'll put francis either w/ yao or the 2nd team more. i doubt francis will have that many minutes with tmac.

your concerns are legit. but i'm optimistic. after seeing how tmac had to carry the team last yr, it's always refreshing to see him just scoring all the time .

plus yao won't be so beat down by the 4th b/c of posting up every time.

 

again, your concerns with tmac are too much. if u know how he plays, he's much MUCH better when all he thinks about is score score score (see when yao went out). and score off the ball is much easier b/c all he does is either elevate for the J or drive. no need to do much dribbling which makes it harder.

yao i think will become clutch this yr b/c he won't be as fatigued when the 4th rolls around.

 

tmac had more help in 04-05 v. mavs (who were just much much deeper than utah) and he dominated like crazy.

trust me, when the game is on the line, the ball will be in tmac's hands. u just don't want it to be in it 90% of the time like last yr.

to have a higher usage rate than guys like kobe and lebron (who essentially are one-man shows) tell you tmac had MUCH MORE responsibilities than even those 2. u don't want that.

u want tmac to have a role like carmelo in the first 3 quarters (where he looks primarily to score). then in the 4th, he'll be the ultimate all-around player where he picks and chooses what to do depends on the situation (he'll initiate the offense primarily in the 4th still i think).

we won those games purely off of the greatness of tmac and yao + our defense.

but we also blew many games b/c our offense was so predictable and horrible. and that's why we couldn't blow utah out last yr even when our D was superb in the playoffs. utah could have been EASILY destroyed had we avg say 97-98ppg??? that's not much to ask either.

then when they played the spurs, who had similar D as us, but their O just toyed w/ utah.

again, our D will decrease by say 5-10%, but our offense will increase in efficiency say around 75%.