2-0 vs finesse teams ... 0-2 vs physical teams

[Admin]

Is this what we will see all season? I sure hope not because there seem to be more physical teams in the NBA than there are finesse teams and as you start looking at the better teams in the league most of them are physical teams.

Hopefully this will be something that medium Z can help with when he comes back since he does play very physical and putting Horford or Shelden next to him at PF against the physical teams will be a lot better than Horford or Shelden at the 5 with Smoove at the 4 focusing too much on blocking shots rather than boxing his man out.

[coachx]

Good Points. Hope its not a trend.

[Johnnybravo4]

More like 0-2 vs. Half court teams. We let other teams dictate our style of play. I say Friday we run the pants off of the Old 3

[capstone21]

Good points but the reason we are 2 - 2 instead of 3 - 1 was the bs call at the end of the Detroit game. We really should have only one loss right now. We played hard, physical and sometimes dominant against half court Detroit. NJ was the only team that really gave us problems.

[Sasha_Volkov]

I see it as 2-0 at home and 0-2 on the road against upper tier teams. Not too shabby.

[coachx]

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Hopefully this will be something that medium Z can help with when he comes back since he does play very physical and putting Horford or Shelden next to him at PF against the physical teams will be a lot better than Horford or Shelden at the 5 with Smoove at the 4 focusing too much on blocking shots rather than boxing his man out.

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I missed the last part in my first read.

When did ZaZa start boxing out ? He is a horrendous defensive rebounder and if your 6'11'', 260 lbs and can't get defensive rebounds, that simply means you don't box out..........all his boards are offensive boards where he plays tap drills on his own missed shots......ZaZa knows if he missed the shot to the left or right before any one else....that is how he gets offensive rebounds.......not from boxing out.

ZaZa playing physical. Uh.........he flops alot more then our other guys............ZaZa is less physical then Horford and Shelden with what I have seen with my eyes. Horford is a beast. Horford takes shots and still keeps his feet. However, when ZaZa takes a shot he goes sprawling on the floor. Say what you want but when 2 bigs collide, the guy who keeps his feet has a mental edge over the one who can't.

Have you ever seen ZaZa convert a 3 point play after contact. It rarely happens b/c ZaZa can't handle contact. I have Horford and even Shelden finsh after contact at a better rate then ZaZa. Just not seeingthe physical analogy that ZaZa would give us over Horford or Shelden.

Granted I would still play ZaZa ahead of Shelden b/c Shelden is just worthless on offense. The whole ZaZa is tough and box out better then Horford and Shelden is just wrong. Boxing out is ZaZa's #1 weakness.

While I'm on this tangent....

New rule for Shelden:

pass the ball unless your within 7 feet of the basket. Whoever told you have a good mid range shotis lieing to you.

[jerrywest]

Rebound differentials were very closely related to how close all 4 games were.

For details check AHF's thread from yesterday.

[Lascar78]

Yeah. Also 2-0 against the 2 better teams with the home crowd behind us. When we are motivated and hustle, we do great. They are going to have to find a way to keep grinding and hustling against the bobcats in a half-empty arena.

We still have virtually no offensive system (although there are vague traces of it), and rely on isolation or a drive and dish. Woody has no clue how to groom a PG and Acie is not a distributor.

So if we are going to win, it is going to have to be on hustle, athleticism, and sheer talent. Luckily, we have pretty decent talent and outstanding athleticism. We'll see how high we can keep our hustle.

[coachx]

Good point.

Maxiel had a huge rebouding night against us in the Detroit game. They had back to back to back 2nd chance points late in that game. I remember Woody's comments in the post game was that 2nd chance points / rebounding cost us the game. He was right.

The NJ game was kind of different. 80% of NJ shots were from outside so most of their rebounds were long rebounds. That is how Kidd had 10 or 12 rebounds. We were not used to chasing down long rebounds..........NJ was used to getting long rebounds b/c that is their style.

[coachx]

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We still have virtually no offensive system (although there are vague traces of it), and rely on isolation or a drive and dish. Woody has no clue how to groom a PG and Acie is not a distributor.

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A little early to pigeon hole a guy after 2 starts when he played vs. Nash and Kidd.

If JJ was not 3 for 17 last game Law could have had some easy assist. JJ missed the layup in transition that Law spoon feed him and missed every jumper after Law passed him the ball.

Mean while, in another game, Paul was tossing easy passes to Peja and Peja knocks down TEN 3 pointers in one game for some easy assist.

I saw Law have some high assist games with medicore talent around him vs. the likes of Texas and Kansas (2 top 10 programs). He has some distrutor in him. Too early to pigeon hole after 2 starts.

[Lascar78]

I didn't say he doesn't get any assists. I said he's not a distributor. It's about more than numbers. He's not a guy who has shown that he can really run an offense like pure points do. He's a playmaker who's a threat to score and who can draw the defense and make a great pass to the open man. Right now, he's not a distributor. He wasn't asked to be one at A&M either.

It's not to say he can't learn. I just think that Woody is not the guy to take him there. And there are 3 veteran PG's (and one young wanna-be PG in Salim), none of which are distributors. I'm not trying to knock Acie, he is what he is. I'm just saying that if we want to make him into the guy who can run a great offense, it's going to be under a new coach. A great distributor could do it in spite of Woody. We don't have that guy.

[coachx]

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Right now, he's not a distributor. He wasn't asked to be one at A&M either.

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You are definately right in that Law is not playing like a distributor right now. Nor do I expect him to run an offense in his first two starts vs. Kidd and Nash. Most rookies heads would spinning when they try to keep up with the speed at which Kidd and Nash play.

I see your points but in all honesty Law was nothing but a distributor for the first 34 minutes of games while at A&M. He did nothing but try to get his teamates, with marginal talent, involved. Law made wicked interior passes at A&M. He had no one who could dunk it home (like Conley had Oden). So his 6'6'' PF, or 6'10'' European stiff would get fouled and go to the line. I'm just saying the lack of being a distributor at the collegiate level has been grossly over hyped by some who look at stats and don't watch the games.

He looked to score in crunch time b/c he didn't have 2 other 1st round picks like Conley, to defer too in the clutch.

Any way, we have both argued this between each other all through the draft. I guess I don't have much ground to stand on until it actually happens on the floor in the NBA. I hope that happens by February 2008.

[coachx]

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I

It's not to say he can't learn. I just think that Woody is not the guy to take him there. And there are 3 veteran PG's (and one young wanna-be PG in Salim), none of which are distributors. I'm not trying to knock Acie, he is what he is. I'm just saying that if we want to make him into the guy who can run a great offense, it's going to be under a new coach. A great distributor could do it in spite of Woody. We don't have that guy.

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I agree 100%. We don't have a player or coach worth a darn at teaching the PG positionat this level. It is probably the hardest thing to teach inthe game of basketball.

Woody's weakness is obviously offensive coaching. I think Woody is doing a good job with motivation and defense. His substititutions have gotten better and that is a tough task with our depth. The player play their butts off for Woody and it shows. They also respect him and that is evident when they allow an NBA coach to publically discipline them. I think the players have a special bond with Woody. Almost a father / son bond....maybe more like a uncle / nephew bond.

Woody needs help on offense. If Larry Drew is in charge of our offense and PG (as I have seen reported) then he is the one who should be geting the heat.

Would love to have Law study under Mark Jackson for a few years.

[Lascar78]

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I guess I don't have much ground to stand on until it actually happens on the floor in the NBA. I hope that happens by February 2008.

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As do I. Honestly I meant it more as a criticism of Woody than I did of Acie.

[Admin]

I didn't say anything about Zaza boxing out. What I said was that with him playing the 5 it would allow Horford and Shelden to man the 4 and both of them are significantly better at boxing out than Smoove is. A 4-5 combo of Z and Horford/Shelden is much tougher and plays a much more physical brand of basketball than that of what we have seen so far. Granted there are lots of nights when we will want the faster more athletic lineup but against both Detroit and New Jersey we needed a guy to take up space and stay in the paint and thats what Z gives us and while he certainly has plenty of flaws in his game he makes us better in the paint on both ends (when he isn't ball hogging on offense of course).

[Admin]

I completely agree with that statement. I'm not sure if Woody doesn't have an offensive system, doesn't think we are ready to run it yet, or doesn't think we can run it at all but it's been years since we have seen a real offense from the Hawks.

Acie has definitely shown flashes of great passing ability and because he is so quick and dangerous as a scoring point that seems to free up other players for passes when help defense comes against Acie.

[AtLaS]

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Is this what we will see all season? I sure hope not because there seem to be more physical teams in the NBA than there are finesse teams and as you start looking at the better teams in the league most of them are physical teams.

Hopefully this will be something that medium Z can help with when he comes back since he does play very physical and putting Horford or Shelden next to him at PF against the physical teams will be a lot better than Horford or Shelden at the 5 with Smoove at the 4 focusing too much on blocking shots rather than boxing his man out.

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I don't consider NJ a physical team, at all. The only starter on that team that can be considered physical is Jefferson, MAYBE Carter.

[Traceman]

As Smitty said during the telecast, J Kidd is one of the strongest PGs in the NBA.

You were right about Jefferson. Magloire and Collins are very physical as well. Carter is occasionally physical but he tends to shy away from contact at times.

At any rate, NJ is more physical than DAL or PHO. Still, I think 2-0 vs 0-2 is more about home/away, than style of play.

[AtLaS]

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As Smitty said during the telecast, J Kidd is one of the strongest PGs in the NBA.

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Yeah but where did his physicality hurt us? Lue and Law just couldn't hit anything to save their lives, it's not like he was shutting them down. I guess you could consider his rebounding physical.

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Magloire and Collins are very physical as well.

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Yeah but they suck. Their physicality had nothing to do with the outcome of the game IMO.

[cyman3]

the way i see it, we are playing .500 ball against the best teams in the NBA (Mavs, Pistons, Nets, and Suns).

I would like to see us play .500 ball against all the very good teams and play higher than .500 against the nonplayoff teams. that should get us a good spot in the playoffs.