There is a difference between passing and creating open shots for your teammates. Steve tried to pass some, but he hardly created open shots for his teammates at all.
One of the major reason's the Francis doesn't get big assist numbers is our style of play. Most of our players like to shoot off of the dribble rather than shooting straight off of the catch. If Francis gets the ball to Mobley, Taylor, Norris or Thomas, odds are, they are going to put the ball on the floor and make a move before shooting. We don't have a consistent low post option yet, so there goes the opportunites for the cheap assist you get by just throwing the ball in to the big guy. Rocket players off of the ball don't flash to the hoop too often, so he's not going to rack up assist by hitting cutters. With our team, Francis' main source of assists will be him driving and dishing out to open shooters. That type of game isn't going to translate into high assist numbers on a consistent basis. I don't believe that assist numbers, by themselves, mean too much. The more important thing is if the offense is effective or not. Currently we are way too perimeter oriented to be as effective as I'd like to see. We have to work way too hard for each of our hoops. It's been that way for several years now. Now, if you wait until later in the year, and Yao establishes himself as a consistent low post threat...then that's a whole different story. Give it some time, I think that things will work out nicely.
I agree. Steve didn't really force that many shots tonight. When the Suns were pressuring Steve in the back court, he passed to his teammates before he even crossed mid-court. That should be early enough in the shot clock for anyone.
aelliott - Are you lurking these days? You aren't posting as often as you should. Perhaps it has become too crowded around here? You are absolutely right about the low post option and the effectiveness of the offense being more important than the assist total, but... The reason I have been persistently mentioning the lack of assists is that I feel they are systemic of greater problems. You are easily sharp enough to see have seen that the Rockets don't run the PnR very successfully or that they fail to milk the matchups which are advantageous (Rice posting Jacobsen as an example). Either of these things are available now. If we can't currently do these simplistic things well, how are we going to adapt to a low post game which involves good post entry passes from the perimeter? Is MoT going to be the one to do this? Are we going to initiate the low post entry early enough in the clock so that if it's doubled there's time for a re-post or a pass back to the weak side? (I think this is the decision making aspect DavidS was referencing). Again, my fixation on the assists is that I feel they are the tip of the iceberg for underlying problems. One closing comment about our stlye of putting it on the floor attributing to lower assists. I couldn't find it in a quick search of the rules, but isn't an assist given even if there is one dribble taken by the player making the shot? I believe many of Kidd's FB assists are after a dish and one dribble. (Yes, I know Thomas and Mobley take more than one dribble but EG, Mo and Rice don't always do so).
Gater, Yeah, I'm still around, I just don't care to participate in some of the ridiculous threads that have popped up lately. No argument that we can get much better on offense. My point was that even if we get very efficient and effective at what we do, Francis probably won't have big assist numbers because of our style of play. Right now, the way to play the Rockets is to sag back into a soft zone to cut off penetration and make us try to beat you over the top. We don't really have the shooters to do that on a consistent basis. If we had a low post option that could command a double team or otherwise score some easy hoops, then teams would have to change how they play us. As far as the assist rule, I don't believe that it's limited to any number of dribbles. I believe that it's based on making a pass that directly leads to a basket without the scorer having to make an offensive move. Make sense? If I throw you a pass for a break away slam, you might dribble 5 or 6 times but I still get the assist. Alternately, if I throw the ball to you in the post and you hold it and fake a couple of passes (but never put it on the floor) before shooting, then it's not an assist. On the perimeter, unless it's a catch and shoot, the passer isn't going to get an assist. Taylor likes to catch the ball, dribble in a couple of steps and stop and shoot. Usually, there's no assist there. Rice does catch and shoot, he just hasn't been hitting that many so far.
Francis did have one beautiful assist where he drove the lane and then did a simple wraparound pass to Ming for an easy dunk. I can't recall many other times this season when Francis truly created a bucket for a teammate. It had me wondering..."why can't he do the same thing for Eddie Griffin, or Kenny Thomas". Maybe when Griffin gets stronger that'll work, I guess it's just a wait and see. I thought this past game Francis settled for way too many jumpers on his own, especially considering his jumper was off. He needs to take it the hole- and that doesn't necessarily mean go up for the spectacular tomahawk. A guy like Steve Nash gets simple penetration, then either gets a wide open 3 in the corner for someone (for us, see Rice/Mobley) or dishes it off elsewhere. I think Francis sometimes gets into trouble (injury-wise) thinking he has to use all of his athleticism every single play, or none of it at all. PS aelliott-one note on Taylor, I agree with you in regards to his tendency to dribble before his shot, but IIRC last night he was more of a catch and shoot type player.
Francis is looking to setup the rest of the players more often and Mobley didn't hog the ball in this game either. Our frontline is not strong enough yet but it should get better as Yao and hopefully Griffin get more comfortable in the low post. The players need to space themselves better on the floor in order to get easier opportunities to score. Everyone has to make a greater effort on rebounding so we can get to the free throw line and get second chances to score.
I thought Francis is passing the ball decently this yea, despite lower assist totals. He at least seems to grasp the idea that he has to get his teammates involved. Obviously, when its a catch and hold for 6 or 7 second team, though, you don;t get an assits. The problems are two fold: 1) Ineffective use of the shot clock, as GATOR has pointed out. Francis isn't as awful at this as Mobley or KT, but he is still part of the problem. When they are running a simple PnR, you can see them waiting for the shot **** to run down...why, I don't know? 2) Mentality: The Rockets just don't have a fluid/passing offense mentality. I've been repeating myself across threads, but it starts with Rudy and his inability to grasp how an effecient NBA offense where your guards are your true strength is run. The team's plays are too often called for specific players, and this translates into a team that thinks that one person will get a few opportunities to score, and then maybe it will be another person's chance to try and score a lot. This isn't how it should be - there should be effective cutting, crisp passing and a system that takes advantages of the natural flaws of each type of defense (zone versus man).
I get the feeling that Francis isn't comfortable with making a pass when he has a defender near him.He takes up time on the shot clock isolating so he can get past his man first before passing the ball.
That makes no sense, the theory up at the top was that Francis has low assists because his TEAMMATES are the ones dribbling around before they take a shot, which means no assist for Steve if they make a basket. But, if Francis is dribbling the shot clock down as you allege then this would theoreticaly cause him to get MORE assists as his teammates would have LESS time to dribble around and would be forced to catch and shoot - resulting in higher, not lower, asssist totals for Francis.
Based on that, then the problem I assert is that the Rockets players don't know how to position themselves according to the defense so that they can receive a shot and make an easy bucket. You see Rockets trying to do impressive things instead of making the crisp pass to an open teammate or making sharp cuts toward the basket without the ball. I think that if Thomas, Mobley, and Griffin made more deliberate actions, whether it be shooting or making a crisp pass it would open up the HOuston offense and Francis would not only get more assists, he's be a more effective scorer.
