I hate to bring this back up again but Should our guards just release instead of constantly going for rebounds? 1. Can we afford it? Can we afford to just allow our front court rebound for us. will it hurt us to let them leak out a bit. What is the impact to our overall rebounding? 2. Can our big players throw the outlet? Mo T? Cato? Yao? Weatherspoons? I notice after every rebound The guards wait to get the ball. None of them take off they have to come back for the ball all the time. No one just throws the leading pass. maybe we don't end breaks well . . . . but we don't exactly start them well either Rocket River
Actually, rebounding guard usually start more fast breaks, ex Kidd, B. Davis, G. Payton. For some reason, Steve doesnt. Honestly, i dont think we spend enough time on it in practice. U can see easily our defense has improved tremendously. Players say they spend 60-70% of the time practicing it. Obviously, if we spend extra time developing a break, we could get it going. We have the personell in Steve, Cat, and JJ. I blame this on JVG and Steve. Steve never was good at it, and JVG has done NOTHING in that department to help him out...... I can understand your frustration, RR. The fast break issue is something i just cant deal with. I am surprised there arent more threads on this more often as I see this as our <b>biggest </b> weakness. I mean 2 fast break points against Dallas's pathetic defense on Saturday? I hate being a half court team in the regular season.....We will never beat a good team playing strictly half court in the West......the only big victories we have, we shot over 50%, and we just dont do that enough.....no break = 8th seed and sweep in the playoffs.....
Honestly I think our fast break problems have more to do with the fact that we don't cause enough turnovers on defense. Turnovers almost always lead to fast break (or at least transition) opportunities/baskets. We play good defense and hold our opponents to low scoring, but the only type of turnover we're any good at is forcing offensive fouls (which stops play and doesn't lead to a fast break/transition opportunity). I like our guards rebounding. Shoot, when Yao rests at about the 5-6 minute mark and MoT comes in, we're a small team. Doesn't hurt to have good rebounding guards in that kind of a situation.
Yao, Cato, and MoT, don't dominate the boards enough to allow our guards to take off. Steve grabs a lot of boards, not just for a PG, but for a player overall.
Weatherspoon threw a lot of great outlet passes last night. He's the only one i've noticed doing it though.
I saw James Posey has some very nice fast break with Steve and Cat last year. Part of reason we strugle this year is because our wing player is not atheltic and fast enough to have break with Steve and Cat. JJ spent lots of time helping out our big men to secure rebound a lot.
Until the Rockets can get a secure set of forwards, the guards will always have to help out on the boards. It's all about trust, and if I was a player, I wouldn't trust Cato and MoT to secure boards either. I'm sure JVG would rather secure a rebound without a fastbreak then allow an offensive board.
I think If Steve Tried for the block once and kept running . . . If we got the rebound . .the other team would be so surprised it would be an easy two Most times after a rebound Steve, mark whoever has to come all the way back to BELOW the other teams foul line to get the ball .. . then walk it up or something A Pass to the 3 pt line is too dangerous for this team??? Rocket River
I know MoT is terrible with the outlet pass. He turns it over way to much trying to do that. We are better off walking it up then having him though outlet passes (assuming he can get a rebound).
yeah makes me laugh on the ch51 boradcasts when that poor houston charity that gets money on rocket fastbreak pts comes up on the screen.... how the hell did they draw that short straw
James Posey was already down the floor before Steve could cross half court. So Steve had to give him the ball on a lob or a easy basket.
Running an NBA fastbreak requires the players to commit and having the players that can run it. The top 10 FB ppg teams and their PG's... DEN - Andre Miller, Earl Boykins DAL - Steve Nash NJ - J Kidd MEM - JDubb and Eal Watson NO - Baron Davis WAS - Arenas MIL - TJ Ford PHI - E. Snow PHO - Barbosa, (Marbury) SEA - Barry, Murray, Ridnour, Allen DAL Athletic wingmen = Nowitski and Antoine Walker. NO Athletic wingmen = S. Augmon, S. Smith, C. Alexander, D. Wesley, J. Mashburn, G. Lynch WAS Athletic wingmen = J. Stackhouse, J. Jeffries, J. Hayes, L. Hughes. MIL Athletic wingmen = K. Van Horn, Kukoc, (T. Thomas) PHI Athletic wingmen = G. Robinson, A. McKie, K. Korver Teams 11 thru 15 = CLE (Newble) SAC (Peja), UTA (Harpring), LAL (Fox), ORL. I see a trend. Succesful FB teams have point guards than can run one.
While we sometimes do have problem securing the rebounds which makes it difficult to fire good outlet passes ... IMO, the most glaring weakness is still Steve pushing the ball up court. Steve can turn a 2-1, 3-2 fast break into him running over the defender for a difficult shot. I don't think our wing players or trailers are the problem, Steve hardly use them. He does not have to pass to them, but needs to use them to spread the opponent. Compared to MJ, in the few minutes he is on the court, we get the ball up court a lot quicker (and he goes at 3/4 speed Steve does) . We spread the floor. Sometimes, we get a few easy basket and also just as importantly, if he does not see an opening, he pulls the ball back out.
