Coach is a defensive minded coach. He comes to Houston and tries to implement his slow down, smash mouth defensive game with the half court offensive sets that turn into survival matches with the winner being the team that dents the backboard the least and has the fewest 24 second violations. Then a quarter of the way through his second year, after trading players away that he didn't think he could mold into his style of players, he decides to loosen up the offense and turn TMac free to jack up 30 footers on a whim because the team is losing terribly bad and aren't able to throw it into the ocean running all his 23 second sets. What do you know, the team gets hot and steamrolls into the playoffs. Of course, in the process, he trades away his pet player JJ in exchange for DWes and our defense promptly improves to go along with the free flowing offense from TMac. Then Van Gundy strategizes his way to a game 7 with the Mavs, burning a hole through three grease boards, as he draws up play after play and defensive schemes that shut down Dirk and force the Mavs perimeter players to have to bring it for a game 7 victory. Now fast forward to this year. After a season fraught with offseason moves designed to put improved pieces around Yao in the form of a rubber band jumping jack power forward and a running, dribbling passing gizmo point guard this team comes out of the gate struggling once again. That jumping jack PF looks like he couldn't remember to put on his jersey before games. The dribbling, passing gizmo point guard gets hurt right off the bat. TMac and Yao come out of the blocks having to play more minutes than last year. Deke looks like he's collecting Social Security and DWes looks like he's had both knees replaced and can't hit a jumper to save his life, while the least likely player to make positive contributions, the dreaded stupid rookie, actually looks like he could be a future all star with the 3 point shooting and the active defense. Then TMac goes down and coach is stuck with running the offense and the defense for that matter around Yao, who is too slow to stop all those smallish guards who are penetrating right around our perimeter defense which act as if they are playing with 5 pound bricks tied to their shoes and silicone sprayed all over the bricks and can't cut off the dribble drive nor launch and hit those wide open set shots that they get off the Yao triple teams. Then TMac comes back and things start looking up a bit as we hit the road for the longest road trip of the year. We break out on the road, still getting broke down on the defensive end, and not able to stop either the dribble penetration or the long distance bombs but we start to see improvement in the penetration defense as teams start jacking up more and more outside shots and quit taking it to the hole so much on us. We rattle off a whole bunch of wins and everything is looking pretty solid until Yao goes down with the broken toe nail right before the last game on the road. We manage to scrape out a victory there as Deke goes down hurt but the Lakers totally suck up their home court and basically hand us a victory on a silver platter. As the reality that we are now without Yao anymore for a while sets in, we start a string of games with teams just totally triple teaming TMac and forcing him to give up the basketball to players that wouldn't even make half the rosters of the other NBA teams. Yao is out. Deke is out. DA and JB are gone. And Van Gundy is forced to give players like Rybo and Moochie major minutes as we start to skid into oblivion. Van Gundy, ever the soldier of his beliefs, refuses to do anything with this team besides harp on the fact that we are reaching the point of no return and we've got to improve our "intensity" and "defense", etc. etc. etc. after every horrible losing performance. Finally, we come dragging into Washington, the home of the gunslinging Bullets....er....Wizards, who don't know how to spell defense. The Phoenix Suns of the East. Van Gundy finally decides he's gotta do something drastically different to try and get a W, so he starts changing his philosophy and decides to let the horses run. In the previous 2 games, he had actually started running some plays for his new jumping jack power forward and letting the athlete do his thing down in the post. That seems to have worked out pretty good, but we are still losing to inferior teams because we can't defend and our shooting is horrendous as teams continue to double and triple TMac. Coach has finally got his gizmo point guard back and has also had CD bring in another speedy mighty mite in John Lucas to turn up the action. He brings the team out and starts running up and down the floor with the Wiz, not even worrying about how many points against us they get, but forcing the tempo up, even at times having 3 guys under 6'3" on the floor at the same time with Lucas, Rafer, and Head running around making plays. All of a sudden, we are looking at the 1981 Denver Nuggets and Van Gundy's suit coat changes to a yellow/burnt orange suede sport jacket that looks like something Doug Moe used to wear. And we are running up and down the floor, jacking up shots, and letting the game flow in it's free form and putting the pressure on the Wiz to keep up with us. What do you know, we score almost a buck and a quarter and come away with a much needed win. But our defense is absolutely putrid, giving up over 30 more points than what Van Gundy would like to. We can't stop the dribble penetration and the perimeter shooters just killed us. But we raced down and killed them because their D is worse than ours. Can you imagine? What is Coach thinking? Is he thinking that we can maintain this lineup and shoot over 50% consistently? Is he thinking that we can win this way while Yao is out more than we lose? Is he thinking he's lost control of this team since our defense is non-existent? Is he thinking he can maintain this style and stay in the gym with teams that actually have a clue defensively? Is he thinking he can somehow get these players to learn to play defense? Is he thinking that when Yao gets back, he can really ratchet down the defense with the big cog in the middle and then keep the uptempo offense going and when the break is not there, use Yao and TMac in the 2 man game? Or is he thinking this is all craziness and we happened to hit a bunch of shots on a team that isn't very good and this is a fool's gold win and we are still in big big trouble? Or is he thinking of lineups such as Lucas and Rafer in the backcourt with Head and Tmac at the forward slots and Stromile at the 5 and seeing if we can hit 150 and hold the opponent to 140? What is coach thinking? I'd like to know.
Great post, I usually can't read posts this long but this was entertaining. Its only one game but I hope JVG keeps the horses out of the corral. The game was fun and while I think your observation about the Wiz lack of defense was the main reason for us scoring 125 points it would be nice for JVG to run this up tempo game while Yao is out and see if he has any success with it.
I hate to do this but ignorant posts like the one above by jopatmc make coming here very depressing. Where do they make people like this? Wow!
When you have the most explosive scorer and talented player in the league, it makes sense to just let him ball. no restriction...
So apparently, based on your post: a) It's JVG's fault that Rafer was hurt b) Wesley "can't hit a jumper to save his life" c) It's somehow a negative and unexpected that Yao is "too slow for the quick guards" d) Our D was absolutely terrible even though a lot of their shots were jacked up 3's and perimeter J's that just went in, in an up-tempo game. Guess what? If both teams are taking a lot of shots, they will put up points usually. The Wiz only shot 42% for the game.. the D wasn't as horrendous as you make it out to be. You have to adjust for the pace of the game
Before i go, some people are never satisfied. now there trying to drag-out something negative out of a pretty descent win.....
You know what the main difference was about last nites game vs. the previous 5? The shots went in. We had a few fast breaks but aside from that the Roxs connected on a lot of the same shots they had gotten in previous games, that was the major difference. Through 3 quarters the Roxs were on their way to holding the Wiz to about 90-95 point for the game. The Wiz had a major offensive explosion and the Roxs relaxed on D. I see the posters point but I don't think JVG gameplanned the game any differently but this time the shot went down.
All of the above, I'd say. BTW, I really liked your summary of the season so far. And I don't think you were looking for something bad to say about a win. I think you were trying to make sense of this game in terms of where it fits into our season.
JVGs plan isn’t like cement, he will always change the game plan for whatever team we're playing.. While I don’t agree with a lot of you post, it was a great post..
Great post. How is he being negative? Huh? He was just pointing out JVG's ability to adjust in the face of disaster and necessity, contrary to popular belief. I think the main thing about last night was Rafer Alston. Even had they wanted to run, they couldn't without a point guard. They finally had one last night. For all the people constantly b****ing about the Mike James trade, last night showed what impact a passing point guard can have on the game. I think Alston can hold down the point guard spot for the next few years. A big positive from last night.
Van Gundy is a great coach and he is the coach for this team. People need to understand that before he came here we couldn't get in the playoffs to save our lives. With him here we have gone for 2 straight years. we are now 11-18 and while thats not good we have a pretty favorable sceduale so we can fet back in the playoff race over the next few games. WE WILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS. HAVE FAITH!!!
Well, if anything, all the points you've made in your post point back to a common theme: JVG's ability to adjust through very trying circumstances. I hope that's enough to shut down any stupid, knee-jerk "JVG is too stubborn and won't adjust" threads/posts in the future, based on nothing more than his former Knicks team which didn't have a lot of pieces to work around in the first place. JVG has been a victim of 'streotypes' based on his past as much as McGrady has been a victim of 'stereotypes' based on his past; no wonder they both actually get along and like each other, they have a few things in common...
Very interesting read. I don't know what JVG is thinking. However, Did anyone see a post-game TV interview with JVG after this fun game? I saw the one after the previous loss. The guy looked totally destroyed,on the verge of teers, choked up and abruptly discontinued the interview. Hopefull he had a smile of some sort and looked somewhat releived last night . I just saw the predictable quote in the Chronicle from him about how our defense sucked. I don't think Vegas is enough. Occasionally you just have to be publicly happy for a moment and tell the guys "good job", even if they still do some thiings less than perfect. In modern sports history has a sad sack, negative disciplinarian coach ever had much success?
This is what I've been saying for awhile that the Rox can run and play an open court style and should do that more often. Not all the time but more than they are doing. It makes more sense now with T-Mac being tripled team to try to score before the D has a chance to set up. Also with zone D's one of the best way to beat those is by running.
When the players hit open jump shots, limit turnovers, hustle on defense and play smart JVG is a great coach. When TMac is injured or missing JVG is a terrible coach. When the team has to adjust to missing their #2 scorer and leading rebounder JVG is a terrible coach. JVG probably isn't giving much thought to the fact that he wouldn't be 11-18 if McGrady and Yao had been healthy all season. He's probably thinking that during trials like this season you either develop a champion's character or you tank- it is a test of character for himself, Les Alexander and his two star players.
Pretty good post except for the misconception that JVG has never wanted his team to run. He is ALWAYS on the sideline swinging his arm like a whirling dervish trying to encourage his guys to run and push the ball up the court. The reason he traded SF is because he is a bonehead and couldn't play a team game, Mobley and Cato were trade casualties to get T-Mac. What is JVG thinking? I bet its something to the effect that I have six of my eight rotation players down with injuries, no big man in the middle, lack quickness in our back court and can't buy a basket. So with the recent infusion of youth and Rafer coming back off the IL he has nothing to loss in putting them in the game to bring some energy. And it worked! Lets see if we can continue this type of play for a string of games.... On a side - Did anybody see T-Mac on the bench last nigth when the team was making its run with him on the bench? His facial expressions were killing me.....he was like "where the hell has this been for the past 20 games.....lol"
I saw that post game interview, I think it was after the Hornets loss. Me and the wife felt worse for him than we did for ourselves after the loss. Also, that's the reason I've always been a JVG fan, because the man lives and dies, more so than a lot of coach, with each win and loss. As for the more up tempo type of game, JVG wants to do it when possible but in order to that, shots need to drop, if they don't you get what we saw for the last 5 games, if they do, we get last nite.
