Daoshi pretty much covered it, although the position Yao is adopting sometimes in the post is a position witht he least amount of potential force; he often seems to essentially stand up once he gets the ball, with his legs slightly splayed, and the ball chest high. It's really hard to get power from that, you have to go down and gather if you want to go up strong, and when you do that starting from the middle, you take a while, are subject to doubles, telegraph what's coming, and can get stripped, although that's not normally a problem directly associated with middling. Just like you want perim players or anyone facing up in the triple threat position, you want post players to either catch and go, or stay low. A defender playing a post player who's got B-B-B, and a low position is in a tough spto, he's got to guess when the post player is going up, which can be fatal, or he's got to try and react, which can come too slow. He's got to stay higher to be in a position to react, and as such is vulnerable to counters, spins, hooks, etc. It's the position of most potential for a post player. Yao seems to give it up, possibly out of concern for ball coverage, I don't know. Yao will learn. One thing that seems to be happening now is that he's shooting through arm traffic. Eventually he'll get better calls from the refs, cause it appears he's getting a lot of slaps on the forearm and especially the elbow while unloading right now without getting the calls. One problem with that is he is still trying to figure out how to use his elbows to clear space; like a lot og guys new to it, he either doesn't use them at all or uses them too obviously to clear. When he learns to make it appear to be a natural part of his sweep-through or turn, he'll get to the line or get space to get off his short J's. He's used to just shooting over people, which he can do when set, but when he does it coming out of the crouch, after a rebound, say, that's when he's missing a lot right now, and that's all about getting elbow room.
Horry was our best entry passer of that era, no doubt, and a taller entry passer has some advantages, although he also has a greater need to pick up his dribble. As far as angle, one of the points I made was that the safest post entry angle is corner in, as the post player can seal the defender off to the middle, thus creating a huge and relatively safe catch zone between his body and the baseline. ( If you get too predictable at it though there are a few guards like Payton and Bibby who will jump the pass along the line for the steal). Aside from using the baseline, however, it really doesn't matter strategically, although players have preferences. Usually right handed post players want to receive the ball from the left side, and vice versa, as they catch better with their strong hand, and push off more naturally with their off hand, but it varies. Soem guys can receive with either hand, and then you have guys like Divac who likes to get the ball on his off side for some reason. But this kind of thing, like timing, all comes with repetition, which is why it is so important to go to the post often, even if it meets with initial failure.
Ditto. Also, if you just want to understand basketball a little more, it's interesting to watch stuff like that rather than just follow the ball, sort of like watching the O-Line go to work.
yeah, spacing can be huge, an element Jeff has pointed out, but I was talking about straight up situations here. One problem with spacing that we're having was revealed to us re: JVG's philosophy to go with the called play irrespective of whether or not we're facing a zone. I see what he's trying to do, get us ti act rather than react on offense, which is important, but ut will create huge soacing problems in the meanwhile. Once we get comfortable enough in the calls as they are, he'll let the players read and react more, I'm sure.
MacBeth: That was a most excellent analytical post sir! This is pure gold and it is posts like these that really keep me coming back here to be willling to endure some of the other mind-numbing whiney drivel. Thank you sir for your post! PS. Where were you when I was asking about a breakdown of JVG's halfcourt offense??
I agree with was is being said, but I think the root of our problem is too much dribling. Our point guards just keep dribling the ball and they never are in good position to give a good entry pass. A lot of times they bounce the ball to Yao and that is a not brainer. Yao needs to get the ball high and at the right time. We need to trade for a true point guard and move Steve to the 2. With that said, I think Mobley has to go!
Like to bring this thread back to top. By the way, it is pretty hard to just concentrate on one aspect of the game. You are always tempted to follow the flow of the overall game, especially for an exciting game like this. Before long, I completely forgot about it. But it does seems to me that Sun is not fronting Yao until the fourth quarter. In addition, both of our guards continued to feed the ball inside even when Yao missed shots at the beginning. A reveleation I have from last nights game is the importance of Mobley. For the first six games, he hardly ever feed the ball inside even when our inside players established inside position. But last night's game seems to be different. As a result, we are able to have much better balance.
I'm looking forward to Pike coming back. He is said to be good at passing into the post. Anyone familar enough with his game to comment on this?
most excellent analysis. this was (Yao not using the elbow as an extension of his body to clear space) what i noticed about his game last year. based on the 7 games so far, it has changed. have you noticed any change in this regard? Patrick Ewing, are you reading?
Yes, please do that and post a summary, especially for those like me who cannot watch most of the games. During the last three weeks, I watched a few games and I also thought that the guards dribbled too long before they threw the entry pass, which made it harder to establish/keep position for Yao, and which kind of screwed up the whole play. They now eventually throw it in to him in the end more often than what I saw last year, but because of the screwed up timing, it then just seems harder to finish the play successfully (note that this is only one aspect, Yao also just needs to assert himself more imho). By the way, 8 assists for Mobley, isn't that a career high? Nice!
One thing I forgot to mention, I think Steve Nash is pretty much the opposite when it comes to the style of play - he either throws a really quick entry pass or he just cuts to the basket really fast. He doesn't seem to do what Steve and especially Moochie seem to do very often...start dribbling until everyone in the defense is in position, and THEN try to do something special. That seems to be so much more difficult.
I was watching CNN and saw the breaking news: 1) Mobley finally passed the ball to Yao and 2) Moblet got the career-high 8 As.
Good post. One thing that I want to add is that fighting for post really took stamina. Once I was fighting for post with a guy who was much stronger than me, it really worn me out.
It's easy to forget that Mobley was our starting point guard for a year. Looking back, it seems that only a deep respect/fear of the veterans made him play anything like one.
I meant to say, while I've been lucky in that the Raptors channel has shown 4 of the Rockets 6 games so far, I doubt it will remain this common. That is why I often have restricted my GARM posts to broader, conceptual or strategic comments, and only occassionally made specific tactical observations, as I usually hear rather than see the games, and leave it to those who can see what's happening to comment. So if, as I expect, the percentage of games I am able to see declines,I would hope that others can make their own observations on game to game and play to play developments.
This is an excellent post by Mac Beth with good inputs from others. This kind of post is much better than the spurt of the moment/ knee jerk reaction posts that inundated this forum of late. Clutch or other moderators, I wonder if we could make this kind of posts sticky so we can all view it in the future, maybe we can eliminate many redundant and low quality posts on the same subject?
Good post, also you have to realize that sometimes in exchange for a potentially good entry pass you might increase the risk of losing the ball, aka turnover
