Which is it?? Will his strategy come through in the playoffs and surprise us all???? Will all this attention to defense REALLY pay off.. I have my doubts, and they are very serious ones. I believe and feel the following: JVG=stubborn and our players(except yao/t-mac)=incompetent.. together.. they create a more than great defense.. but what they also create, and is often unmentioned, is the most ridiculous, makes me want to shoot myself in the foot, offense that i have EVER seen in my life... JVG is the luckiest man alive to have been blessed with T-mac's offensive abilities. t-mac IS the offensive coach.. w/o him, we run the same f'in plays over and over, expecting them to somehow !!!!"work"!!!!! Today, all of our offensive deficiences were magnified 10x, and I just couldn't take it. I was screaming at the screen and I wanted to punch our r****ded players and JVG. they continuously tried to pass the ball to yao AFTER the point at which they could... and lob passes were thrown as accurately as Bush's inaugural pitch for the Astros last season. HOLY CRAP!! i can barely watch our offense with a struggling t-mac/good defense on yao, let alone an offense with t-mac AND a defense that's fronting yao. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TEACH THESE PPL HOW TO PASS... OR DRIBBLE... HELL, TEACH THEM HOW TO PLAY BASKETBALL... because none of them seem to know what they are doing on the offensive end. i know some of you will be deeply offended; others might feel the same way. oh how i miss mike james, jon barry, and bob sura... at least they knew how to play offense.
*edit.. that's "let alone an offense WITHOUT t-mac" all ^ while watching novak rot on the bench.. AWESOME!
We scored 99...how much more do we need to win? Our offense wasn't the problem tonight, I think your barkin up the wrong tree sparky.
transition 3's from luther doesn't count as good offense.. on a regular night we would have only scored 87-90
He's not really. For the past few years its been the same predictable offense. There are about 2 playes he runs for Tmac, and its not even a secret when he's trying to get the team to shove the ball into Yao in the post. For the most part our offense is stale if thats a good word for it. There is a reason without Tmac creating that this team can't win much of anything, even if Yao has a terrific game.
Well this is not the Phoenix Suns or the showtime Lakers. 5 years and this team still doesn't have a real 3rd scorer who can create his own shot.
Just out of curiousity then, what kind of strategies does D'Antoni run? Everyone seems to love his crotch region around here. On a regular night we also might've had our best offensive player as well, might make a difference.
I agree the offense is predictable but why over complicate things when you have 2 of the premiere offensive weapons in the game...you work with your personel and as far as that goes I believe JVG has done a pretty decent job.
Pick and roll PG drive 3 point kick out from the drive Pick and pass for mid range Jumper (PF/C) PF post up on the block (PF Diaw) just to name a few
D'Antoni doesn't coach. Nash is the floor general out there and D'Antoni just takes a break on the sidelines, but screams at refs once in a while to make sure he's still noticed.
I wouldn't say our players except Yao & T-mac are incompetent, I would say that our bench is incompetent, so we really depend on our starters + head and howard to play well if we want a chance to win. But if one or two of our starters have a bad night, its pretty much a bad , ugly game
Seriously?...Not to be rude but have you ever played ball before?...PG drive isn't a strategy haha...either for that matter is 3 point kick out from the drive...those are plays that hold up, shocker PLAYers make haha. Besides those two Rox run everything listed there, PnR to death...Pick and Pop with Juwon...No doubt the post up with Yao/Juwon. See my point, this supposedly great innovator D'Antoni runs nothing diff. than JVG does, just has a different set of talent running the plays. In all honesty, his defensive strategy isn't all that diff. from the Rockets either...just diff. personel...our talent is more defensive minded but as far as the "strategies" go, we really run nothing that groundbreakingly different.
Honestly, it doesn't matter how thick JVG playbook is. It all boils down to execution. If they run it and hits their shots, it's "an efficient offense". If they run it and miss everything (I call this the "1 out of every 4 games" scheme), it's a "poor, simplistic, and ugly offense".
I'd agree he doesn't do much coaching on the floor...but who could at that pace haha. They have one of the few teams that you can really cut loose and trust to not to get out of control with Nash running things. D'Antoni coaches them to death in practice I'm sure, that break doesn't just fall into place, definitely has to be designed and practiced. Just as many people around here argue that you take away TMac and JVG becomes a horrible offensive coach I could say the same about Nash with Mike D or Dirk with AJ. Are those fadeaway 18 footers really good shots for anyone other than him to take? Have Croshere plugged in that spot and that offense would be a laughingstock.
*Yawn*. The game was over when Baron Davis started dribbling up and down at the top of the key because he couldn't decide which wide open guy to pass to. Whine about offense all you want: HORRIBLE defense and careless ballhandling were the reasons we lost tonight. That said, I'd probably like to see more pick-and-roll plays run with Yao and a guard from the top the key as a way to defeat the entry pass denial strategy. If they're going to front him, then put him in motion and force the defense to commit to someone else.
I agree and, guess what, it goes back to point guard play. I don't care how many steals Rafer has, he's still a borderline decent-at-best defender. We continually get burned by opponents' point guards (Nash, Parker, Baron Davis, Deron Williams, even Smush Parker) and we nothing to stop that. Head isn't a great defender himself. Lucas is too small to stay in for too long. Spanoulis' Ginobili-esque defense would work 2 years ago before the NBA cracked down on it. Funny thing is, as long as I can remember, the two spots that a Rockets team ALWAYS get killed at by the opponent is 1) Point Guard and 2)Power forward. Some things never change....
Regarding overall style, this isn't really hard. You need to look at JVG's own statements, especially ones involving Spurs. JVG takes pride in being stubborn and sticking to the team identity no matter how bad things are going. It's a good thing if you have the personal. Does this team have the personal? You decide. As for innovation....are we talking about offense or defense? If we are talking about innovation on offense, I can start and be done in couple of nanoseconds. As for defense, he is very innovative in terms of taking away the other team's best offensive options and screeching the game to a halt. As long as the other team's offense runs thru the paint of course. I am still waiting for defensive innovation against outside shooting teams like Suns.
