Glen Rice and little inuries here or there aside, Rudy has pretty much found his rotation that he thinks works and is sticking with it. While I think Rudy can be a good coach, I do have some concerns about the rotation he has gone with. Rudy's current rotation is as follows: Starters = Francis, Mobley, Posey, Griffin & Ming. If things are going well, they may all play the first quarter. More often, though, Yao is taken out around the 3 minute mark, and, occasionally, Posey is taken out sometime around the same time, especially with foul trouble. That's about it. Rudy then starts the second quarter with 3 or 4 completely new players. Moochie, Mobley, Morris, Taylor and Cato becomes the lineup. Francis is reinserted into the lineup around the 9 minute mark, usually for Mobley, and Ming/Posey will be back somewhere between 5:30 minutes and 7 minutes. Mobley returns with 4 minutes left or so. The same thing is repeated in the second half. My problems: 1) I think there are too many substitution in mass. Our bench play is certainly not spectacular. I can raelly only remember one occasion when they all played well simultaneously (against Spurs). Putting most of them in there to start the second doesn't sit well with me. 2) You lose the Cato/Francis relationship. Earlier int eh year, when Yao was getting little time and Cato more, the relationship between Cato and Francis was great. They had those alley-oops down perfectly. Besides, Cato, while still a "bonehead" at times, does give you good hustle elsewhere. As is, half of Cato's minutes now seem to come without Francis on the floor, negating the littel offensive ability Cato was giving you. 3) Yao and Steve shuold not both be off the court at the same time for long. They are the two best players, and, when one is out, the other should control the offense. 4) It seems as if little is done to take advantage of any offensive or defensive chemistry. An extension of the Cato problem, our second unit (Moochie, Mobley, Morris, Taylor, Cato) does not make you say wow on either end of the court. IMO, you need to have good role players out there with your stars at all times. Not your stars for a while, then all your role players, then back to your stars. 5) Doesn't take advantage of players who can go at multiple positions - and, no, I'm not talking about smallball. Posey should and could be effective at both the two and the three. Morris is a good role player at the three or the four. Griffin could play PF or center, and, at times, probably even be an ok three (heck, he is a spot up shooter primarily on offense). Solutions. Obviously, there is no one perefct fit solution. I completely understand the purpose of having a solid, relative tight rotation that players can get used to and feel comfortable with. But, if it isn't working, it isn't working. Here is what I would do: 1) Take both Ming and Mobley out relatively early, around the 5 minute mark. Replace them with Cato and Terrence Morris. That's right. Your lineup becomes Francis, Posey, Morris, Griffin and Cato. This may leave you a little to light offensively, but I don't think so. You have the Francis-Cato relationship described above, Morris is becoming more adept at hitting the outside jumper, Posey is a good slasher, and Griffin is a decent spot-up shooter, gets the ball in the post occasionally and gets his share of offensive boards, putbacks. Further, this is a lineup early in the game the will get the little things done. Morris and Posey and even Cato this year all hustle. And play solid defense. 2) Replace Griffin with Taylor around the 2 minute mark and put Moochie in for Posey. 3) At the start of the second quarter, replace Francis with Mobley. 4) With about 10 minutes left, put Yao back in for Cato - (this gives Yao approximately 17 minutes a half and Cato 7 minutes a half). 5) With 7-8 minutes left put Francis and Posey back in. 6) With about 5 minutes left, put Griffin back in. Repeat for second half. Other little quirks that would be interesting to see - a lineup of Francis, Posey, Morris, Taylor, Griffin or more fo Cato at the 4. Anyway, Rudy is a good coach, but his main problems, imo, are not being able to take control of the team and poor rotations. The rotation above might not be better, but I think it could, and it wouldn't be worse. Any other rotation suggestions?
rudy, will you please play cato and yao together in the 4th quarter? moT and griffing can't get the job done. can yao get the ball in the 4th quarter? so far, he only touches the ball the 5 minutes in the first and third periods.
I would like to see it change. I think our bench is very good though. They are much better than the Utah Jazz bench. Our team is pretty deep. But I don't like the rotations that much. Okay. First of all...about Cato. You are right...he is playing great and rebounding like crazy...but he hasn't had one of those alleyoops in a while. He used to have like 2 per game early on. ALSO. We should have at least...AT LEAST ONE of our FRANCHISE players on the court at all times. Never take one off. One should always be on the court. Has Dallas ever played without having one of their Big Three? Has Los Angeles ever played without either Kobe or Shaq playing? Moochie Norris. He is OK. The only thing he is good at is bringing the ball down the court. But he does nothing with Mobley. He plays a little better with Steve. Our second unit...Mo Taylor sometimes makes people Wow. Okay. Rudy never interchanges the players. It's always Small Forward for Small Forward. Power Forward for Power Forward. Center for Center. He barely ever moves them around. It wouldn't be bad to have Cato and Yao together...I guess he didn't like it. He only used it for a while. Or have Eddie Griffin, Mo Taylor, and Terence Morris together. We need to try different things. What I do not understand is...Mobley playing 42 minutes per game. He has been doing terrible. Why doesn't he go out? Maybe there's no one who can replace him...Hawkins isn't doing very well. And I would like Terence Morris to continue playing. But what happens when Glen Rice returns?
He has only been SHOOTING terrible, not PLAYING terrible. His defense has been best on the team, IMO (Posey is fouling too much and Yao and Griffin can't seem to guard their own man). He has also been passing, a lot, just like everyone wanted him to.
Best defense on the team?? He only got abused by Caron Butler the other night while contributing a couple fo baords and a couple of assists and another crappy shooting night in 40+ minutes of action. He has been playing terribly, overall.
Yeah...but Hawkins wouldn't help much. And most of the time, Caron Butler was abusing Terence Morris and James Posey...mainly Terence Morris. Mobley stopped Butler a couple of times. You might have mixed Caron Butler up with his identical twin rookie who is the same height as him...Rasual Butler. You're right. He has been playing good defense nad has also not taken many shots. But it's not working for him. When he does shoot the ball...he is missing. BUT...he still plays because HAWKINS is also missing like crap.
No kidding. Rudy is a frickin' ... oh, you know what I think. Any half-ass coach mixes subs and starters to maximize strengths and hide weaknesses, getting the stars a blow in succession. Not RT. He seems to have zero grasp of lineup tactics, obsessed with mollifying egos, and getting cat his.
Greg Poppovich is much smarter. Who cares about players' rest. IF YOU REALLY NEED TO WIN, YOU HAVE TO KEEP.....AT LEAST ONE...AT LEAST ONE in the game at all times. Man. Tim Duncan goes out for less than a minute and they start playing terribly. He immediately returns. And he answers. Tim Duncan is the man. He is awesome. Instead...we keep Moochie in the game forever while he is sucking.
This is something that's bugged me all season long. Rudy's done a terrible job in a lot of areas this year, but you'd think the one thing he could eventually get right is his substitution pattern. Why in God's name would you take Steve AND Yao out at the same time? Who's gonna run the offense while those two aren't playing? Moochie? Cat? Cato?! Mix your starters and bench players! Experiment a little! The 2nd unit(with the lone exception of the 4th quarter of the Spurs game) has consistently failed to build on leads or at the very least hold them all year. Also, why take out Yao and Eddie at the same time in the first half? Why not leave at least one shotblocker in the game at all times? This will make up for any defensive deficiancies your backcourt players have(and Lord knows there are plenty of them). Look, it's clear at this point that most, if not all, of the players have tuned Rudy out. Sure, they say all the right things to reporters or when Bill and Calvin interview them after games, but their lackadaisical play out on the court and unwillingness to even show up for must-win games(and yes, EVERY game is must-win at this stage of the season) makes it quite obvious that they don't give a rat's ass what their so-called coach says. This "team" is becoming eerily reminiscent of the mid-90's Dallas Mavericks when they had the 3 J's. Remember that bunch? A world of talent and they couldn't even finish above .500. And why? Because they had a bunch of egotistical, me-first players who had no intention of listening to their coach Dick Motta. Anyway, sorry to get off on a rant, but my point is that despite Rudy being unable to get his players to listen, the one thing he still has absolute control over is his substituting of players in games. Yet even here, he won't mix it up a little and try different combinations. The only major change he's tried this season is occasionally replacing Eddie with MoT in the starting lineup(which BTW, never seems to make a difference). That's not gonna cut it.
You're pretty correct. Actually, I do think Moochie really tries to listen to him but just can't play. He tries so hard but just can't play.
