Hawks rotation

[Diesel]

Diesel Said:

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Woody can get away with this with our younger players because they are young and they believe it's to their advantage. What it really spells is that there are log jams on our team and we also have holes. We don't know how to play everybody except we portion off your time on the court. It kinda works by BK's theory of versatility.

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Someone (maybe you) said that this rotation hid the fact that this team has too many guys who play the same positions. Well, I guess that is one way to look at it but I choose to look at it

from the positive side

. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems this team had was the fact that we have so many guys who can play multiple positions and because of that, no one seemed to know what their role was. Now, everyone knows their roles and we are seeing guys who can play multiple positions do just that - with success

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Back to what Diesel Said..

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However, when you're not aware of a player being the right player on the floor in the right time... then you're really not coaching. It's amazing that we have won games with this coaching philosophy.. I would bet if we went to a more standard Philosophy we would win more games.

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I don't think you have to go far beyond 20 games to define roles. However, as you know, Roles can change game by game. Maybe JJ won't be the scorer tonight.. Maybe he's having an offnight. Maybe Lue has a great advantage on his man and he's taking his man off the dribble and scoring on him at will. Does that mean that you don't start to channell the offense through Lue until JJ can get it together?? Of course you do.

However, in Woody's scheme. JJ can be off, Lue can be on fire.. but when that 24 min hit, Lue goes to the bench and Salim comes in.

My point is that Woody takes no account of matchup nor of what the other team is planning or doing with this set rotation. Like I said before, it's good for a diagnostic when you don't know what you have and you don't know what they are doing, but your gameplan must be progressive based on the looks that they give. Woody doesn't do that.

[Traceman]

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However, in Woody's scheme. JJ can be off, Lue can be on fire.. but when that 24 min hit, Lue goes to the bench and Salim comes in.

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Woody is using the rotation plan as a GUIDE. It is not set in stone that a guy comes in at the EXACT same time and plays the EXACT same amount of minutes when he does come in. If that was the case, then each guy would play the same amount of minutes every game and that clearly doesn't happen. In the last 10 games, Chillz' minutes have been as follows: 28, 30, 32, 31, 33, 22, 19, 29, 21, 29. Lue's minutes: 29, 26, 27, 29, 25, 31, 21, 18, 34, 17. Salim's miuntes: 22, 8, 14, 7, 17, 14, 19, 26, 12, 19. Marvin's minutes: 25, 19, 20, 9, 24, 16, 24, 26, 20, 28. Smoove's minutes: 24, 36, 33, 41, 21, 25, 26, 29, 31, 28. Zaza's minutes: 24, 28, 32, 18, 26, 39, 37, 20, 35, 30. Ivey is the only one who seems to be virtually coming out at a set time every game no matter what. His minutes: 9, 10, 9, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 9, 8.

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My point is that Woody takes no account of matchup nor of what the other team is planning or doing with this set rotation. Like I said before, it's good for a diagnostic when you don't know what you have and you don't know what they are doing, but your gameplan must be progressive based on the looks that they give. Woody doesn't do that.

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Again, Woody is using the "set" rotation as a GUIDE and he IS playing guys more or less when they get in the game based on their production. The only exception appears to be Ivey. Apparently, he is only using Ivey to set the tempo and then he is handing it off the Lue to play the bulk of the minutes at PG.

[Diesel]

{quote]It's become a running joke for his players, the playing rotation Hawks coach Mike Woodson has crafted over the past month.

"We laugh about it in a good way," said Hawks reserve forward Josh Childress. "Salim [stoudamire] will come up to me at the four minute mark and say, 'You're going into the game in the next 30 seconds.'

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[Traceman]

the same time. What's wrong with that?

[Diesel]

It doesn't take into consideration if a player is hot. If a player has a mismatch. If a player is cold. Nothing. All it is is coaching by the clock. It's a little more than roughly... Watch Ivey start for a few minutes and then go to the bench reguardless of how he is playing.

You say that it helps the players define their roles.. I say NOPE.

It keeps players quiet and happy. Players know that everynight with 4 minutes to go in the first, I'm going in, with 7 minutes in the second, I'm coming out. With 4 minutes to go in the third I'm going in, with 7 minutes to go in the 4th I'm coming out.

All woody has done is set it up so that players won't complain game to game about playing time...i.e. Woody has no doghouse with his rotation...

BUT.

While that's good from a management perspective, that's horrible coaching. As a coach, you have to be able to put the right player in during the right situation. Right now, Batista, Delk can forget about playing because they are not a part of that 9. However, what if we need Batista to go in and bang? Woody's style is stifling to winning. It is amazing that we have won as many as we have.

[Traceman]

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It doesn't take into consideration if a player is hot. If a player has a mismatch. If a player is cold. Nothing. All it is is coaching by the clock. It's a little more than roughly... Watch Ivey start for a few minutes and then go to the bench reguardless of how he is playing

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Take Ivey out of the equation and everyone else's minutes fluctuate from game to game. If it is not based on how they are playing, what is it based on?

[Diesel]

Edwards doesn't fluctuate.. neither does Lue. I can almost tell you by the clock on the wall what time Lue will come in on a 7:30 start.

[Nicholasp27]

that's because lue is tied to ivey

but again, he will HOPEFULLY be more and more flexible in the coming weeks with the rotation; rewarding guys more for good play and being more mindful of matchups and exploiting the opponents' weaknesses

[TheNorthCydeRises]

LOL . . I look at this thread and say to myself . . "Did any of these guys EVER play a day of ORGANIZED basketball in their lives?"

News flash for you guys: Almost every coach on EVERY LEVEL has some sort of set rotation that they use. And they use it more to keep players fresh, rather than the game situation. That means that there will be certain times in a game in which a player will exit.

With as many DNP's as Ivey has logged throughout his career, I'm sure that he's not complaining too much about his 10 minutes a game. It's better than not playing at all.

And I think some of you overvalue Ivey's importance to this squad. If Ivey was good enough to finish games, and if he were head and shoulders the best defensive guard on the team, don't you think that Woodson would have him out there?

The reason Ivey doesn't play down the stretch of games are:

1) that would mean that JJ would have to run the point at the end of games, a situation that hurts the team more than it helps. You want JJ shooting or finding open men at the end of games . . no worrying about initiating the offense.

2) Salim and Lue are better offensive threats than Ivey.

3) Ivey may very well be showing in practice that his handles are very shaky, when pressured.

Remember the Chicago Bulls with their "3 headed monster?" Cartwright would ALWAYS start the game at center, and the Bulls would ALWAYS go to him to begin games. You never saw Jordan jack up 5 - 6 shots to start a game off. It would always be Cartwright. After the 7 minute mark, he'd always come out, and either Wennington or Perdue would replace him for the rest of the half. Most of the time, it would be Perdue that finished the game at center.

Coaches have these rotations all the time. And even if a player is red hot, you still can afford to take him out, if you have a player that is just as capable to make shots or defend as well as the player he replaced.

In a game that stays relatively close ( 7 points or less ), you'll see coaches stick with their set rotations until about the 5 minute mark in the game. That's when you'll see a coach go with either his starters, or his star players + the guys who have been playing the best all night.

If you want to gripe that Woodson doesn't go with his best 5 at the end of games, then you can do that.

But look what happened tonight.

ZaZa ( if you took away the turnovers ) played very well tonight. Marvin gave us quality minutes ( and many fouls ). And Chill had an excellent all around game.

These were the guys that were in the game with JJ in that 5 minute stretch in the 4th in which the Celtics got back into the game. They didn't play bad. In fact, their defense was pretty good for the first 7 minutes of that quarter.

But then the very players that played well, started to break down on both sides of the ball, while our "star" players couldn't do anything better.

Meanwhile, Smoove and Lue are sitting on the bench.

So why the breakdown?

- ZaZa played 40 minutes in this game, and played ALL of the 4th quarter. Even JJ nor Al played the entire 4th quarter. Matter of fact, ZaZa played 20 of 24 minutes in the 2nd half.

- Marvin played 25 minutes, and was in game from the 4 minute mark of the 3rd quarter, until he missed a 3 and had an offensive foul with a little under 4 minutes to go in the 4th quarter

- Smoove played 7 minutes in the 2nd half, and was never seen from again.

- Lue came in at the 8 minute mark of the 3rd quarter and stayed in the game until the 10 minute mark of the 4th quarter. He didn't re-enter the game until Marvin made his miscues with 3 1/2 minutes to go in the game.

- JJ and Al in the 4th quarter? 0 - 6, 4 turnovers

It was a total breakdown in a game that we definitely should've won. And all the C's had to do, was hit a few shots in the closing minutes of the game to pull it out.

So while a lot of you question the "set" rotations, maybe we could've pulled this game out IF we'd stuck to those set rotation and had Smoove or Lue in the game.

One thing is for sure, I think Woodson's late game coaching needs to improve by leaps and bounds, if this team is to consistently pull out games like these. This is about the 5th game in the past 10 games in which we've had a 7 + point lead deep into the 4th quarter, that we've seen totally slip away.

That ish is unacceptable . . I don't care how bad of a team we're "supposed" to be.

[Traceman]

leave a lot to be desired at this point. How many 4th quarter leads can a team possibly blow in one season?

It is amazing to me that the players all seem to recognize that too much pressure is being put on Al and Joe to make plays at the end of games and yet Woodson refuses to allow anyone else to step up even when those two are clearly struggling.

If we are playing a great defensive team like Detroit or San Antonio, I have no problem with JJ or Al trying to take their man one on one in crunch time because it is going to be difficult to get a quality shot off anyway. In that situation, I'd just as soon take my chances with JJ going one on one. But the Celtics (and most teams) are NOT that good defensively and rotating the ball around ususally means that you can get a good look.

At any rate, not having Josh Smith in the game late when he is playing well just makes no sense to me. If Josh had been struggling, that is one thing but he was playing well. As our only shotblocker, he is the only guy we have who deters our opponents from going to the rim in crunch time.

[Diesel]

Woodson doesn't know how to sub.