So tired of hearing this..

[sillent]

Our team was deisigned to get out on the fast break !! Our intent to play as such was whoever had the advantage on a break would run it up. Our bigs are very capable of that and we have used it to our advantage on plenty occasions. We only averaged 13 something turnovers a game so they can't be doing that bad. Now we have even more of a chance to be a run and gun team and yes it's going to include our bigs running the fast break at times. Instead of Smoove just dishing it to Joe or lobbing it to Horford he now has more wing options as well as giving it to the pg. Stopping the ball to look for your point guard almost automatically puts you in a half court situation because it allows the defense more time to get back.I think Ferry also sees that our team has an advantage by doing this. When we do get stuck in a halfcourt offense we have a lot of options with shooters to keep the defense honest.

[AHF]

Stopping the ball to look for your point guard almost automatically puts you in a half court situation because it allows the defense more time to get back.

The Suns seems to have found a pretty good balance where their PG runs the break the vast majority of the time and they occasionally have been able to run the floor. The most egregious cases for Atlanta, though, are the ones where the big basically waives the guard off and takes the ball up the floor (i.e., where there is no slow down, the big just decides he will run the break and will let the PG apparently be the finishing target).

[ruhiel]

“When we are at our best is when [Al] and Josh rebound the ball and bring it out on the dribble. We’ve been missing that with him out of the lineup. It makes us a much better running team when we have all five guys involved in the break.”- Larry Drew on pushing the pacehttp://blogs.ajc.com/hawks/2012/05/08/celtics-at-atlanta-hawks-game-5-game-thread/

[Admin]

“When we are at our best is when [Al] and Josh rebound the ball and bring it out on the dribble. We’ve been missing that with him out of the lineup. It makes us a much better running team when we have all five guys involved in the break.” - Larry Drew on pushing the pace http://blogs.ajc.com/hawks/2012/05/08/celtics-at-atlanta-hawks-game-5-game-thread/

Al and Josh bringing the ball up is a big part of why we are one of the slowest paced teams in the league, if memory serves. JJ dribbling the air out of the ball is another reason why. Only the Hawk would think such a fundamentally flawed strategy is a good idea.

[DrReality]

Agree about bigs on break. I'm looking forward to Harris running the break with our shooters spaced to get open. That will be fun

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Woody was actually the one that encouraged his forwards ( then at the time Smith, Marvin, and especially Childress ) to push the ball up the floor. But there was a reason for that. Our PGs were guys like Tyronn Lue, Salim Stoudamire and Royal Ivey.

But it has always been a bad idea.

I'm a subscriber to SynergySports. And you can actually SEE each and every play that a player makes. This is Josh Smith in transition:

- Josh had a 70.5 FG% on his shots in transition . . . which is OUTSTANDING.

This illustrates how good of a finisher Josh Smith can be when he gets to the rim on a fast break. For a comparison, Lebron James is at 75.1% FG. And he's probably the premier finisher on a fast break in the league.

- Hawks scored points on 56.9% of the plays that Josh is involved in transition.

That's still a pretty high scoring rate, but it's significantly less than his 70% FG rate. It shouldn't dip THAT low. So you know there is a reason for the percentage drop.

- Josh turned it over 22.3% of the time in transition

And here is the problem. That 22.3% equaled 44 turnovers in transition, by FAR the leader on the Hawks last year. And Synergy gives you the ability to watch those turnovers in transition. Most were absolutely horrific, with him handling the ball and bringing it up the court, and just throwing errant passes. Some consisted of him just flat out losing the ball while he was dribbling. Some of the turnovers are so ridiculous, that you have to chuckle at them.

Bottom line is that the dude needs to start giving the ball up, so that he can continue to FINISH fast breaks, not be the playmaker on them.

[MaceCase]

Inverse fast break was a necessity considering that all our forwards have been faster than our guards. It's a bad habit to break after so many years and it doesn't help when timid Teague isn't doing enough to assert himself. It can be effective in spurts but as we saw from Josh all season and Al in the playoffs it can also be disastrous. Wouldn't abolish it but the bigs will have to be much smarter in picking their spots especially with Harris and Louis added to the mix.

[niremetal]

The idea that there is a strong correlation between speed and effectiveness in transition among PGs always struck me as a poorly-thought-out assumption. In the past 20 years, I think the 5 best transition PGs have been (in no particular order) Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Kevin Johnson, John Stockton, and Gary Payton. Of those, only KJ was ever one of the league's fastest PGs. Mike Bibby was the spearhead of what was arguably one of the three best fast break teams (the early 2000s Kings) of all time. He was always among the slower PGs in the league. Same is true of Andre Miller, who was still kicking ass and taking names on the break when I watched him last year.Shawn Marion could run circles around Steve Nash. Should Marion have led the Suns' break? The best center of all time at running the fast break was Vlade Divac, who was slow in terms of foot speed even by the standards of his position.The funny thing is that even in his last year with the Hawks, Mike Bibby was great running the break. The bigs just wouldn't give it to him often enough.What matters in terms of running the break isn't whether you can run 19mph instead of 16mph. It's your court vision and decisionmaking. The practical impact of being faster is that you give the opposing defense a few tenths of a second less to get their act together. That helps a bit, but it's way, way less important than being able to make smart decisions with the ball.So I really get tired of hearing about how our bigs HAD to run the break because they were as fast (or faster) than our guards. Who gives a damn how fast they are? If that's the rubric, then Dwight Howard should be running the break as often as most of the guards he's played with. After all, his sprint time was tied for 8th-best in his draft class - better than Devin Harris.So yeah. Just stop talking about how Josh and Al have been justified in running the break because they were faster than our guards.

Edited August 4, 2012 by niremetal

[sillent]

It's about strategy. If our bigs beat the other bigs down the court than who is going to stop them on the other side. True our guards should get the ball more often to setup our bigs but that would involve everybody running once we get possession. Standing there calling for the ball just slows down the play.

[niremetal]

It's about strategy. If our bigs beat the other bigs down the court than who is going to stop them on the other side. True our guards should get the ball more often to setup our bigs but that would involve everybody running once we get possession. Standing there calling for the ball just slows down the play.

Seriously? You do realize that the guards shouldn't have to stand there calling for the ball, right? It should be automatic that the bigs make an outlet pass as soon as they grab the rebound. Big men are taught that in sixth grade. Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan don't think twice about it. Neither did Amare (faster than Nash). You're seriously blaming the guards for "slowing down the play" by calling for the ball rather than the bigs for not passing immediately, thereby eliminating the need for the guard to call for the ball? That's insane. And how many times have we seen Josh try to run the break, only to get his pocket picked by a guard or make a turnover with a bad pass in the face of defensive pressure from a guard? He might beat HIS defender down the floor. The problem is that he's often not a good enough decisionmaker on the break to make good plays even when the man guarding him is several inches shorter. The results speak for themselves. A 22% turnover rate in transition is horrific. And that doesn't count the number of times we see him bring it up and make a pass that goes slightly behind or above his target - forcing the recipient to stop in order to catch the pass, effectively ending the fast break even though it wasn't technically a turnover. I seriously don't understand how anyone could think that the mere fact that Josh is "fast" means that it makes sense for him to bring the ball up instead of making an IMMEDIATE outlet pass to a guard.

[DrReality]

An interview with a jazz reporter addressed this very issue saying that Harris learned to slow down and run the break with his team. I'm hoping he will give Teague some pointers and confidence but Harris won't have to slow down with this team.

[MrMeltdown]

LMAO, at the old worn idea that Teague lacks confidence. It is crazy that Teague could have 15 assists that game a couple years ago with no other starter playing. What that means to me is Josh, Al, and Joe were not there to try and run things. I know it was against end of season competition also, but I am looking on the bright side.

[Admin]

LMAO, at the old worn idea that Teague lacks confidence. It is crazy that Teague could have 15 assists that game a couple years ago with no other starter playing. What that means to me is Josh, Al, and Joe were not there to try and run things. I know it was against end of season competition also, but I am looking on the bright side.

Since when are you looking on the bright side lol