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[KB21]

I still believe in defense first and offense second, and I do not agree with the idea that we should run an open and up tempo offense just because our players want to do it. I do agree that we have athletic players, but I think that athleticism needs to be put to better use on defense than on offense.

I want to bring up John Hollingers write up on the Memphis Grizzlies:

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/trainingcam...liesPreview0708

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The handwriting was on the wall as soon as the Battier trade went down, as the Grizzlies were trying to get players who could thrive in a more up-tempo style -- even as they employed one of the league's most conservative coaches. Memphis had played the league's slowest pace in 2005-06, but acquired up-tempo players like Gay, Kyle Lowry and Stromile Swift in the 2006 offseason.

Once Fratello got the ax, Memphis started following that vision. Scouting director Tony Barone Sr. became the interim coach, and the Grizzlies started running like crazy. In his first 11 games, the Griz scored at least 109 points in nine of them, including a wild 144-135 win over Golden State.

Unfortunately, Memphis lost six of those contests because the team stopped defending. With Fratello gone, the Grizzlies became like the kid who grows up in a sheltered home, goes away to college and spends his first year partying like Keith Richards. Suddenly the slow-paced Griz were a wild run-and-gun outfit that seemingly forgot everything Fratello told them with lightning speed, with nuances like balancing the floor going out the window first. In a stretch that began within a week of Fratello's ouster, they gave up at least 110 points 14 times in 15 games.

The decisions to buy out veteran guard Eddie Jones and move Dahntay Jones out of the rotation accelerated the defensive meltdown; those were the team's only decent perimeter defenders.

Overall, then, it's not surprising that Memphis ranked dead last in the league in defensive efficiency (see chart). It was impressive how all-encompassing the Grizzlies' defensive badness was. They were last in field-goal percentage against, 3-point percentage against and true shooting percentage against. The Grizzlies did have a below average number of free-throws against, but in this case that's just another indication that they weren't trying -- some of those easy layups should have been greeted with hard fouls.

Defensive Efficiency: 2006-07's Worst

TEAM W-L DEF. EFF.

Memphis 22-60 109.70

Milwaukee 28-54 109.05

Washington 41-41 107.98

Seattle 31-51 107.52

Portland 26-56 107.33

League average 41-41 103.06

On the rare occasions when opponents missed shots, the Grizzlies' D was bad in other ways. Memphis ranked eighth from the bottom in defensive rebound rate and forced a below-average number of turnovers.

While a lot of this clearly was attitude, some of it was personnel, too. Memphis was frail in the middle, with Gasol too slight to withstand the banging at center and Hakim Warrick and Swift similarly lacking in bulk. Only youngsters Alexander Johnson and Lawrence Roberts provided any muscle, but they weren't ready for prime time.

It didn't help that the backcourt was so old, resulting in frequent blow-bys on the perimeter. Lowry, the team's rookie guard, was expected to help stop the rot but he broke his wrist in November and spent the rest of the season on the sidelines.

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Memphis wasn't a good defensive team to begin with simply because they didn't have the horses to be a strong defensive team. When Pau Gasol is your defensive anchor in the middle, you have a very weak interior defense. However, when they went wide open on offense, they got even worse defensively. Hollinger makes a good analogy of this in his write up.

That's what I'm worried about with the Hawks and the talk of going to a more open and perimeter oriented scheme. I fear that the team will put too much emphasis on playing up tempo and not enough emphasis on defense and rebounding.

I also don't necessarily think it is a good thing for a team that shoots the ball as poorly as Atlanta does to go to a perimeter oriented scheme. Our offensive inefficiency is more due to turnovers and poor shooting than it is due to not being a run and gun team.

I'm not against playing an up tempo offense though. I just want to see the team prove they can defend at the faster tempo.

[Diesel]

KB, you're always on the bus with BK and Woody.

Stops at uptempo are much easier than Stops in the halfcourt for our bunch.

The truth of the matter is that we're built for uptempo... With our strength players. Our players cannot find their niche playing in the halfcourt because halfcourt is really not their game.

Smoove and Chillz are finishers.

Horford and Shelden are rebounders.

JJ and Lue are spot up shooters.

Speedy is an uptempo guard.

I think everybody's game would improve if we play uptempo.

In the half court a team like NY will eat us alive... Our defense is not built to stop teams with a low post presence.. nor are we that good at stopping teams that spread the floor and swing the ball.

With uptempo, we atleast put our best offensive face on. Sometimes, you have to outscore a team and play your best zone defense.

This past season, when teams forced us to run, we usually won the game. The reason being is that if forces us away from our weaknesses which is the halfcourt game. ThAT was a great hint for us!! (Phoenix, GS, etc).

[frosgrim]

I don't want the Hawks to play at the pace of G.S. or Phx, its too fast and I don't think it will win anything over the long haul.

That said, the team can go with quick hitting plays instead of the drain the shot clock stuff that the Princeton system preaches. We should be running a lot of screens, and clear outs. Let Marvin get the ball occasionally on a clear out and see what he can do. Run screens that allow the Joshes to slash to the rim. Finally, as pointed out in the paper today, having the point guard slash into the lane and then dump the ball to Horf or Smith will work much better. These plays are run better at a quicker pace. That is the Hawks should try to have their first shot with at least 10 seconds left on the shot clock. Lots of movement and energy will take this club a long way to solving the offensive problems.

On the defensive side, Horf and a better utilized Shellhead should help. A healthy Speedy is critical as well. Many of the Hawks defensive problems that I saw last year came from quick guards getting inside the lane and dumping the ball off. JT Ford killed us, for example.

So, I would like to see an up-tempo game based on getting athletic players the ball while going to the rim (this would help on the shooting issue), and running screens to open up players. Clear-outs are a tempo changer as well, if the player is committed to making up his mind quickly on what he's going to do.

[AHF]

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That's what I'm worried about with the Hawks and the talk of going to a more open and perimeter oriented scheme.

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Can you imagine a system that would lead to more contested jumpers than last year's offensive "system"? We were a perimeter oriented team running a system where we were trying to get those looks out of the half-court. What is worse than that in terms of shot selection?

[AtLaS]

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Can this team defend at a high tempo though?

It doesn't matter if we improve the offensive production up to 110 PPG by going with an up tempo style if we are going to allow 120 PPG because of a lack of defense in that style.

Look at the Memphis Grizzlies last year. Everyone thought that team was built to be an up tempo team. However, that team struggled defending in the half court setting, and they were much worse defending in a full court, up tempo setting.

Mike Fratello told them that they couldn't play up tempo because they couldn't defend at that pace, and guess what? He was correct, and he got fired for it.

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Well, whatever Fratello did, it certainly didn't work since they went from a playoff team in the west to having the worst record in the league.

[Johann]

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Can you imagine a system that would lead to more contested jumpers than last year's offensive "system"? We were a perimeter oriented team running a system where we were trying to get those looks out of the half-court. What is worse than that in terms of shot selection?

Dammit.

My favorite sports teams are the UGa basketball team and the Hawks. Their cycles have been amazingly parallel lately - the absolute pits 3 or 4 years ago, followed by almost imperceptible improvement each year since.

Both teams have inexplicable offenses. It is particularly frustrating with the Dawgs because the Harrick (Wooden) half court offense was the most beautiful thing I have ever beheld.

Neither Woody nor Dennis Felton HAVE an offensive scheme, apparently. The "plays" they run are to get the ball to the best perimeter shooter and let him shoot; if he is doubled, get it to the next best shooter.

There is one token big under the basket. Early in the clock, often the teams are instructed to toss it in to him. Lots of times the pass is intercepted because the big is covered and just stands there (no scheme, no screen). If he catches it, the big just throws it back to the best shooter, because for some inexplicable reason the other team does not just concede the basket to our token big.

Am I failing to see something important?

[KB21]

It wasn't what Fratello did. Fratello won 49 games in the previous year with mediocre talent.

Jerry West is the guy that traded away key players like Shane Battier, who was easily the Grizzlies best defender and one of their better all around players.

Jerry West gave Mike a bunch of players that didn't know how to play defense this past season, and as a result, Mike was made into the scapegoat for Jerry. Jerry West did one of the worst GMing jobs in the NBA while in Memphis, and he receives no criticism for it.

[AHF]

I still like Felton a lot as a college coach for a school like UGA but agree that he should bring in an assistant to focus on developing more structure for the offense. On the plus side, Felton's defensive system has been very effective.

[TheDude]

although i agree that defense is more important, i don't beleive focusing on it for us is as important as focusing on offense. the reason is because we were middle of the pack in d last year but i beleive dead last offensively.

[exodus]

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although i agree that defense is more important, i don't beleive focusing on it for us is as important as focusing on offense. the reason is because we were middle of the pack in d last year but i beleive dead last offensively.

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The team stats are skewed by all the injuries. Our best shooters missed a ton of games last year.

This past year we were last in 3 pt shooting percentage. However the year before we shot 36.7% from 3 which was top 10.

[DrReality]

Fresh start

By Sekou K Smith | Wednesday, October 3, 2007, 02:37 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

If you want to chalk Tuesday’s late-practice sluggishness up to the first day of camp doldrums go ahead, because the Hawks looked like a totally different crew during Wednesday’s session.

And even when they did seem to lose steam for a brief stretch, assistant coach David Fizdale stopped them and gathered everyone around to remind them that they “started off with the intensity here [holding his hand above his head] and now you’re down here. You’ve got to crank it back up fellas.” They did exactly that on the very next trip up and down the floor.

At this stage of the game all you have go on is what they look like each and every minute you have to watch them. All of us sideline observers (there were just three of us today, Steve Smith, Steve Holman and Blog Z) are watching. We’re trying to pay specific attention to their intensity, the collective energy level and see if it matches what they’ll need to start the season with one of the most challenging schedules in the league.

So I’m willing to give them a fresh start now after having some serious reservations about their readiness after Tuesday’s camp opener.

Some other notes, quotes and an opinion or two:

Both Salim Stoudamire and Shelden Williams were back on the floor Wednesday and both looked like they eased into the flow of things rather well. I snuck into practice a few minutes early today just to see who was in and out of the action with injuries and Tyronn Lue was the only guy on the sideline. He did some stretching with the training staff and had an ice pack on his right knee after that but it’s nothing to worry about, he said. Lue is still working his way back into game condition after knee surgery. He’s working to be ready in time for the start of the regular season and will slowly work his way through training camp.

I don’t know if it means anything yet or not, but Al Horford’s quickness with either hand around the basket could make him an extremely intriguing offensive option in the Hawks’ half court set. He far more skilled than I thought he was watching him at Florida (granted I didn’t watch him regularly there). And he shoots it well facing the basket, too.

Everybody on the sideline is watching Acie Law and the consensus is that the rookie point guard is going to be hard to keep off the floor if he continues to show as well as he has thus far. His ability to get to the basket in transition is going to make him the most effective option at the point, if he doesn’t struggle with the transition too much once the regular season lights come on. The Hawks have the luxury of not rushing him, though, thanks to their abundance of depth at the position.

“Solomon Jones might be the longest man on the planet,” was the phrase someone muttered when he took off from the 3-point line (or somewhere near there) for a dunk during one drill. He certainly looks comfortable getting up and down the floor. And he’s showing much better here than he did during his stint in summer league play in July. His confidence appears to be soaring right now.

Another conversation hatched during practice revolved around the idea that the Hawks, for the first time in at least three years, will have a full-fledged second unit. We’re just not sure who those five guys will be. You figure Al Horford, Shelden Williams, Josh Childress and a backcourt tandem of Acie Law and perhaps Tyronn Lue or Anthony Johnson. But that second five is certainly going to be fluid at this point. But it’s certainly a topic worthy of debate.

[DrReality]

A bit more:

By Sekou K. Smith

October 3, 2007 3:32 PM | Link to this

AJ looks like he’s in fine shape. He’s leading the pack on the some of the running drills and he’s a consumate pro. He’s ready to do whatever they want him to do.

Larry Drew and Fizdale are working like normal. They’re much better men than me, because I’d still be fuming about the situation they were caught up in.

As for the playing rotation, I think that’s something that will have to work itself out throughout the rest of camp. I don’t know what the second group should look like because we’re still not sure how the first five will play togethere (the point guard issue has to be settled first).

That’s why I said it would provide for a good debate.

It's good to hear the postive spin. I hope it's legit. Drafting two guys who are ready and not projects was just what this team needed. Love them both.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

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It wasn't what Fratello did. Fratello won 49 games in the previous year with mediocre talent.

Jerry West is the guy that traded away key players like Shane Battier, who was easily the Grizzlies best defender and one of their better all around players.

Jerry West gave Mike a bunch of players that didn't know how to play defense this past season, and as a result, Mike was made into the scapegoat for Jerry. Jerry West did one of the worst GMing jobs in the NBA while in Memphis, and he receives no criticism for it.

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I saw just as many Grizzlies games, as I did Hawks games. And KB, you're right on the money.

Speedy and Lue missed almost 70 games last year, and we had no low post scorer to go to. Yet, people here expected some kind of efficient fluidity on the offensive end? Come on now. Name a team without a halfway decent PG or a decent low post option, that has a good offense?

This '07 team is light years better than the '06 team, simply because of the health situation. Add the two rookies to the mix, and we should be a better looking offensive team.

Yet, people still say we should've ran more. The only reason why we ran, is because those running teams take a ton of long shots, that create long rebounds. You can run when you get long rebounds.

I would much rather see this team run, because they're playing great defense and creating turnovers and missed shots, that to run just to speed up the tempo of the game.

[Buzzard]

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IMO, the defense has to be established first, and once that happens, the offense will take care of itself.

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Correct me if I am wrong KB; but if we win the opening game tip, we have to establish our offense 1st. I read through this thread several times trying to find a poster that said we needed to play up tempo offense and not play defense. I could not find it.

Neither defense or offense take care of themselves. Committment, practice, and execution take care of them both. Just because some of us here are excited about our teams athletic ability and potential up and down the floor speed does not make for a debate that we do not think a great defensive effort is something to get excited about as well. That is just a presumptious assumption on your part

Let us all enjoy this; its been a while since a 40+ win season was being hyped up by most of us on this board...

[DJlaysitup]

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A bit more:

By Sekou K. Smith

October 3, 2007 3:32 PM | Link to this

AJ looks like he’s in fine shape. He’s leading the pack on the some of the running drills and he’s a consumate pro. He’s ready to do whatever they want him to do...

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This type of thing is a good and a bad IMO. We have older vets coming in...in contract years...in much better shape than last year. Can't blame those guys, they want another year or two of paychecks. But does it help us longterm to give AJ and Blo minutes? Personally, I don't think so. Give AJ's minutes to Law and BLo's minutes to Horford or Shelden. Develop.

[exodus]

As far as fast break defense goes we definitely have one good thing going for us. Smith might be the best in NBA history at running guys down and getting blocks on the break. I have never seen anyone do it as well as he does.

[DJlaysitup]

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...Smith might be the best in NBA history at running guys down and getting blocks on the break. I have never seen anyone do it as well as he does.

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Agreed...especially when he missed the shot that started the fast break...then he is a beast

But really ex you are right, and they worry about that coming...just like I've seen 1/2/3 drivers basically turn around in the lane when they see JS come off his man. JS is a game changer. They know he can Sky and has great timing.

[Packfill]

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It wasn't what Fratello did. Fratello won 49 games in the previous year with mediocre talent.

Jerry West is the guy that traded away key players like Shane Battier, who was easily the Grizzlies best defender and one of their better all around players.

Jerry West gave Mike a bunch of players that didn't know how to play defense this past season, and as a result, Mike was made into the scapegoat for Jerry. Jerry West did one of the worst GMing jobs in the NBA while in Memphis, and he receives no criticism for it.

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I don't see how he did such a terrible job given that he got his team to the playoffs several times and inherited a roster with only one bona fide all-star caliber player.