This thread is getting ugly. Anyway, I have some questions for the posters in favor of the current offense JVG is running: 1.) Do you really feel JVG is making our offense as efficient as possible given the addition of speedy/athletic players? In other words, is it OK with you that these role players are basically standing around the perimeter waiting for the ball to get to them, when they are capable of creating chaos via cuts, screens, and general movement? 2.) Given the high number of turnovers and occasional collapses down the stretch, you still don't have a problem with our offense? Sometimes, the offense just looks really disoriented when things are going bad. Do you really feel this is just a result of various injuries and/or a lack of chemistry? 3.) You don't have a problem with the offense over-relying on T-Mac and Yao? If the opposition doubles both of them (like the Wizards did when they came back in the 4th), you don't feel the role players should do something about that instead of standing around the perimeter? If you answered "NO" to any of these questions, you are on my side. At the same time, I don't want to make this post a full-blown criticism of JVG. I mean, we are 9-4, and we are taking care of business. We are beating teams that we should beat with the offense JVG is utilizing right now. I don't want to fire JVG, even if the 2nd round is the farthest we get. I'd fire some players long before I'd fire the coach. I respect JVG as a person and as a coach. He may not have a ring, but honestly, taking an underachieving Knicks team as an 8 seed all the way to the Finals drew a lot of respect from me. With that said, I strongly suggest more off-the-ball movement in the offense. It will do wonders for our two stars... and so will Bonzi's return.
Nice thread, enjoy all of the discussion that gets into the details, strategies. Typical GARM polarization - people not really reading what is written. Two nice plays last night - Tmac hit Hayes cutting to the basket. And also the one where Yao was moving to the basket took the pass and scored. Oh my God! He didn't post up! AARRGGHH! It is impossible for Yao to score if he doesn't post up 100% of the time. My Gosh can he actually move and catch a pass at the same time so his defender(s) are not there to hack his hands and strip the ball??? I'm not sure everyone in the GARM can wrap their brains around this one. We better not try this more than twice a game or it might become habit forming! And Tmac actually started scoring at the hoop again when I think he got pissed enough late in the game!!! Wow, something like 5 or 6 plays out of 80-ish total. Princeton look out, here we come! (sarcasm off) personally I think as the players become more familiar with each other that these type of plays will increase more and more into the spring. Vspan will get more time and become more confident and with him and hayes in together maybe we'll see Bill, Chuck and Yao playing some under the basket with drives and short passes. Lots of possibilities. And the passing is 100% better than in the past seasons.
Didn't Yao get another catch and dunk the game before, too? There are always cuts to the basket and Yao gets his share of scoring positions other than posting up and working it. Yes, it's possible without running a "motion offense." As for the Offense not running well, perhaps it's because they are still working on bettter execution? Teams can tweak specific parts of offense during the course of the season, too, without making wholesale changes.
I apologize for my part in making the thread ugly and thinks it been overall pretty civil and on my part will try to keep it so. Totally agree. Don't get me wrong I like the fact that we're winning but think we could do things a little better and more motion on offense would help. I think the personel we have now could also handle more motion to keep our O fresh and unpredictable.
Yao doesn't have to be exclusively in the high post in order to make a motion offence profitable. We can mix it up. In other words, if Yao is abusing his man in the low post, let's keep pounding the ball into him. But if the other team adjusts, as all the good teams do, we can move our big man to the high post for a few turns and let him find cutters from there. This should totally bollix the other team's defence. I'm sure our starters are more than bright enough to handle two offensive styles.
Not responsive. You were the one who asserted that a motion offence required quick players. I pointed out that Sacramento was successful even though some key players (Peja and Vlade) were far from quick. This suggests that we could equally successful with Yao. You're contradicting yourself: either a motion offence takes a long time to set up and run, or you shoot early in the shot clock. You can't have both. Nobody advocating a motion offence is suggesting that we do it full time. We can keep the defence totally confused by attacking with several different styles at difference stages of a game. Our starters are more than clever enough to do this. You're the guy who keeps pulling race and racism into your discussions. You deserve to take some flak for that.
Do yourself a favor. Go back and read Jeff's post. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with putting in place things that work for your personnel. The motion requires all players to move into the high post to make room for back cuts. No reasonable person questions whether Mutombo, or Howard, or Hayes or Battier can learn it. It's a question of why should they? There are better things to do with limited practice time, limited on court energy from playing high-level D and trying to turn a team of stand still spot up shooters into a a passing juggernaut. The Rockets turn the ball over at an incredible rate with just post entry passes and PnR. The motion will skyrocket TO's. If you want to vent a frustration with Van Gundy offense, focus on the lack of penetrators in the offense they already have.
Don't count your chickens before they hatch. I am about to refute you in the Spanoulis thread; I didn't do it earlier because I have a life on Saturdays.
Do yourself a bigger favor and really read what I wrote. Here, I'll help you: use motion only when necessary. Got that? It's not for use all the time, nor for all of our roster. When Yao is clobbering the other team in the low post, I want him to keep doing it. My solution for our regular 4th quarter fades is to mix up our offence. Our low-post sets wouldn't need to be anywhere as complicated as they are now if we could confuse the other team with some motion offence occasionally. So we wouldn't need as much practice time. In 2004-05, Sacramento had the lowest TOs in the league. So a motion offence does not necessarily mean lots of mistakes. Our TOs are high because we are far too rigid and predictable, which allows other teams to anticipate our passes. These things frustrate me too. By the way, an occasional motion attack would encourage penetration.
I just wanted to make a comment about the motion offense. There are variations to the motion offense. The one ran in sacremento was modified by adelman to take advantage of his players strength. If the rox do experiement wit the motion offense (which I hope they don't) then they would have to modify it to take advantage of yao and his strengths. Yao's strengths on offense are his little "quasi-jumphook thing" in the paint and his baseline turnaround jumper. If we can get a motion offense that can free yao up moving across the paint, then we can take advantage of both those moves. The main objective of a motion offense is to create high percentage shots. That usually means layups and dunks, and getting yao these layups and dunks would be very high percentage. The team we have right now is very similar to the one we had when the rox won the championship in 1995 with Hakeem and Clyde. We have Yao, who is similar to Hakeem because the offense seems to run through him. We also have Tmac who would be similar to Clyde. After that, we had horry, cassell, smith, elie, chucky brown, and a bunch of other key role players. That would be similar to our role players we currently have in battier, head, skip, vspan, chuck hayes, and others. How about JVG go back and use that offense that Rudy used back in the championship days??
I agree that the Rockets offense needs more off the ball movement and that our players are not being utilized to their full potential.
I agree with Prosun that we just need more off-the-ball movement (and not a motion offense). I can't say I know as much about specific plays as some of the more knowledgable posters here, but I think we're at a state something like the '92 Rockets. We have a clear #1 play, which is to set a pick for Yao to reach post position, and then spot up. We have a so-so #2 play, which is a high pick and roll b/w Yao and TMac. The 92 Rockets had essentially the same play for posting Dream, and then ran a pick and roll b/w Kenny and OT. However, those basic plays weren't enough. We also developed several other very reliable scoring methods in the championship years: 1) Top of the key teardrop by Elie 2) Jump shot from the top of the key or drive/dunk by OT 3) Alley-oops to Horry These options were crucial in making teams pay for overaggressive doubling onto Dream, and they were all high percentage shots. We don't have a good way of punishing teams for overagressive doubling at this point, other than the 3pt shot. Still, it took Dream's team at least a year or two to perfect these moves. It would be great to see Battier be able to hit either the driving teardrop in the middle of the lane, drive and dunk, or finish an alleyoop. I don't know whether he's capable of these plays, though.
Van Gundier, weren't you the same poster who made that one thread displaying all the fans' desires for the team and suggesting Thomas was the best coach for us? I thought that was pretty funny. Anyway, I don't really want a full-fledged motion offense. Just more off-the-ball movement. That's all. Don't hire Isiah!
Me thinks our offense gets "stagnant" b/c the defense adjusts in their coverage of Yao, and we have more difficulty getting the ball inside. So to counteract, we have Tracy/Rafer penetrate and dish. When the open man misses, we are in a "stagnant offense", when they make it, we are "hittin on all cylinders." Teams go on runs and droughts. Just how it goes. I think many are trying to over-analyze what's going on. The shots are there. Yao makes the shots possible with his play. When they knock em down, defense has to respect the 3, thus opening the middle back up just a little for Yao. And that's all he needs.
So in other words, you're saying that the Rockets live and die by the three? I'm not going to disagree there, but I wish that weren't the case. I don't have any real research to back me up, but I hear all the time from the "basketball experts" that teams that live and die by the three generally can't win it all (it probably applies more in college, but still). They might make a great run in the playoffs, but eventually, once you face a team with solid perimeter defense (Spurs) and when fatigue kicks in, those teams will be dying more frequently. We certainly have players capable of making three's (Battier was 5-5 yesterday), I'm not sure we can be consistent enough to rely on that 3-ball. Head and Novak are our best 3pt shooters IMO. The rest of them (Alston, T-Mac, Battier, V-Span, Bonzi, Padgett, Snyder, Sura, Lucas III) are too inconsistent. When you have an major offensive force inside like Yao, a guy who also can't be stopped in the post like T-Mac, and another guy in Bonzi, who when healthy can also score inside, we are too good in the interior to be jacking up 20+ threes. Of course Bonzi hasn't really played yet, but once he comes back, I hope we take advantage of his abilities near the basket. He can make the three point shot, but it's not his strength. I hope JVG doesn't treat him like Rudy T treated Pippen. If I had any skill in video-editing along with high-speed internet, I would show you a number of plays that proved the offense does look stagnant at times (A LOT of them coming in the 4th quarter). And it's not just about missing shots. If we ran a play that led to a shooter getting an open three, I would call that a quality possession regardless of the outcome of the shot. We just don't have enough of these quality possessions. I really feel some added off-the-ball movement can at least create some unpredictability in the offense, leading to iso's of Yao and T-Mac, and easy baskets and open jumpers for the role players. In other words, an offense that's more efficient as far as utilizing the skills of our role players. More movement = more quality possessions = higher FG% = less turnovers = fewer 4th quarter collapses = oh, and more points! It's just a flat out better offense that what JVG is using right now.
I agree that Luther Head should start if JVG wants to implement an Motion offense and that Motion offense would be fun but rememeber that: 1. The Kings had 4 players that could shoot and pass with accuracy in Bibby, Peja, Vladi, Webber, and Doug Christie who though inept at shooting understood the team concept. 2. Motion offense, when ran with players(I don't like to say low bball IQ) that don't understand team concept and are not intune with each other, will cause more confusion for the team running the motion offense than the team guarding it. Try and run it with your friends, you'll have people running into each other and sometimes even preventing a drive to the basket. 3. Rockets have 3 players that could sort of shoot and pass and understands that motion concept, and Chuck Hayes, who is all about team but passing and shooting are not his forte, and Rafer Alston, a playground legend, who lets just say a man can change his game but he can't change his soul.
