Official Armchair Coaching thread (Pt 2.)

[closg00]

If McGee won't be getting much playing time, I hope that we get him big-man coach to work with him so can develop good habits and learn about being a good center 101. I actually support the development of his shooting stroke - it has improved drastically and should be encouraged so as to have it available to us. Look at Brags game yesterday.

[nate33]

I agree that McGee has the makings of a pretty decent spot up shooter. Indeed, I think his perimeter shot will come around long before his post game. His form on an 18-foot jumper is actually pretty decent. His post moves are cringe-worthy.

If he can learn to set a pick while also getting better at the 18-footer, he'll be a dynamite offensive weapon. He'd be able to run the pick-and-pop or the pick-and-roll (where he's already more effective than just about anybody in the league at catching the lob and finishing). Plus, he's a very good offensive rebounder.

With McGee, the real issue is defense. He has a long long way to go there.

[no D in Hibachi]

Agreed, McGee has a long way to go both offensively and defensively before becoming an effective player in the league. I do feel though that in short spurts he can be a very useful player. Say for like a 3 minute stretch in each half. If paired with Oberto to help him defensively he could be an exciting spark player for the Wiz this season. Sort of like Ben Wallace was his rookie season. I swear I only watched games that year to see him throw it down.

[doclinkin]

Foye weighing in on the two-gun backcourt:

I was particularly struck with what Foye said later, when he talked about how his mentality and comfort level change when he plays with Arenas.

"When you play with someone of that caliber, it's easy," Foye said. "Everything else comes easy. Like, when they were pressing at the end, they couldn't get the ball, because we could both break the press. When they press and denied him, I got the ball, and when they doubled me with his man, I passed him the ball. It just makes it so much easier playing with another ball-handler."

Foye also praised Saunders' strategic instincts, saying, "it's like he's playing chess up in his head." Regardless, with so many teams nowadays playing small backcourts, the Foye/Arenas backcourt should be a regular staple.

Agreed with the statement highlighted above. I love watching the kung fu of move and countermove that Flip's got going on. You can see him constantly evaluating and re-tweaking in his head instead of simply 'letting them play through'. Flip's quick to make a switch, which incidentally should affect the minutes & rotation and keep players alert even at the end of the bench since there may be something Flip sees that he wants them in for.

We're still in an evaluation period I think, that 2nd quarter was a hodgepodge of players in different alignments and situations. Flip knows his starters, wants to stick with them while he sees what's working against the other team, but in the 2nd quarter it looks like he wanted to get experimental and test out who could get going.

Love that in-bounds and time-outs become a strength. We should be strong coming out of halftime as well, we just need to close the quarters strong, figure our who's out go-to player while Gil is still playing set-up man and getting his feel back for the game.

[miller31time]

We've been giving up a ton of free throws, true, but that's an additional side benefit of depth: more fouls to give.

I thought a lot of the fouls were of the ticky-tack variety. I don't see that as something that's going to be a staple for the rest of our season.

I also attribute it to the referees being back for the first few games. They're getting re-accustomed to the NBA game just like the players are (which also explains the absurd # of free throws in some of the games I've watched this year so far. Namely, the Denver/Portland game last night on TNT).

[nate33]

We've been giving up a ton of free throws, true, but that's an additional side benefit of depth: more fouls to give.

I thought a lot of the fouls were of the ticky-tack variety. I don't see that as something that's going to be a staple for the rest of our season.

I also attribute it to the referees being back for the first few games. They're getting re-accustomed to the NBA game just like the players are (which also explains the absurd # of free throws in some of the games I've watched this year so far. Namely, the Denver/Portland game last night on TNT).

I'm reminded of the Scott Skiles Bulls. They would foul and hack like crazy. The refs called them on it in the first half, but after a while they got used to it and swallowed their whistles. By the end of the game, Chicago could foul with impunity.

I note that in the Dallas game, Nowitzki shot 13 free throws in the first half and 0 free throws in the second half. As a team, Dallas shot 23 free throws in the first half and 11 in the second.

[miller31time]

We've been giving up a ton of free throws, true, but that's an additional side benefit of depth: more fouls to give.

I thought a lot of the fouls were of the ticky-tack variety. I don't see that as something that's going to be a staple for the rest of our season.

I also attribute it to the referees being back for the first few games. They're getting re-accustomed to the NBA game just like the players are (which also explains the absurd # of free throws in some of the games I've watched this year so far. Namely, the Denver/Portland game last night on TNT).

I'm reminded of the Scott Skiles Bulls. They would foul and hack like crazy. The refs called them on it in the first half, but after a while they got used to it and swallowed their whistles. By the end of the game, Chicago could foul with impunity.

I note that in the Dallas game, Nowitzki shot 13 free throws in the first half and 0 free throws in the second half. As a team, Dallas shot 23 free throws in the first half and 11 in the second.

Hmm...that is an interesting correlation. Small sample size, sure, but hey, I definitely wouldn't mind having a Skiles-esque defense to compliment our supposed top-notch offense.

[doclinkin]

We've been giving up a ton of free throws, true, but that's an additional side benefit of depth: more fouls to give.

I thought a lot of the fouls were of the ticky-tack variety. I don't see that as something that's going to be a staple for the rest of our season.

It might, many of the better defensive teams rack high foul totals on the principle that they can't call everything. Oberto could be whistled for a foul every trip down the court if you're looking closely. Though he's also skilled at hiding his instigating in inadvertent gestures, or fouling when the action is elsewhere. Thing is teams with a defensive reputation are allowed to play a little tougher. If the Wiz continue defensing as they did for a couple quarters there in Dallas then the tide will start to turn.

Refs also give benefit of the doubt to teams with skilled high octane offense, refs being fans of good ball. If Blatche continues to show skill on offense etc then he won't be tweeted as often for the niggling cheap fouls. 'First you win then you get good', the axiom affects referees as well. Reputation is an overlooked aspect of coaching and gamesmanship. The Wiz have an uphill road to respect, but with this squad they may climb like they got booster rockets, dump that stage one early.

[doclinkin]

You know, what nate said. Same thing.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

Argh, it's complement, not compliment. Compliment is when you say nice things to a pretty girl, Foye COMPLEMENTS Arenas' game.

[doclinkin]

Argh, it's complement, not compliment. Compliment is when you say nice things to a pretty girl, Foye COMPLEMENTS Arenas' game.

[pic]

[pancakes3]

with a rack like that, she won't die an old maid.

[go'stags]

One thing I got from tonights Atlanta game: When our outside gunners aren't hitting, we can bring Blatche in and move Jamison to SF to get some scoring inside[when he gets healthy, of course].It can Slow the game down a little bit, force the other team to be more disciplined on offense, and get some high percentage looks. It will also give us more second chance opportunities.

We have a deep, versatile team, especially if Blatche continues to play this well.

[LyricalRico]

One thing I got from tonights Atlanta game: When our outside gunners aren't hitting, we can bring Blatche in and move Jamison to SF to get some scoring inside[when he gets healthy, of course].It can Slow the game down a little bit, force the other team to be more disciplined on offense, and get some high percentage looks. It will also give us more second chance opportunities.

We have a deep, versatile team, especially if Blatche continues to play this well.

Agreed. Blatche playing well really opens things up for us. Let's see if he can keep it up.

[Hoopalotta]

In between moving into my new apartment, I have dorked up another lineup flow chart, this time for the fully healthy team.

Code: Select all

Healthy 8 Man Base Lineup
    |      1ST QUARTER       |      2ND QUARTER       |
TIME|2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 |2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 |
PG  |GA------------------RF--|--------GA--------------|
SG  |MM----------RF------MM--|----------------RF------|
SF  |CB------------------AJ--|--------CB--------------|
PF  |AJ----------AB----------|--------AJ------AB------|
C   |BH--------------FO------|--------BH--------------|
MINS: GA-36 CB-36 BH-32 AJ-32 MM-32 RF-28 AB-28 FO-16


The idea is that this is a basic template which can have other guys slide into minutes when necessary or advantageous; i.e. The 'satellite' fringe rotation guys. As of now, it seems that McGee and Stevenson are those guys, with Stevenson seeing minutes here when Miller is in foul trouble or if there is a big guard who Foye can't handle; McGee could see minutes for all kinds of potential reasons (to give the team a boost, reward him for hard work, big-man foul trouble, matchups, running game and so on).

The other idea is that Jamison is easy to set up and will therefore do well with Foye at the point, not to mention he should be able to score against backup small forwards quite handily. It might be that Foye and Mike Miller is not enough ball handling in the lineup, but I think it well might work out with Oberto and Blatche to help work the offense in the half court. If this isn't true and we need Caron there to facilitate, it would pretty well kill this whole plan.

But even with just 8 guys playing, we still have a pretty reasonable minutes load with only two guys playing 36 minutes a game.

[Zerocious]

In between moving into my new apartment, I have dorked up another lineup flow chart, this time for the fully healthy team.

Code: Select all

Healthy 8 Man Base Lineup
    |      1ST QUARTER       |      2ND QUARTER       |
TIME|2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 |2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 |
PG  |GA------------------RF--|--------GA--------------|
SG  |MM----------RF------MM--|----------------RF------|
SF  |CB------------------AJ--|--------CB--------------|
PF  |AJ----------AB----------|--------AJ------AB------|
C   |BH--------------FO------|--------BH--------------|
MINS: GA-36 CB-36 BH-32 AJ-32 MM-32 RF-28 AB-28 FO-16


The idea is that this is a basic template which can have other guys slide into minutes when necessary or advantageous; i.e. The 'satellite' fringe rotation guys. As of now, it seems that McGee and Stevenson are those guys, with Stevenson seeing minutes here when Miller is in foul trouble or if there is a big guard who Foye can't handle; McGee could see minutes for all kinds of potential reasons (to give the team a boost, reward him for hard work, big-man foul trouble, matchups, running game and so on).

The other idea is that Jamison is easy to set up and will therefore do well with Foye at the point, not to mention he should be able to score against backup small forwards quite handily. It might be that Foye and Mike Miller is not enough ball handling in the lineup, but I think it well might work out with Oberto and Blatche to help work the offense in the half court. If this isn't true and we need Caron there to facilitate, it would pretty well kill this whole plan.

But even with just 8 guys playing, we still have a pretty reasonable minutes load with only two guys playing 36 minutes a game.

nice work, really useful

[pancakes3]

bump after slide down to page 8.

also, keep in mind... it's coaching. not GMing. save the trade talk for the trade thread.

my 2 cents:
- Never really understood the brilliance of Flip's offense. From what I can gather it's a pg-centric offense where the PG is supposed to make near-perfect decisions with the ball after surveying the defense. Manning-esque. From what Gil has said, he gets to decide who gets the ball when on pretty much every possession. AJ with pick/pops and post ups on the wing, P&R for himself, and Iso's for Butler.
Um... isn't that pretty much what the wizards have run for the past few seasons (especially the gil-less seasons)? the occasional quick cut back door makes our offense princeton? there's very little baseline movement, no one operating out of the high post, and ball movement? fuggetaboutit.

-Also what's the rationale of nailing foye to the bench for a month, then conserving his minutes all of a sudden when he gets into foul trouble? if he was so indispensable in crunch time.... WHY DIDN'T HE PLAY?

-subbing said Foye for Boykins in the face of mike conley is a mistake. boykins's strength is being quick, and sneaky against bigger guards. the bigger guards are still guards and not good at posting players up. a smaller guard OTOH like conley, felton, nate rob, etc. always exert their alpha male small-guardness with extreme prejudice. note the o'fer that boykins posted vs Conley's 9/15.

-giving haywood 40 mins of burn before OT, and Butler 42 mins is NOT sound coaching i don't care how you rationalize it. they're athletes, not robots.

-Gils 11 3pa vs 2 fta is indicative of something. gil's 11 3pas vs mayo's 9 3pa is also indicative of something. a big-dick contest between 2 gunners? likely...

-Some think gasol over haywood - scoring wise - is what cost us this game. i beg to differ. wood with 5 o-boards, 5 blocks, and 5/8 shooting is exactly what we need from him. no more. we lost this game (narrowly) because Foye and Young have to split time with Boykins. Boykins is a ballhog. flat out. he's not nearly talented enough to command the ball as he does. 7 fga, 6 assists, and 1 TO in 17 mins is 16 0-possessions in 17 minutes. compare that to gil's 26fga + 1 ft trip + 5 assists + 4 TO in 46 minutes. 36 possessions in 46 mins. or butler's 26/49 ratio or more appropriately blatche's 8/20. Boykins is doubling Blatche's touches in less minutes. If i'm flip, i'm screaming "inside-out earl. work it inside to out."

- Wood got 10/45.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

bump after slide down to page 8.

also, keep in mind... it's coaching. not GMing. save the trade talk for the trade thread.

my 2 cents:
- Never really understood the brilliance of Flip's offense. From what I can gather it's a pg-centric offense where the PG is supposed to make near-perfect decisions with the ball after surveying the defense. Manning-esque. From what Gil has said, he gets to decide who gets the ball when on pretty much every possession. AJ with pick/pops and post ups on the wing, P&R for himself, and Iso's for Butler.

Um... isn't that pretty much what the wizards have run for the past few seasons (especially the gil-less seasons)? the occasional quick cut back door makes our offense princeton? there's very little baseline movement, no one operating out of the high post, and ball movement? fuggetaboutit.

-Also what's the rationale of nailing foye to the bench for a month, then conserving his minutes all of a sudden when he gets into foul trouble? if he was so indispensable in crunch time.... WHY DIDN'T HE PLAY?

-subbing said Foye for Boykins in the face of mike conley is a mistake. boykins's strength is being quick, and sneaky against bigger guards. the bigger guards are still guards and not good at posting players up. a smaller guard OTOH like conley, felton, nate rob, etc. always exert their alpha male small-guardness with extreme prejudice. note the o'fer that boykins posted vs Conley's 9/15.

-giving haywood 40 mins of burn before OT, and Butler 42 mins is NOT sound coaching i don't care how you rationalize it. they're athletes, not robots.

-Gils 11 3pa vs 2 fta is indicative of something. gil's 11 3pas vs mayo's 9 3pa is also indicative of something. a big-dick contest between 2 gunners? likely...

-Some think gasol over haywood - scoring wise - is what cost us this game. i beg to differ. wood with 5 o-boards, 5 blocks, and 5/8 shooting is exactly what we need from him. no more. we lost this game (narrowly) because Foye and Young have to split time with Boykins. Boykins is a ballhog. flat out. he's not nearly talented enough to command the ball as he does. 7 fga, 6 assists, and 1 TO in 17 mins is 16 0-possessions in 17 minutes. compare that to gil's 26fga + 1 ft trip + 5 assists + 4 TO in 46 minutes. 36 possessions in 46 mins. or butler's 26/49 ratio or more appropriately blatche's 8/20. Boykins is doubling Blatche's touches in less minutes. If i'm flip, i'm screaming "inside-out earl. work it inside to out."

- Wood got 10/45.

pancakes, I love the phrase "exact extreme prejudice"



I was beginning to feel I was being too hard on Flip. Thanks much for making me feel less the outlier.

[closg00]

I enjoyed this article on Sideshow Bob leading in overall plus-minus numbers. Of particular interest to me was coach Brown's rotation strategy for Varejao. I thought that Flip could learn something from this considering our continued problem of not being able to close-out in the 4th.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... plus-minus

“I play Hickson with Shaq because I want to play Andy the whole game, but I can’t play him the whole game. So I decided to start J.J. because in the first eight minutes of the game, we’re not going to win or lose it,” Brown said. “So if I play him 8 minutes in the first half and 8 in the second, that’s 16 minutes I don’t have to play Andy and it’s really not going to affect the game. A lot of times now, if you watch our games lately, when Andy goes in he ain’t coming out. I don’t care if Z is in or Shaq’s coming back in.

“It’s just at the start of the game it makes more sense for me and for the team to have someone else, and not play Andy 38-39 minutes a game. But his value to us with whoever’s on the floor is off the charts.”

If you look at the distribution of minutes after the Flip "Flips-out" episode, Caron & AJ still play 40 minutes, and the rotation is such that they are winded when it matters most, late in the 4th.
I hope that Flip continues to work on his rotation and eventually figures-out that going small to close-out games is going to continue to get him more L's than W's.

[verbal8]

I enjoyed this article on Sideshow Bob leading in overall plus-minus numbers. Of particular interest to me was coach Brown's rotation strategy for Varejao. I thought that Flip could learn something from this considering our continued problem of not being able to close-out in the 4th.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... plus-minus

When Miller comes back, I think Flip should try a starting line-up of Arenas, Miller, Jamison, Blatche and Haywood. If Foye plays 20 minutes at SG and Miller Jamison, Blatche and Butler split the rest of the minutes at the 2,3 and 4 they average 31 mpg.