You have worshipped at the altar of Mike D'Antoni and Don Nelson for years. If search were turned back on I could find multiple examples of you sayng how much you were into an up-tempo offense. You are trying to reinvent yourself as Pete Carrill now. You are more Paul Westhead.
stats don't tell everything my friend. arenas avg 28 pts last yr but he was EASILY one of the most inefficient scorers in the L. we score sometimes above 100, next night 80.
Captain LEAP to conclusions without data strikes again. I have always liked Sacremento type of bball.....and if it comes to JVG's boring ass slow down vs Phoenix style I would like Phoenix more too. Stop using your own biases as a basis for argument. DD
So at least you are acknowledging that you are repeatedly all over the map so I guess that is progress. It will be amusing to dig this thread up in a few months or years when you are whining about how the Rockets can't play defense and give up too many points in transition.
Maybe this will help explain it. 1. Pick and Roll/Backcut basketball 2. Free flow Fastbreak style basketball 3. Iso basketball 99.. JVG's style of basketball. DD
Rick has said over and over again that Yao will still be in the post A LOT. Rick wants to add to Yao's game, not take away from his dominance. Plus, Yao is arguably the best mid range shooter on our team. So imagine him being MORE dominant. Inside, and outside. Balance. [/QUOTE] Sure, he'll get easier buckets now, and he doesn't have to do as much, but if he wants to reach that next level of leading a team to the promise-land, he needs to have a much bigger role in this offense. I hope he doesn't turn into Clyde, because then he won't average any more than 21 points and he certainly won't average the 6-7 assists he averaged last season.[/QUOTE] Who cares what his averages are as long as we win? [/QUOTE]My worry is when good defensive teams figure it out, like the Spurs or Magic or Cavs or Celtics, with the 24 second rule, things could get REALLY ugly. TMac may not have the ball in his hands, and guys like Francis or James will jack up a bad shot that won't go in. I have no problem with TMac taking any shot, because any shot he takes has a chance at going in. But I'm just saying I'm worried against those 4 teams specifically, because they'll be defensively prepared and we won't have any structured, set plays to run.[/QUOTE] Yes good defensive teams figure out how to take you out of what you like to run. I think you'll find that the best thing about the way we will play this year is that the PLAYER has the power to make a read. To say there will be no structure is naive; (Rick did not obtain the highest winning percentage of any coach not to win a championship by not having any structre or set plays) but you could argue that this way of playing is less structured, which actually makes it harder to defend. The key is having personnel capable of making sound decisions, and reading the players around them. To me, too many times last year it seemed like we were bogged down on the offensive end due to the constraints of the system. It was a great system, no doubt; however there was hardly any room for improvisation through transition and early offense. It was always funny to me to see Jeff waving Rafer down the court to bring the ball up quickly, but we never seemed to get much early offense. We got into our SETS quicker, but our shot attempts per game stayed low by comparison.
So you admit that it is PACE that is your number one concern, that is why you ranked "slowdown" as number 99? Did you ever watch the Princeton Tigers play basketball under Pete Carril? You do know that he is the reason why they call it hte Princeton offense, right? You know they score a lot of 40 point games, right, and held the ball till the end of the shot clock? They intentionally slowed the game down to negate the differences in their athletes. Something tells me this new-found hierarchy of yours was hastily-constructed, and will be hastily discarded when it is inconvenient.
No, it is style......... But I prefer a faster PACE to JVG's slow down game........it is just not my number one preference. STYLE.........first....... Then........Pace. Get it? Got it? Good ! DD
Well, hard to argue with that, hopefully this year we will get to see some meaningful playoff games in June. DD
Yes, that's true but this is another case where stats don't tell the whole story. We may have managed close to the same pts per game but the Spurs offense incorporates all sorts of movement and penetration and they do have shooters to kick the ball out to with Big Shot Bob, Bowen, Finley, and Barry. Our offense in contrast is give T-mac the ball and every one else stand and watch and be ready to catch a pass in case he dishes it. Oh I forgot try to get Yao the ball if he has position and repost if he doesn't. That almost sums up JVG entire offensive play book.
Stats don't capture everything, but some stats capture more than others. For offense, a comparison of points scored per possession clearly indicates that the Spurs were a much better offensive team (5th in the league, versus 14th in the league). The Rockets played 3 more overtime periods, and (more importantly) had more offensive possessions per 48 minutes than the Spurs. That's why the offense seems deceptively close, if you just look at PPG. It really wasn't.
Why do some of y'all think our defense will just fall into the toilet? The Blazer and Kings teams were good defensively. I don't expect us to be a league leader anymore but I expect us to remain a solid defensive ballclub.
so the rockets played at a quicker pace than san antonio? 14th per possession on offense is better than i would have thought. thanks for the info
what lost us the series in game 7 was not offense...it was our best offensive game...99 points 46% fg 7-21 3's but we missed a ton of ft's, only 8 turnovers...we lost on defense and on the boards...our 2 greatest strengths let us down...not our offense
I don't think anyone expects it to "fall into the toilet". I'll be satisfied with a "solid" defense if our efficiency on offense makes up for it. Considering how much more talent we have now and that injuries probably won't be as devastating as last season, sounds like a good bet to me.
so u blame one game on defense? where was our offense the previous 5-6 games? for instance game 3? tmac and yao clicked in the first half but no one showed up. and eventually they wore down. if we just had ONE DAMN GOOD OFFENSIVE performance on the road we win. and yet like JVG, we still have ppl who blame it on the D. utah faced the toughest D last yr and that was us, not the spurs. they lost to the spurs b/c the spurs had better O.
While I didnt like JVG's style, I wouldnt put ALL the blame of the offensive problems we had last year on him. If you looked at our team last year, we had NO WHERE near the talent we have this year. In the end, it doesnt matter what system you run, you have to have the right players. I think its pretty clear that there are people on here who just dislike JVG in general. Everyone wants to put the finger on JVG, but most of his moves were the correct one IMO. Look at how people reacted when he didnt play VSPAN, and look how VSPAN turned out .
