Larry Smith does two things for the Rockets. Hes the Big Man coach and he keeps guys like Kermit Washington from punching RudyT in the face...
MacBeth, Great thread of discussions. I am not close to be a backetball observer. I watched all 4 games and also browsed a little around the league. I know it's still too early to have enough data for statistical analysis. But as a Rockets fan and a fanatic basket ball fan and a former college soccer athlete, I can't help. After my ass covered, here is my intuitive feeling of what Rudy's strategy is. Rudy has one goal, many hopes and no cohesive strategy for this team. His goal is immediate and urgent, that is, to get to the playoffs NOW. He hopes the big 2 will lead the team to that. He hopes EG has a comming out season to seal that. He hopes the role players are healthy enough to muddle through the that. After the draft, he also hopes Yao Ming will put icing on the cake to secure a playoff spot. It's a given that Rudy has his playbook full. He has genuinely tried some in the 4 games. But that's all the tactics. Without a cohesive strategy, tactics become adhoc in games. Hence the erraneous results. Issues for Rudy are his many hopes got busted too early in the season. The injury bug hits the role palyers in a bunch. EG's performance variation rivals the stock market. And Yao Ming is not an immediate contributor he hopes. So the big 2 have to scramble to keep the team above the water until the team is whole. If we recap Rudy's contradictory statements before and after the pre-season, especially with regard to his and others' hype of Yao, my feeling may not stray too much. Why do I feel Rudy has no cohesive strategy? This may be just my problem. I haven't felt he has had one since I became a Rockets fan since 94. I became a Rockets fan only because I fell in luv with "The King of Africa", a.k.a., Hakeem at that time. During that 2 Champ runs, the Rockets didn't need a strategy per se as long as they didn't abuse Hakeem's talent. Fast forward to the Chucky Barky trade. I truely believed it would be a cake walk to the hardware store when you have da Dream, da Chuck and whoelse. A strategy would have been a waste for Rudy, cause' I remember I was screeming "It's damn unfair" to my TV when da Chuck was said to be a Rocket. Back to this season, it's the same old Rudy. Don't get me wrong. I think Rudy is a great coach, becasue as a sports mania I know every coach is a great one if he wins the hardware. Now, in every team sports, you don't have to have a grand strategy to win the diamond. The biggest issue with the Rockets now is, imho, Rudy has to have a cohesive strategy in order to take what's given on hand to the hardware store again. This is why I feel Yao Ming is a god gift for the Rockets to win a few Championships down the road. The headache is Yao Ming will never be a Hakeem or a Kareem. Rudy has to have a cohesive strategy in order for Steve and Yao to lead the Rockets to that promised land. Hence my frustration with the first 4 games. What strategy does Rudy need to achieve that? I can try if you don't ROTFLYAO. AFAIK, there have been exactly two coaches in the NBA that have had a cohesive strategy for their teams since 90s. One is the Phil-never-rebuild-Jackson's borrowed tripple post offense. The other is the infamous Jerry-roll-your-ass-off-Sloan's pick-n-roll. As a cliche in my career, "when you have a performming formular, milk it to death". These are the only two strategies that have produced consistent results in the last decade or so. Back to the Rockets, with Steve at 2 and Ming at 5, Rudy can borrow a few pages of both tripple post and pick-them-apart-then-roll strategies. Contrary to many Cat "hatas", Cat is the perfect point guard for that strategy to work. The best part is that when Cat-Steve-"Robert Horry"-Eg-Ming are milking that 3D tripple post pick-n-roll, the rest of the league will be crying foul and Rule changes will again be on the way. Danm, I've broken my promise too fast. It's all your fault:^) Peace.
First off, I am a total amateur. I've never played any organized ball on any level, other than church leagues. I do play a lot of pick up ball. I tell you this b/c I want to show you that (1) I am no expert about basketball strategies so you can laugh at my post as much as you want; and (2) that might give me some other perspective on this puzzle than those of you "astute observers" of the game. This is NOT a cynical reply to Macbeth's question. Anyone who plays pick up ball knows that it is totally unfocused. No predesigned strategies or plays. That usually results in two possible senarios. (1) One or two players (ball hogs) dominate the ball. Or (2) everybody shares the ball with good ball movement with noone being the "focus" of the offense. The first senario is easy to understand. The second, however, typically results from having a team of players who (a) are fundamentally sound and (b) know each other fairly well. Condition (a) is important b/c you need to have players who know what to do in what situation (setting pick, shooting, passing to the open guy, rolling, etc.). Condition (b) is important because you have to play with guys you know what they will and can do in what situation. Now, here's my take on Rudy's strategy. First, from the quotes from Rudy and other players after games, we see that they seem to know what they are supposed to do. So there is surely some strategy and game plan there. We may think that they are not doing what they say. But I suspect that's not the whole truth. Second, from the quotes earlier in the summer, Rudy said that the offense was going to be "5-man" offense. That name, to me, gives away what it is. A 5-man offense is a deliberately UNFOCUSED offense. The lack of focus is by design, not freelancing. It will look very much like a pick up team. Everyone is a scoring option. Everyone passes to the right person. There are some set plays in which everyone knows what they are supposed to do. But the offense AS A WHOLE does not focus on any particular player, not the center, not the PG. But to make it work, you need all your players to be fundamentally sound and you need good chemistry. The Rockets are lacking on both counts right now. And naturally, it often deteriorates into ballhogging by Francis and Mobley. I still don't believe they are selfish players. The whole team just aren't very good in fundamental basketball and they don't have very good chemistry yet. OK, that's my serious take. Now this is the cynical answer: Rudy's strategy is to set Francis and Mobley up to appear as the sole scoring option of the team. He tells them not to pass the ball even being double-teamed. So the whole league will believe that the only defensive strategy needed again the Rockets is to stop the two guys. Then, when game 7 of the Finals comes down to the last shot to win or lose the championship, the opponent will focus all their defense on Francis and Mobley. And to the surprise of everyone, they pass it to the wide open Ming (who everybody believes is a bust by that time) to deliver the winning shot at the buzzer from 15'. Clutch City is back to the glory!!! I know it's not funny.
unfortunately, i have to agree w/ this statement. rudy has not shown - not even on one occassion - that he can consistently design, implement, or enforce a successful offensive set. maybe this is the year, but my gut tells me it wont be.
There lies the problem. When we won with that offense, its because we had the best player in the league on the team something we don't have right now. After the next yr when the offense struggled and people just let hakeem go off and contain everyone else we were avg at best. Instead of Rudy adjusting and moving Hakeem around, he traded for Clyde who was still the best 2 guard in the west and we won again. The next season after clyde was slowed down and we played a team that had our number because of the style we played, we were swept out of the playoffs. The next season,with the prospects of playing Seattle agin to get to the ring and Chucky Brown having to play against a young explosive Kemp, Rudy didn't risk it and traded for Chuck and signed Willis. The result was the Rockets beat Sonics,but lost to Utah. Where am I going with this. Rudy has never been able to make adjustments in his offense. The only adjustments he has ever made were to trade ang get better players even though in a different offense those players would have benefitted the team better. Currently, there isn't or shouldn't be a offense that the Rockets run that do not take advantage of the players they have now. The have the penetrators in Mobley and Francis, the wing players that are suppose to be more than adequate, so whats the problem? It was said it takes 2 yrs to install an offense, well if he would have installed it last yr when the season was going no where, the Rockets would be in the 2nd yr already. They need to stop making excuses and just play ball.
zz, Funny quote! Rudy will still run at full speed promising to coldcock someone from behind. He will still blame the other guy when he is knocked out. He will still say that he was trying to break up the fight. He will still play the wounded hero for the masses. He will still drink himself into oblivion because he is living a lie. He should give Kermit his life back 20 years ago. What a phony!
Easy, Great point. I used the same pickup game analogy on another thread. The beauty of life is taking 5 individuals of different talent levels and backgrounds to win a pickup game. These guys may have never met, but they know that in order to win and stay on the court, they have to play together. You don't even need a $4 million/yr cheerleader on the sidelines!
Achebe, Rudy's daily recipe should not be posted for all to see. We may think that he can't coach because he's drunk all the time. Watch out for that tree. It will move into the middle of the street if you are not paying attention!
The guy cheap shotted Rudy as Rudy ran by him, Rudy never saw him,wasnrt even looking !! Kermit deserves anything he got ,,,,,,he was a true coward.....Thats the way I remember it , where are you getting your information from? You are talking about things you dont seem to know much about.
First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has answered in this thread thus far...This is exactly what I love about this place, this kind of discussion...No finger pointing, no breaking into camps, no name-calling, just good, intelligent basketball discussion. Without sounding corny, I am a little proud of this thread...( Of course, I was very proud of my Labels thread, and like 30 people read it...sigh) HP asked about Dallas' offense, and I think it's on point. I think it is very much the kind of offense that Rudy might have in mind, but there are a couple of crucial differences. The Mav's offense, like Houston's, is started by their point guard. Their principle is to get Nash to penetrate, and when help comes to immediatley dish off to, if not the open man, at least the beginning of the open chain, keeping ahead of the defensive rotation until a good shot comes up. The differences with Houston's offense in this regard are many. 1) Dallas often sets a thicket of screens which Nash can use to scrape his defender, thereby making his penetration quicker and easier, and also making the defensive rotation start off-balance. In our offense, despite the occassional pick, the penetration usually comes from Steve just beating his man 1-on-1, which takes longer, as he has to get the defender in position, and also start his move in such a position that the help defense won't be able to seal him off, and remove his passing lanes. This extra time is vital, as I will mention in a second. 2) Another key difference is the time factor. Nash usually starts his penetration a lot earlier in the shot clock than Steve does, thereby allowing for multiple looks, and the play can re-set or be passed along until a quality shot presents itself. As Steve starts later, it usually only allows for 1 or maybe 2 players to be involved in the ball movement before a shot has to be put up, thereby lowering our shot quality, and shooting percentages, and overall giving a sense of a hurried offense, which makes players prone to rush their shots or make mistakes. 3) This next point will sound like a shot, but it's really just an observation at this point...As both offenses are predicated on the point guard penetration and dishing off if/when help defense comes, obviously that is the crucial moment in the set...But whereas Nash passes off at that moment with regularity, if you watch Steve when that moment comes, he often pulls up and shoots, or more frequently dribbles back out of the double team, thereby enacting his own version of a re-set. Time is ususally taken as he feints right and left, in and out, and many of his outs are when the defensive help starts to come. There could be many reasons for this, such as he lacks confidence in his teammates, the spacing isn't right, his angle of penetration is off, thereby sealing off his own passing lanes, etc., or it could be that most of the time he penetrates with scoring in mind, not to put the defense on the horns of a dilema. 4) The last difference is overall team movement and spacing. The Mavs practice a lot of weaves and cuts, although they tend to end up with players in the same position someone else just vacated. This, in addition to the fact that other players get more involved in freeing up Nash than the Rockets do, gets the offense moving more, and creates mismatches on defensive rotations. Both rely on putting the defense in the position of having to decide whether to let the pg penetrate to the basket or bring help and leave a man open, but the Mavericks are more involved in the whole process. Another point: People have mentioned that the difference between the offense we're running now and the one we ran with Hakeem is the quality of shots a big man gets being better than that of a guard, and that is true, but another huge difference has to do with angles and passing lanes. As Hakeem almost always set up in the same position, ( LLP), the offense predicated on forcing a double team and kicking to the freed up shooter always came from the same place. As such, the other Rockets knew where to set up so that Hakeem would have a lane to get them the ball, and Hakeem learned to know by instinct where the help was coming from, and who it was freeing up. With Francis being the player forcing the double team, that makes things a lot more fluid, and a lot less predictable for his teammates...Where Francis penetrates from, what angle he takes, and when he does it can all be dictated by the defense to a degree, and his teammates don't have the time to figure out where to go in order to leave a passing lane open when Francis comes in. Therefore, when he does penetrate, he often finds himself without an open teammate to pass to because he doesn't have an angle to get them the ball, or sometimes to even see them. Additionally, he has to make a split second decision on where the help is coming from, do so on the move, and without the benefit of positional habit that Hakeem had. Because his teammates have to standstill in order to create some continuity for him to know where to go, help defenders also know where they are, and can come at Francis with the intention of sealing him off, ie. preventing an easy penetration AND closing down his passing lane to the freed up man. These are the differences between the Dallas and Houston offense, IMO, and those between our current version of the old Dream offense and the original. But this is still only relevant some of the time, and for most of the rest I am in the dark.
MacBeth- If you watch teams who successfully run their offense through the guards penetration, Nash/Dallas, Bibby/Sacramento, Payton/Seattle-etc. I believe there is a glaring difference with the Francis/Rockets offense. These other point guards are executing an offense looking toeither pass off for an open shot or break down their defender when they have an advantage. Steve drives looking to score period. He only passes as a bail out not in execution of the offense. Watch him drive and you will see he is determined to break down the defense even if he is in heavy traffic, ie draw the foul. There is not a execution going on here of setting up someone for an open look. I don't find fault with this at this time. I hope though that the offense develops more like Sacramento's and Steve develops as a point guard executing our offense. Even if this doesn't happen we will win games simply because Steve really is just an insane talent who is learning to score at will. But if we want a championship we will need more contribution as a team and this will mean better offensive execution.
Where is this thicket of picks?? Payton didn't have a thicket of picks. It was spread the floor and penetrate, generally from a low post position for Payton. Although I have most definitely seen Seattle use one pick for Payton with a lot of weakside picks timed to what Payton does. When you say "thicket," I have to consider that to be the extreme side of # of picks. Argentina had a "thicket" of weave picks to open driving lanes. Kings have a thicket of picks. I haven't watched Dallas this year, but last year that team is a clearly in a 4 out 1 structure to open driving lanes that don't require much picking. Plus, Nash does not initiate the offense all the time. Finley and Nowitski get a lot of entries....mostly dribble entries like Nash, actually. Nowitski will often get an entry at the perimeter and a pick above the Free Throw line a lot. He loves to drive down a lane. But the biggest thing missing from your description is Dallas gets almost 50% of their offense from transition and secondary breaks. Those are quick strikes based on freelancing and utilizing at most one quick simple pick. More than anything else, I call Dallas a transition team, like a Larry Brown Kansas team or Calipari UMass. Dallas has a similar structure at the most basic level...they are not in a Box, they are not double high post, they are not 3-2...etc etc etc...they are spread along the perimeter with one man posting, which is a common style all over Europe. It is not Motion...it is a drive and kick offense based on spreading the floor to open driving lanes, predicated on the need to field great shooters. Dallas shows vastly more chemistry than we do, manifested in there almost complete lack of hesitation. rhester, I would not describe Sacramento's offense as dependent on PG penetration whatsoever. Witness Bibby's assist total drop nearly in half when he moved to Sac. Sacramento gets the vast majority of their assists from Divac and Webber. I believe they both had more assists than Bibby. The Kings use a High Post structure, and very often a Double High Post. Note that Pete Carrill coaches for them, and he invented the Princeton Offense where everything is run through the center. If I were to guess the offense in a more detailed manner than merely describing the player positioning, my guess has always been that this is using the Zipper Offense invented by a Yugo coach who coached the German National team...(I'd could be wrong about him being Yugo).
The thicket is there if you watch them...One important distinction is that, as you pointed out, it's a perim. one...(I wish I could draw here!) They will set up a semi-circular thicket on the perimiter, and Nash has the option of coming around it all the way, or only part way and penetrating between links...and it still leves the shooters in position. I never mentioned Payton...they run a different offense. Argentina ran interior thickets, not like Dallas, but perhaps using the phrase thicket did imply this kind of image. In terms of the other Mavs starting the entry, that is another point: Nash gives up the ball a lot earlier, as I said, and it's not always off of pnenetration. I didn't make this point because, A) It sounded like more 'bashing' to me, and B) It didn't really address the issue of our set difference with Dallas, aside from Nash not hangong onto the ball as much as Steve. With regards to transition offense, that had nothing to do with what kind of sets they were running, so I didn't duscuss it. Maybe I should have...I feel that we have the makings of an extreme transition offense, with Ming as a great outlet, etc...but Steve would have to learn to give up the ball on the break a hell of a lot earlier than he is currently comfortable with. People complain about his decisions on the break being poor,,,to me, it's more that he makes them too late. Watch Kidd on the break, or Magic in his prime...for every last-second no-look highlight pass, they made 10 early simple passes that lead to a layup or dunk. Not as flashy, but more effective. When they do break, Stockton is the master of this principle.
I don't disagree there are picks, but there are picks in the Rockets offense as well....as you say, "if you just look for them." And certainly in a spattering of Rox sets there indeed is a lot of picks. But "thicket" of picks. I just couldn't say that about Dallas, because they don't have the most. anyhow, Dallas is best described as a transition team. When that is stopped, they primarily want to spread the floor to run penetration and simple pick plays with a lot of kicking followed by more penetration and kicking or swinging. imo, Dallas simplifies the game. They don't run a complicated offense with precision reads and timing.
I also wanted to keep the FB and transition game out of the mix but... HP - On the surface, I was in agreement with DAL being a better transition team but when I looked it up the Mavs get 15.2% of there total points from FB compared to the Rockets 14.3%. Not much difference. Back on topic - If we conclude that the Mavs and the Rox both run simplistic drive and kick (force a double on a player and then pass) type offenses then I have to conclude that the Mavs as a team just make better decisions. That is, unless some one comes up with what a definition of what the strategy really is.
GATER, The media fastbreak stats just measure fastbreaks. They do not measure a transition team. Stats do not count secondary breaks, but coaches do. This isn't really even up for debate. Secondary breaks are part of a transition team, and they don't register in the stats as fastbreaks. Proof of that is indeed that everyone considers Dallas a transition team par excellance, yet the stats don't show it.
HP is right. Dallas gets a lot of points from secondary breaks, or from early offense. That is getting the ball up the court and getting a good shot BEFORE the opponent has a chance to set their defense. Actually, the Rockets have been getting up the floor, but then for some reason, a lot of the time they pull it out to set it up. I think they are still trying to discover what it is they are supposed to do. DaDakota
