The 6ft Hurdle wrote:So basically we need Booze not to lose his confidence and for he and Rip to hit their shots.
The reason I ask these questions is because it seems to me that were quickly establishing a reputation as a heck of a regular season team, comfortable beating any team on any given night, but when it comes to the tug-of-war that is the playoffs against teams that want nothing better than to upset a #1 seed, were shaky and much less confident, winning sort of like those 60-win championship-less Mavs teams before they added Chandler, Marion, and Barea. There seems to be a certain groove we can with in the regular season because the regular season's long, but there isn't that in the playoffs.
That "reputation" is kind of silly. How can you make a reputation off of 1 playoff run? That type of reputation can only be painted on a team after at least 2 to 3 years of the same old same old. As it is, we haven't even been given the chance to correct our problems from the playoffs. If I can see the problem with our offense, I sure as hell guarantee you that Thibs, Rose, Garpax, Boozer, Noah, and every Bull knows it.
Also, this had nothing to do with the time of the year that it happened between playoffs and regular season; we struggle against attacking defenses that double Rose hard and pressure every other player on offense regardless of game (teams just featured it constantly in the playoffs). We have struggled this year to do it as well at times. We haven't seen the defense with Rip in the game, but we have struggled against it without him still. If the rest of the team has this confidence and ability to be accountable for their own offense, that defense will crumble. We got into a lot of trouble trying to find the perfect shot every time through complicated passes more often than not leading to shot clock violations and turn overs.
Not only do we need Boozer and Rip, we need Deng and Noah as well. In the case of Boozer, Rip, and Deng, it's that we need them to
take that shots above anything else. They would always get that open shot, but they would pass it up trying to make a highlight pass for a layup that ends in a turnover or they would just eat it and try to get it back to Rose to start over again. They need to realize that getting only a jump shot against that is perfectly fine. Boozer aggressively spamming that mid range shot and hitting it like its a layup will cause massive problems for that defense in particular. Deng three pointers would also pull it apart. Rip getting the ball and looking for his own shot or running a baseline PnR with one of the big men will also pull it apart. We have more weapons this year; we just need the chance to try them out.
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