you van gundy guys are something else, van gundy would have never had a 22 game winning streak, van gundy had a healthy t mac and yao in the playoffs TWICE and didn't get out the first round, what is the obsession
Wow, the guy coaches during a 22 game winning streak and that in itself makes him a better coach because Van Gundy never did? What Adelman did do was drop the first 2 games at home in the first round of the playoffs. I have said it before, and I will say it again, Adelman is yet another in a long line of "System Coaches" that will only produce if he has players that fit that system. This guy refuses to adapt to the talent he has.
people were b****ing about the EXACT SAME THING with van gundy, and i was a van gundy fan nice revisionist history, though
i don't think this is a jvg vs. adelman thing. the problem is that our pf position is messed up right now. my feeling is that we have dropped off a lot in terms of hustle, defense and efficiency at the pf position this season. last season i thought scola was at least an average defender by playing with smarts and energy. this season, though, he's getting torched by almost every pf that plays with the face to the basket. lately, scola's falling for every pump fake by any player. also, scola looses his man quite easily to try some stupid steals or charges on other players' assignments. almost every time he gets called for a foul or his man either scores by himself or creates an easy shot for his teammates. he has to learn that this way of defense does more harm than it helps. last year landry made a lot of mistakes and he wasn't strong enough to defend the post well. i thought this would get better with experience and him getting healthy and stronger. reality is, though, that landry is still a huge liability on defense. it's so bad that you can say he's on luther head's level. like luther landry gets posted up a lot and like luther he is too limited by his lack of size (or standing reach in this case) that he has no chance at challenging the shot. his team defense is also bad as hell. chuck hayes on the other hand has regressed a lot this year. i don't know exactly why but he doesn't defend as well as in the previous years. having to play center might have something to do with it. or maybe gaining weight. i just don't know. the bottom line is the chuckwaggon hasn't been too effective lately and that's why he doesn't play a lot at the moment. there is a reason that the rockets look a lot better with yao on the court. and it's not like yao's playing for the dpoty award. he's often struggling defensively on his owen as well this year. i really hope deke can bring some defense to this team. i'm really tired on blaming everything on mcgrady, alston or adelman. our role players have to perform better as well. almost all of them.
The only thing I will say in defense of Chuck Hayes is that he was playing as good of defense as he has ever to begin this season. Even Bullard liked him as one of the best defenders in the entire league. But, much like his missed layups and free throws, when you get your playing time cut, every mistake looks bigger. If Scola only played 6-7 mpg, all those missed 15 footers would look a lot worse than they do now. Personally though, Adelman has to decide between Chuck, Scola, and Landry. 1 is the odd man out. Obviously, it's not working with Scola/Landry and you can't play all 3. It's time for Adelman to be a man and bench Landry or Scola and play Chuck a consistent 22-25mpg. If after 5 to 6 games, the team hasn't improved, the experiment failed.
imho, he had some good games defensively early in the season when he was guarding players 1-on-1 in the post. i remember him not allowing kevin garnett to post up on him or shutting down lamarcus aldridge when he had burned everyone else. i think he's at his best when he's in this type of a situation and i also think that's not the problem. it's more like he's gotten slower and worse on team defense. i also noticed that he doesn't get as many rebounds. maybe most teams know him by now and don't underestimate him anymore. i don't know. i do think that is one explanation but i don't think it's the most important factor. actually, going by my subjective memory of the games i'm very pleased with the consistency luis makes those jumpers. imho, he's gotten much better at those shots. last season i considered him very streaky and you could tell that when he was missing early on he would miss them all game long. this year seems to be different. scola's 15-foot jump shot is the least problem. there is no way you could play chuck 25 mpg on a consistent basis right now. we struggle too much offensively and i think we'll all agree that chuck won't help us there. imho, chuck should get some of landry's minutes when landry has too much trouble defensively and isn't too effective offensively. play landry and scola more with deke and the chuck wagon more with yao.
