Meet
Time To Draw Up New Plays
Posted by: Steven on July 30th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.Regardless of whether Big Al stays or gets traded on I hope with all the new guys added to the roster that the coaching staff implement a new offensive game for this coming season. I think its clear to most Jazz fans that the offense last season was, although effective enough to carry us to the playoffs was also one dimensional and predictable. Taking the ball up the court and sending it to one big man resulted in a disjointed attacking effort of other players on the court. When teams knew what was coming they set their defense accordingly. Teams were happy enough to one man to shoot 18 times and score 19 points if the effectiveness of a couple within the rest of the team was shut down. We need a team that has attacking effectiveness all around the court. We seem to have players in every position that can shoot now, no more one trick ponys like Bell who was picked mostly for defense. However if the ball continually goes up to one man and stays there for too long that attacking threat of this new look Jazz may not be as effective as we would like.
It doesn’t matter how good our new players are at shooting the 3, if they don’t have the time to create space, set themselves or pass along the line the 3 will still continue to be a difficult shot to rely on. If defenses are able to continue crowding our other attacking players beyond the Big men we will have to continue to rely on those Bigs for the points. Thats fine against poor teams but against playoff type teams we will struggle in tight games.
This is got to be top priority of the coaching staff over the summer. The ball needs to come up the court through the point guard, through the wings and through the Bigs interchangeably. We know Hayward is good with the ball in his hands, we know Burks can move the ball quickly and penetrate defenses. We know our new players can shoot the 3. We have players throughout the team that can play multiple positions. The unpredictability of the starting 5 and their starting positions is not something the Jazz have had in a long time. Lets use that unpredictability.
We know Al and Milsap can shoot but they don’t have to be the first option of the 24 second play. That leads to predictability, predictability leads to stops. We need an attack playbook that is fluent and makes the most of all the assets that we have. If too much of the play starts and ends with the Bigs we will be our own worst enemy by nullifying our own other attacking options.
We also need to put an end to the deliberate tactic of fouling the opposition on the other end of the floor. Its really hard to win against good teams when good shooting players get to the line 10 plus times more than your good players do. I for one am sick of watching good players get 5 easy points more than their normal nightly average when they play the Jazz. Lets play smart defense, get in their faces, deny them space, but avoid contact as much as possible, but when there is contact make it deliberate, make it hard, disrupt the direction of the ball, disrupt the mindset of the attacking player.
If the Jazz are really to make the most of the assets that it has and be a team that develops and improves to become a Power team within the league it has to develop a new way of playing. This team has a lot of players that were drafted high, some perhaps too high but many of them are good effective players. Those players need a direction, a goal, a target and above all they need the coaching staff to step up. What was once good enough for previous Jazz teams probably won’t be effective in this new era of basketball.
Replies: 8
Views: 596
8 Responses
Great post! I totally agree. You have to have a left jab to go along with your right hook, or the right hook will never land, because they’ll know what’s coming. I think KOC has set up the team to be able to deliver a left jab now with Mo, Marvin and Foye instead of CJ, Howard and Raja. I wasn’t impressed with a lot of what Corbin did last year. I think he got sucked into the ‘let Big Al do his thing’ mindset and had a hard time thinking outside of that. Let’s hope with better tools this year in KOC’s new additions that he and the coaching staff can get more creative and we can become more unpredictable and effective.
Just a thought on defense. When you don’t have good position (which comes from moving your feet), the only good option you have is to swipe at the ball. Big Al is not a great feet-slider guy, so you’ll notice that a lot of those fouls come from swiping at the ball as a guy blows by for the layup.
@KC your last paragraph is absolutely correct and it also makes other players have to get out of position and try to help on your guy which then leaves there guy open so then everyone is running around which then causes many of our fouls.
Absolutely dead-on, however…..
When you have a one dimensional iso player that gets 34 minutes per game, its going to be hard to run any fluid system. Just look at what Melo did to D’Antoni system! Felton, Fields, Amare were looking like All Stars in a good system and winning games—then enter Melo! Even Lin and Shumpert took a hit this year all cuz if Melo. Ball dominators dominate the game.
Preaching to the choir. My question is whether Corbin is a good enough coach to use the talented team that he has been given
We actually had good talent last year and a deep bench. I will give Corbin the benefit of a training camp and a longer season to put in some damn plays. but his lineups are complete !@#$%. KOC did a good job with the roster, but leave it to Corbin to give Demare Carroll 30 minutes and Al 35 minutes a game all season.
Great post. Couldn’t agree more. Now that we have three guys who can legitimately shoot the 3 (Williams, Williams and Foye), I think it’s going to be a bigger part of the Jazz offense than it ever has been.
There’s a reason we have a coaching staff, and not just one coach. Good assistant coaches are very important. There’s a very underrated member of our coaching staff in Jeff Hornacek. I think Horny could be a huge asset in implementing 3-point oriented offense.
I’m not sure I have complete confidence in Scott Layden. Obviously Frank was an all time great, but there’s just something about Scott that seems a bit off. I hope he’s not on the coaching staff out of sheer nepotism.
Anyone else got any thoughts about Scott Layden?
I’ve gone to a couple of chalk talks with Scott and he knows his stuff. How that translates to suggestions for Ty or the players, I have no idea.
He’s had lots of experience with the Jazz, Knicks and back to the Jazz again.
Jazzaholic
Thanks Jazzaholic. Just don’t know a lot about him. I do Like Sidney Lowe though. But what pray tell is a “chalk talk?”