I agree. I put blame on horward for this one, JJ too. They should be shooting only when they are open, both feet set. They try creating too much.
Gundy would probably tell Barkley or Rodman to concede the offensive rebound and sprint back on D. He'd make Jordan play catch with some former Knick has-been guard for 15 seconds before he was allowed to look at the basket. Gotta fit into 'the system', no matter who you are.
exactly how often was BIG GAME JAMES the trailer for his Statue of Liberty Dunk. . . The immediate attacking of the basket .. .throws off the whole defense. . and leaves major gaps . .this is where I thought SF could have been great last year and T Mac this year Get the ball into the forecourt. . even if it is a 5 on 4 . . . cause the double team . .then Yao comes up with the rest of the defense out of position and scrambling Rocket River
I have always thought that the sign of a good, hell great, coach is one that is able to adapt their style to their personnel. From little of what I have seen and knowing who we have in McGrady, it appears that Gumby's way of "my way or the highway" is definitely not working. How long does it take this guy to figure out to change his offensive philosophy to take advantage of what he has in McGrady and also Yao?
I think the way Hoosiers' coach demands players for 4 passes before a shot is absolutely ridiculous. It does not matter how many passes you make before the shot as long as the shot is a good look. Hoosier would not win big playing that way. Now that you mention it, JVG does do it like the Hoosier coach. I think we need a blend of bball with a set structure or system, but mix it up with creativity throughout the game, the role players should know their roles and not take contested shots when their big man is fighting hard and not getting the ball. We have two of the best scorers in the team, and all we usually get is a tough basket after TMac go through two screens and launch a jumper, or a Yao bump and grind from one side to another side and get a tough post move to score. The opponent doesn't care about Rox's outside threat that much because they keep missing wide open looks. We should watch how the lakers used to play (Shaq & Kobe, Magic & Jabar).
Well said. This is one of the problems with the JVG system along with one of its strengths. JVG' system emphasizes getting back on defense more than anything which is good because it limits fastbreaks, but it also limits offensive rebounds severely. That is why I hate when JVG complains about rebounding every game. His system is the reason why we don't grab offensive rebounds along with the fact that we have two of the worst rebounding PFs in the league. Since Yao shoots the ball from 10-15 feet out, generally he is eliminated the offensive rebounds. That leave Juwan or Mo to try for offensive revounds and well... they can't, that is if they even try. The rest of our team is busy running back up the court to defend the ghost players on the other side. When Yao is not the shooter, often he is stuck too far from the basket to do anything anyways as he has usually been setting a screen or a pick far away from the basket. Even then I see Yao running back on defense and not even bothering with rebounding not sure if that is him or JVG. On the defensive side, Yao (sadly our best rebounder) is eliminated from rebounding a lot because he has to show on defense and just lacks the quickness and explosiveness to recover from it. Our PFs are weak rebounders here too. Since JVG designs his defense to basically let PF/Cs jack up 15 fters, that generally leaves a rebounder far away from the basket. I know that part of the problem with our rebounding is that we do not have strong rebounders and are not very quick/athletic. But I have a feeling that we would always underperform on rebounding anyways as long as we are in JVG's system.
I'll chime in with Rocket River and agree with you here. I was wondering in TheFreak's low possession thread whether JVG would ever show if he learned anything from Riley except how to play the style Riley used in New York. Riley used the offense we're seeing now because he adapted to his players on the Knicks. In your example of the Showtime Lakers, Riley used a completely different offense because he had a brilliant cast of players to wheel and deal with. Van Gundy hasn't shown that adaptability at all. Not yet, and I'm beginning to think he just doesn't have it in him. Right now, I'd rather have Stan Van Gundy, or get Pat Riley out of the front office there and bring him to Houston to coach. Either one would be a hell of an improvement. And another thing that bugged me last night, and the previous couple of games (making me wonder what's going on behind the scenes), is the non-use of Boki. Did everyone notice last night, when Boki came in, how damned quick he looked? True, he's around some slow players, except for T-Mac and Lue, but that really jumped out at me. Why in the hell hasn't he been playing??
Thank you for this thread and the work you did to make the point. We're all asking, "Can JVG adapt"? I guess the next thing to research is the Knick team that went from failure as a plodding PE centered halfcourt chucker to the finals running with PE finally glued to the bench "injured", and Camby, Spree, LJ racing on the break and going to quick offense. I could spout off like I usually do with some rhetoric, but I'm more impressed with your reasearch-based approach .
Howard and MoT as PFs, they should be given some room for creating their own shots, but I am really frustrated with JJ's shot selection, stubborness and his defense or lack of. It's just not acceptable for a role player to launch quick shots and iso on his own, with 30%+ accuracy. JVG should really start from there, put him on the bench unless he gets the point that he has to play controlled game and knows his role. I can't even accept the theroy to "shoot out of slump" for a star-player, what JJ was thinking?! If your shots are not falling, try to play denfense, try to drive, go to the FT line, let the game come to you, never ever force anything. Geez, I can't stand it.
Overall Rockets has solid defense through the game. The problem is they cannot secure the important defensive rebound in the crunching time because of lack of the athelism in their frontcourt player and lack of size in the PF position, which, in my opinion, is one of the main reasons we cannot hold the 4th Qtr lead this year. In theory, more possessions seem favoring more talented teams, the problem of Rockets is we could not get the solid and consistent point guard play consistently from our PG, which means increase possesions could increase our turnovesr and give opponents more points off our turn over. However, I don't agree JVG's strategy of slowing the entire game either, I don't mind the pace of game become a bit quicker when Yao is on the bench and T-Mac is as our point guard in some situation.
The reason we are in serious trouble can be blamed on numerous things, and our offensive scheme can be criticized until we start winning. 1. But no matter the record we have, what is very obvious is we lack role players who can shoot. We are getting killed with the shooting percentage of the role players. 2. We lack rebounding. We are a very poor rebounding team an that is killing us. We don't have good rebounders. 3. We are slow defensively. We have a very good rotating defense but we lack quickness on the ball. We give up alot of open looks to those who can spot up and shoot. I am now convinvced that any blame on JVG (however justified) or Yao or TMac, will only cause us fans more frustration because the personnel surrounding those three are lousy offensively and slow defensively. This team does not have a third option on offense and any good outside shooters. (at least good enough to relieve TMac and Yao from swarming 4th qtr. defense.)
Exactly. JVG is going to coach his style and he isn't even going to question himself. The games we've been seeing lately, that is JVG basketball-grind it out, slow down, defensive basketball. JVG won't change the way he coaches. He's not going to wake up one day and say change his philosphy. No one is questioning whether his style is good or not, but it doesn't fit this team and the personell to run it. How many coaches would have to squeeze 90ppg (if their lucky) out of a Yao/TMac team? Would the Lakers hire JVG to coach Shaq/Kobe or just Kobe? No Would the Cavs hire JVG to coach Lebron? No Why? Because the personell on their team wouldn't fit JVG's style, just like our team doesn't fit JVG's style.
What I loved about Rudy T's offense was that he allowed CHise and Mobley to lead the team into a scrappy, quick paced confusing offense, which is very hard to defend against. Basically, He allowed them to play ball. Somtimes in this league you win games by doing these things. I agree that the plays take too long to develop. You always see numerous times, the Rox ending up with a 24 sec violation. Sometimes players just have to feed off each other and play ball if the set play fails to develop. JVG needs to develop quick scoring plays and allow the Rox to shoot more. Offensive rebounds and second chances determine a lot of games. That's why the Spurs are so good. It's not all on the set play and the game plan. I don't JVG prepares the Rox well enough for this. You got to prepare players to play together and not just being able to fit in your system. JVG doesn't understand this. Maybe he should take a look at the Spurs, Dallas, and Detroit.
Can you imagine JVG trying to coach Lebron? Talk about a mismatch. Lebron should be thankful that JVG is not coaching in Cleveland. They had enough of that Fratello garbage.
I don't think the comment really applies to a full basketball game. It makes a lot of sense for the context that Kenny put it in. I'm just not sure if there is any significant statistical difference between a 160 possession game and a 200 possession game. Unfortunately, I'm no whiz at statistics. I can only illustrate his point with a more extreme example. If you were presented with the following two wagers, which one would you take? 1) You shoot 1 free throw and Ray Allen shoots 1 free throw. Whoever makes the shot wins. If you both miss or both make the shot, repeat. 2) You shoot 100 free throws and Ray Allen shoots 100 free throws. Whoever makes the most wins. It is a no brainer. #1 is the choice if you are not as good as Ray Allen because luck would play a much bigger factor in the wager. If you are better than Ray Allen, you would choose #2 because there is very little luck involved. ****The better you are, the more you want to perform to your average. This is the same reason why 5 game series are more prone to upsets than 7 game series.**** According to Kenny Smith the worse team should reduce the TOTAL number of possessions by both teams so luck becomes a greater factor in the outcome. The better team should increase the TOTAL number of possessions in the game so that luck becomes a smaller factor in the outcome. What you are saying would only work if the Rockets got MORE possessions than their opponent. That isn't affected by the pace of the game. It is only affected by turnovers. ---------------- BTW, Kenny Smith was saying that the Rockets are better than their opponents, so they should increase the pace of the game and total number of possessions. You are saying that the Rockets aren't as good as their opponents.
It would be possible to eliminate all the factors in a game and just run stats on FG% alone.... but I can't do it. I wonder what would happen if you did that for a 40% shooting team vs. a 45% shooting team and tested them in a 160 possession game, and a 200 possession game. It would be very interesting.
I've never really bought into the importance of play-calling in basketball anyways... As opposed to a sport like football, where every single play is designed and practiced 5000 times in training camp, or baseball, where the manager/catcher/pitcher 'design' every single pitch scenario, I think basketball is the only of the 3 major sports where spontaneous creativity is the norm, not the exception. I understand that the NBA of today is much more structured and micro-managed than it ever has been, and that almost every possession is 'called' by the coach in some form... But, I still feel in the big picture, it is the players, and not the coaches, who are overwhelmingly responsible for the quality of play on the offensive end. The coaches responsibility is to have the players as prepared as possible in every possible way BEFORE the game. In basketball, once the game starts, what happens on the court, more than any other sport, is mostly dependant on the players.
