I had an interesting experience lst night; I watched the Rockets game at the sime time as I watched the Kansas-Duke game...and something somewhat frightening quickly became apparent. In the pre-UK-DUke game coach K said that the Jayhawks break is so efficient and so incredibly fast in it's inception that it was impossible to prepare for it in practice...and he said that it was not only the best break in college, but was better than many pro teams. And so I saw it...and despite Duke's excellent efforts to do things to stall the break, there were many moments when KU's attack just made you take your breath away,although not as many as I had seen in other games...but the scary thing was this: Kansas' break off opponents makes is faster and more efficient that the Rockets' break off of misses...and that is amazing. Why is our break so terrible? A cursory examination of the roster shows that we would seem to have all the elements of an amazing fast break tea, physically. Letl's take a look. 1) We now have an excellent inside defensive presence which should allow our perimeter guys to play very aggressive defense, forcing quick/bad shots, or causing turnovers. 2) We now have not one but two exceelent rebounding centers, which means that whichever one is in the game, we always have the opportunity to start the break off of misses, as we should collar most of the opponents misses. 3) At least one of those centers is also an excellent passer, an amazing advantage that few teams in the league have; the ability to extend the 1st hinge on the break, which opnes up angles and speeds up the break, if you know what you're doing. 4) A very athletic and quick perimeter team which should allow for 1st and secondary breaks, as well as having an advantage establishing positioning on the break. 5) Good to excellent finishers, which explains itself. And yet you watch this team night in and night out, and almost without exception they don't even run an average break, let alone the great one they should/could. GIven the obvious ingredients being in place, we should examine why the bake fails to rise. Breaks are all about three things: Roles, positioning, and decisions....athletic ability, which people assosiate with breaking teams, merely make the break you run better, but running the break itself is about the factors I just mentioned. For example, if you look at the Kansas team, while they have some very good athletes, they are still a college team, and nohere near as athletically gifted as the Rockets, and yet they make our break look slow, stupid, and ineffective. Why? Because they all have roles in that break, all understand positioning, and above all make good decisions. We do none of those things... 1) Our guards, Steve in particular, stay back to rebound...This is admirable and important on occassion, especially with a lead late in a game where the possession is a higher priority than a scoring opportunity, but is death to a fast break in general. A lead guard has to the second hinge on most fast breaks, as it utilizes the qualities of a point guard; sure reception, quick push, court awareness, and timing and touch on the decisive pass in a fast break, which most of the time is the second pass, the one out of the first hinge. Watch Kansas with Miles and/or Heinrich and you will see what I mean...They get the pass from the 1st hinge, the rebounder, and are usually already 20-4o ft upcourt...they psuh hard for only a few dribbles at most, in which time the wings and post of the break have set up for an open break, or the forward players have recognized a transisiton defensive error, and reacted, for example flooding a side left open by the defense all focusing on the ball carrier or one potential finisher...and the 2nd pass usually establishes what kind ogf break it's going to be. The KU example points out another problem of roles with the Rockets break, as identified with Heinrich..To wit, we don't have anyone who could realisitcally take the pressure off of Steve's need to be the break leader...Mobley, while being an excellent, actually finisher, is not a good second hinge at all.He takes time to recieve, makes bad decisions, and almost always either holds the ball too long or tries for the easy but dramatic football pass. Steve isn't particularly great at this role either, but he's better than anyone else we have by far, and as such needs to concentrate on that role if we are going to have an effective break. We have other rebounders now. 2) Our forward players, those who leak or spread, don't do it well at all, which is the most surprising. They make poor recognition based decisions, rarely have I seen a weak side flood, for example. There is one simple thing you can, as a coach, retify this problem...Run them..run them in practice and in games till they are so tired they can't walk straight, and then run them some more...KU runs all day in practice and in games, and it shows in their conditioning, but mostly in their decisions. We can't cite youth, KU is younger...We simply don't take propoer positions on the break, and this comes with repetetive practice. I will admit that, given the fact that RUdy was trying to introduce a new 1/2 court offense, (whose effectivness or non-effectivness I plan to talk about in another thread ) their already limited practice time was probably occupied with other things, but given the fact that we are not using the tolls we have in one of the ways they would be best used, I would call extra practices, and spend some time in each and every practice running break drills...Just run split team alternating drills over and over again, with broken breaks needing to be repeated. They will have no choijce but to learn. 3) Decisions...this is the worst part of our break, and the best part of the Jayhawk break...When do youpush, and when not? Well, the fact that both our lead guards, Steve and Moochie, only give token consideration to a break when they get the ball is the 1st bad decision...Stevie finds the opportunity to hop skip and jump accross halfcourt too hard to resist, and the last thing that Moochie wants to do is give up the ball early....so they both do the same thing...Get the ball, give maybe a step or three of a quasi-push before 9 times out of 10 deciding to pull it in and begin a half court dribble exhibition. These bad decisions are cradle death to a fast break... Then our finishers or wings don't spread or position properly, as cited above, and our leads almost always go for the easy out on those rare occassion they do get the ball...the homerun, or the one pass and kickout to the shooter. The whole fact that, of our rare breaks, many of them are of the low percentage football pass variety is indicative of the genral uncomfort and lack of understanding of breaking in action. Solutions: 1) If we can't lure Roy Williams out of Lawrence, then this is what I suggest whoever coaches us needs to do...Run, run, run in practice and in games...Alllow Yao to be the 1st link in our break, and the focus of our 1/2 court offense. But the biggest thing we need is to run... 2) Establish roles, and hold people accountable...Tell Steve that the rebounding is nice, yes, but only on occassion, as the cost outweighes the gain. Get guys to know and fill thier lanes over and over again, and once they get comfortable with that, get them to begin to recognize defensive transition mistakes on the fly, and know how to exploit them properly...again, practice, practice..film, practice...It's gotta be taught, obviously. 3) Hold the leads accountable for the decisions, and start by showing them the relative percentages in homerun passes ( low) vs. standard but well run breaks...and make them do it as it should be done. 4) Last but not least, get them to understand and run secondary breaks...We rarely run primary breaks as it is, and we almost never look to stay with it and run a secondary one, and ironically this is where I feel that the personel could really, really exploit the abilities of a Francis, Mobley, and Posey being on the floor at the same time We could be a frightening fast beaf team...we should be a very good fast break team...we are a poor fast break team. Something has to be done.
Macbeth, You and I may not see eye to eye on politics and war, but as far as the Rockets go, I got your back. Good post. DD
Amen. The only thing is, I still wonder how realistic the practice part suggested by MacBeth is. College coaches have far more luxury than the pro coaches in terms of practice time.
The key to running the break is getting the ball to the middle of the floor. Two flankers should hustle their butts off to get on the wings. The middle man and at least one of the flankers should volley the ball back and forth coming up the floor to get the defender(s) back-peddling. Then you have 3 options: stop and pop. Or, if the defender commits, a pass off to either wing. A break ran in this manner will get a score or foul 99.9% of the time. Most coaches teach players how to break as early as grade-school with a practice routine called the figure 8 (you ballers know what I mean). Why the Rox still haven't figured it out indicates their lack of coaching.
Apart from MacBeth's excellent take, this is the next most important missing ingredient. For reasons I can't understand, the Rockets when they do break wind up advancing the ball well outside the foul lanes extended to the other end of the court. Instead of an available lane on either side of the ball handler, there is only one - the middle of the court. (To be fair, Posey does use the middle frequently). As I mentioned in another thread, the Rockets are the 3rd best defensive rebounding team in the WC. A conference known for strong PF play and excellent rebounding SF's (KG, Marion, Rashard, Odom, etc.). Yet the Rockets are 8th of the 14 teams in points off of fast breaks (and dead last in points off of TO's the last time I looked). Even if you subtracted out everyone of of Steve Francis's 298 DRebs, the Rox would be no worse than middle of the road at DRebs.
We have no fast break, and that pisses me off to no end. It seems as if Rudy and the staff have given up on these players actually developing one too. This is the main reason I think the rox should do everything in their power to move Francis to the 2, cuz it ain't workin. Francis and Mobley can't push the ball, and when they do, they push it so THEY can take the shot. No rewarding the big men for running up the floor. No heads up play when there is a mismatch. The few times Ming beats his man up the court and is guarded by someone who's 6'8, do the rox pass him the ball? No. They wait for the defense to get set. Mooch has become the worst of the lot, so there's no help from the bench. Tierre from last year ran the break better than our guards. Freakin Jame Posey is better at pushing the ball up the court, and even though he isn't that great of a passer, at least he tries to get it to the people running with him. Get a pass happy pg who can run the break this offseason who can start and offer up 25-30mpg. I don't care who. Eric Snow, Avery Johnson, Andre Miller, I don't give a ****. Mobes can come off the bench and help out Mo with the scoring.
Excellent points... Also, and this is another failing I didn't mention, we are terrible at breaking off a make...Now I;m not claiming everyone can be a Kansas in that regard, bu when was the last time we even tried? I honestly can't remember one, and if there were any I guarentee they were full court pass attempts. I also failed to mention how much work we need in the physycal aspects of pressing...of not leading tyour man into a defender for a charge, of not ( as we often do) requiring gymnastics of the finisher unless necessary, etc..
I actually prefer Cat or Posey running the break to Steve. Most of the time they will not pull the ball back when there is an advantage. Cat doesn't seem to get charges on the break and either gets a layup or a foul, so I don't mind him not passing it too much (it could be worse, remember him and Taylor passing way too much and Bibby taking it back the other way). Posey also likes to keep the ball on the break, but for some reason feels the need to go behind the back way too often. Sometimes Cat will throw the alley-oop to Steve on the break.
Mobley and Taylor didn't pass the ball too much on that break. They were very poorly spaced and made it easy for Bibby to defend them. IMO, this ties back into MacBeth's point...they have the athleticism, but lack the know how and the commitment to running an effective break.
Maybe the coach has different views on how a fast break should be run? After all, MOST fans disagree with the way the Rockets defend the pick n roll as well. I think it's a matter of incompatible personnel. Adding a second PG to our starting backcourt would cure this problem. It's becoming quite clear that 75% of this team's problems can be eradicated by adding a second PG or a SG genuinely compitent off playing off the ball for a full game as well as be the playmaker for a full game (Jalen Rose, Derek Anderson..).
With the guys we have on defense, we can get many steals and push the ball up quickly. But yes, they really need to make better decisions and need to learn how to run it. The best coach would be Larry Brown. He fits so perfectly. The fast break is not the only thing that the Rockets do terribly. There are too many things that they don't do well.
Sane - First, on the subject of the break. You are correct...in addition to the conventional break, there is also something called a "sideline" break. Here is a short excerpt from the website of a Div 1 college coach describing two of the positions on the sideline break: "#1 (Outlet) usually the Point Guard and perhaps the best dribbler on the team. Although the least amount of dribbling the better chance for success of the sideline fast break. His first duty is to prevent 4 from retrieving his own missed shot; however, as quick as he see the shot is successful, he breaks down the right lane in pursuit of teammate 2 also looking for an outlet pass from teammate 4." My emphasis of the most important part - "...the least amount of dribbling the better chance for success of the sideline fast break." Elsewhere on this coach's website, he points out that the conventional and sideline breaks should be used in conjunction with one another. Whether by design or accident, prior to the addition of Posey virtually all of the breaks were of the sideline variety. The coach continues: "#2 (Fly) is usually the shooting guard, good ball handler. He fills the right lane always looking back over his shoulder for a long pass. If none is there from teammate 4 he continues on down court." My comment - how often is the ball advanced by passing to Mobley on the "fly"? Or for that matter, passing period? Observe the key point - Position #2 - "Fly" fills a defined lane. Again, I'd like to tie this to back to what I feel was imbedded in MacBeth's original post. The Rockets are a young, athletic team that is currently a very poor fastbreak team when that should not be that case. The break is either not emphasized, not taught properly, and/or not run properly. I believe I heard a commentator (Walton?) say recently the Rockets are 3-10 in games decided by 3 points or less. Imagine what impact a few more FB points would make if it were taught/run properly. It is also worth noting that the conventional break is used a majority of time in the NBA. Your second comment is off topic so I will make my response as short as possible. I agree that the Rockets current personnel is "incompatible". However, please stop to consider this. We can change Steve Francis's "title" from PG to SG very easily. But (as has been pointed out by heypartner in other threads), Francis's "function" won't change even if the "title" has changed. On offense, Steve Francis will still dominate the ball. My point being - altering the team personnel to include a "playmaker" when Francis still initiates all of the offense by dominating the ball is still ineffective. Assuming Francis still controls the offense via the ball (as opposed to coming off of screens ala Reggie Miller, Wally Z, Rip Hamilton, etc.) adding a playmaking PG is IMO a non-value-add situation and doesn't necessarily improve things beyond the current situation of Mobley and Francis having redundant skills (with neither being exceptional passers).
What I would like to ask is why the Rockets Point Guards DRIBBLE the ball up the court and reduce the time of active play? How is that they never pass the ball up the court? The 1980s Lakers were masters of getting the ball up the court by passing.
Steve isn't that bad at it anymore. Moochie is horrific. Unless he can develope the confidence he had last year that made him (in my mind) a 6th man candidate, then I don't want the ball in his hands.
Every year I watch the Jayhowks in awe. The players are properly spaced, make the extra pass and know their roles. They are simply fundamentally sound. They are now my favorite college team to watch and that's all thanks to Roy Williams. Adding Roy Williams as the head coach would be the biggest coup for the Rockets. Nice dream. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.
QUESTION: Do we have adequate rebounding now to tell Cuttino and Steve to no longer concentrate on Rebounding? To just go for the outlet? Rocket River
Cmon, this is old news. Most high school teams are better than the Rockets at running the fast break...
