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Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside!

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Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#1 » by torotoe » Sat Nov 2, 2013 12:47 pm

OK, here it goes... Shaw is all too reminiscent of Adrian Dantley. His court side demeanor is very similar to Dantley's as they are both quite nonchalant. If Shaw is anything like AD, the nugs will be absolutely terrible. Discuss:
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#2 » by The Rebel » Sun Nov 3, 2013 12:21 am

I would not say that Shaw is that much like Dantley, I think Shaw is at least coherent on the sidelines which it never seemed that Dantley was even paying much attention.

That being said I am extremely disappointed in the way things have started off with Shaw, as much as I try I just do not understand his thinking on his offense. I know the plan was a half court offense, but a half court offense force feeding the ball into the post and based around that is horrible for the Nuggets personnel. They have no bigs that fit that system outside of Hickson, and Hickson is terrible on defense.

No to mention the mid range shots, that is one of the dumbest moves I have seen, sure the Nuggets have bigs that can now hit that shot, but they should only be taking them when teams are packing the paint.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#3 » by pickaxe » Sun Nov 3, 2013 12:31 am

The Rebel wrote:I would not say that Shaw is that much like Dantley, I think Shaw is at least coherent on the sidelines which it never seemed that Dantley was even paying much attention.

That being said I am extremely disappointed in the way things have started off with Shaw, as much as I try I just do not understand his thinking on his offense. I know the plan was a half court offense, but a half court offense force feeding the ball into the post and based around that is horrible for the Nuggets personnel. They have no bigs that fit that system outside of Hickson, and Hickson is terrible on defense.

No to mention the mid range shots, that is one of the dumbest moves I have seen, sure the Nuggets have bigs that can now hit that shot, but they should only be taking them when teams are packing the paint.


It all comes down to is it worth it? Being able to hit mid-range J's and pick and pop, along with a half-court mentality when the opposing playoff team forces you to play half-court can be extremely valuable - but do you even get to the playoffs without playing to your strengths?

I would almost feel better with a full run and gun system that picks moments in games to work on half-court only as it presents itself rather than force it every possession. Kind of like when your bench gets extra minutes because the starters have played so well ......just give the experiment or "discipline" minutes when you can afford them, keeping the run game moving full speed ahead.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#4 » by youngthegiant » Sun Nov 3, 2013 8:48 pm

do you want to be a first round exit every year? It was time for a change good or bad. Give him more than 2 games before you throw him under the bus.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#5 » by pickIBL » Mon Nov 4, 2013 5:02 am

We got injury issues too guys. The change in style and philosophy would be hard enough without the injuries. It also seems like... for better or worse... the FO is pushing to find a big trade.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#6 » by Powder Blue » Mon Nov 4, 2013 9:14 pm

Run and Gun got us no where in the playoffs so the system need to change. I do agree with Rebel and am a little disappointed in that he seems to be focused on implementing a system that doesn't suit to players on the roster. For years this team has been a lackluster mid-range J team, just as they are now. It doesn't help that our 3 guards are both out with injuries right now, it's hard to replace the 30ish ppg we would be getting from them if they were playing.

Frankly the roster Shaw can currently put on the floor doesn't have many strengths or players that can create offense. It's no surprise we are 0-2.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#7 » by pickaxe » Tue Nov 5, 2013 12:48 am

Just answer this question: are they slightly better at the half-court game after these first two games or slightly worse? It would be nice to see one win to really get an idea of how this team will win games. Then, after that is accomplished it would be nice to see how consistent the team can be night to night at acquiring those wins.

I understand the need to change the run and gun just as much as anybody else on these boards - yet I do think it a worthy question to ask: does implementing the new system mean this team would succeed in the playoffs but have a more difficult time getting TO the postseason?

That being said, I'm a fan. I'm watching. I want to see a little bit more from this team even with our star players out.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#8 » by Powder Blue » Tue Nov 5, 2013 5:40 am

pickaxe wrote:Just answer this question: are they slightly better at the half-court game after these first two games or slightly worse? It would be nice to see one win to really get an idea of how this team will win games. Then, after that is accomplished it would be nice to see how consistent the team can be night to night at acquiring those wins.

I understand the need to change the run and gun just as much as anybody else on these boards - yet I do think it a worthy question to ask: does implementing the new system mean this team would succeed in the playoffs but have a more difficult time getting TO the postseason?

That being said, I'm a fan. I'm watching. I want to see a little bit more from this team even with our star players out.


Worse...minus Gallo and Iggy mind you

Care to take a guess how the Nuggets started last season? 0-3 and 4-6 then went on to win 57. Change takes time folks....and players than can make shots.

Don't compare last seasons 82 games to this seasons 2. If anything they are even at this point.

http://www.denverstiffs.com/2013/11/3/5 ... er-nuggets
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#9 » by torotoe » Tue Nov 5, 2013 3:02 pm

I like that faried and Hamilton are starting today. IMO not playing Ham or Q up to this point is just dumb. The Randolph at SF experiment did not work, but it was worth a try. Still, there were SF minutes available for the prospects. Hopefully, Shaw's master plan is to start our **** players (foye, randolph, hickson and mcgee) to challenge Faried, Moz, Fours and Q/Ham to take the starting spot.

I dont really mind shaw but I'm starting to appreciate Karl's offensive philosophy more. The mid-range J is just not an efficient shot like the three or the layup. I like the defensive scheme, although it falls apart when the team counts on McGee or Hickson to man the middle.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#10 » by daboywonder2007 » Wed Nov 6, 2013 12:58 am

torotoe wrote:I like that faried and Hamilton are starting today. IMO not playing Ham or Q up to this point is just dumb. The Randolph at SF experiment did not work, but it was worth a try. Still, there were SF minutes available for the prospects. Hopefully, Shaw's master plan is to start our **** players (foye, randolph, hickson and mcgee) to challenge Faried, Moz, Fours and Q/Ham to take the starting spot.

I dont really mind shaw but I'm starting to appreciate Karl's offensive philosophy more. The mid-range J is just not an efficient shot like the three or the layup. I like the defensive scheme, although it falls apart when the team counts on McGee or Hickson to man the middle.


shaw needs to adjust. you dont have a bynum/gasol/shaq/roy hibbert. this is javale mcgee. play to his strengths. athleticism, shot blocking. bad move trading koufus. i liked the combo of him, faried and gallo. karl was right. mcgee and faried dont mix. when your a team that wins 57 games, i dont believe in tearing down everything. you add to what's already in place. it's like he's sacrificing wins for putting his system in place.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#11 » by The Rebel » Wed Nov 6, 2013 4:59 am

youngthegiant wrote:do you want to be a first round exit every year? It was time for a change good or bad. Give him more than 2 games before you throw him under the bus.


I agree that it was time for a change, however I also thought Shaw would have been around the league enough, and was smart enough to realize that you cannot force feed the low post, when you do not have any good low post up type players.

Fact is there are many different good half court offenses, find one that does not require a pass to the low post every damn play, you know like they did tonight for 2 1/2 quarters.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#12 » by The Rebel » Wed Nov 6, 2013 5:02 am

torotoe wrote:I like that faried and Hamilton are starting today. IMO not playing Ham or Q up to this point is just dumb. The Randolph at SF experiment did not work, but it was worth a try. Still, there were SF minutes available for the prospects. Hopefully, Shaw's master plan is to start our **** players (foye, randolph, hickson and mcgee) to challenge Faried, Moz, Fours and Q/Ham to take the starting spot.

I dont really mind shaw but I'm starting to appreciate Karl's offensive philosophy more. The mid-range J is just not an efficient shot like the three or the layup. I like the defensive scheme, although it falls apart when the team counts on McGee or Hickson to man the middle.


I never thought Randolph should have been given the starting job at SF, the guy has a long history of not being able to produce when he is playing meaningful minutes, and his defense against PFs was bad enough that you knew it would be bad against SFs.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#13 » by DaFan334 » Wed Nov 6, 2013 9:13 am

Mozgov and Faried should be our starting bigs with Arthor, Hickson and McGee fighting for the backup minutes at this point. Mozzy has been the best fit in this offense that I have seen so far and Faried's effort deserves more minutes that he has gotten which may be slightly due to coming back from his injury. McGee has just played awful thus far into the year and doesn't look like he will "get it" anytime soon. I have been a bit annoyed by how the rotation has gone thus far with the bigs, but understand that it is early and a Shaw and the team are trying to adjust to each other. Faried and Mozgov clearly need more time based on their current production and fit into this new offense.

Hamilton seemed to have confidence and didn't force much which I definitely liked to see. I think he earned himself some more minutes tonight.

This team desperately needs Wilson Chandler and Gallo to get healthy to produce more from the wings. As of right now, I feel like that 3 spot has produced very little for us and their absence has seen too much small ball on the wings.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#14 » by TKF » Wed Nov 6, 2013 5:44 pm

The Rebel wrote:I would not say that Shaw is that much like Dantley, I think Shaw is at least coherent on the sidelines which it never seemed that Dantley was even paying much attention.

That being said I am extremely disappointed in the way things have started off with Shaw, as much as I try I just do not understand his thinking on his offense. I know the plan was a half court offense, but a half court offense force feeding the ball into the post and based around that is horrible for the Nuggets personnel. They have no bigs that fit that system outside of Hickson, and Hickson is terrible on defense.

No to mention the mid range shots, that is one of the dumbest moves I have seen, sure the Nuggets have bigs that can now hit that shot, but they should only be taking them when teams are packing the paint.


I agree, gotta play to the nuggs strength. I am still shocked Karl is not back, but whatever..

It also doesn't hurt to not have gallo and chandler...

nuggets need to push, the bigs are not really half court bigs, except hickson... Mcgee is just a doofus... He just can't "get right'.. LOL

Nuggets will be fine, need to get healthy and get back to running a bit..
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#15 » by RRFB » Wed Nov 6, 2013 6:54 pm

This system does a really good job of getting the ball to our bigs in a good position, they just don't know how to finish it. Every single back-to-the-basket opportunity for Faried or McGee ends in disaster. Especially Faried, you can tell immediately that his post-ups have no chance of going in.

I hated the idea of trading for Greg Monroe before, but after seeing this system in action, he'd be a much better fit than either of our current starters.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#16 » by pickaxe » Sat Nov 9, 2013 2:00 pm

Shaw was quoted as saying he didn't see very good energy from the starting rotation in the 4th quarter and that he was baffled. The DN twitter account posted that on twitter based on the post-game interview.

Not sure that gives me a good feeling about Shaw. I'm actually wondering what's causing certain players to display nonchalance during crunch time...

Chemistry issues at all? Minutes being treated as a democracy? Too much competition and unclear lines being drawn? I'd have to say I was baffled hearing that Shaw was baffled.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#17 » by The Rebel » Sat Nov 9, 2013 4:09 pm

pickaxe wrote:Shaw was quoted as saying he didn't see very good energy from the starting rotation in the 4th quarter and that he was baffled. The DN twitter account posted that on twitter based on the post-game interview.

Not sure that gives me a good feeling about Shaw. I'm actually wondering what's causing certain players to display nonchalance during crunch time...

Chemistry issues at all? Minutes being treated as a democracy? Too much competition and unclear lines being drawn? I'd have to say I was baffled hearing that Shaw was baffled.



There have already been rumors about chemistry problems going back to preseason, so that would not surprise me, and certain players do not seem to really work well together on the court for some reason.

I also do not understand the minute distribution, a new head coach should not be going out of his way to make all the veterans happy, there is enough similar level players that they should all be forced to earn their minutes, but it seems like I am watching a youth league where everybody gets minutes. He is giving 6 different bigs minutes, yet will go to a 4 guard lineup towards the end of the game, how can you develop on court chemistry when you can barely keep track of who is on the court when?

I also think there are some players not buying into Shaw's system, there were rumors that Lawson was struggling with the new system, and some player's body language just do not seem right this year.

I think shaw is trying to hard to keep guys happy, and is still very unsure of himself. Hell last night Lawson was obviously tired after that 3rd quarter, so Shaw pulls Robinson out after a couple of bad minutes and puts Lawson right back in to finish the game, where are guy's chances to work through a slow start? There are 2 PGs on the team and 2 combo guards and a natural shooting guard on the roster, why not get someone else to cover for a few minutes so Lawson has something left at the end of the game? Why when Fournier makes a couple of bad defensive plays he is out for the rest of the game, but Foye gets to work through it? Not to mention why is foye and Andre Miller getting minutes at SF when Q Miller (1 of 2 natural SFs healthy and on the roster)cannot get off the bench despite Shaw and the Nuggets bragging about how good he was in training camp, especially since Randolph is getting plenty of minutes due to supposedly having a good training camp? Why does he seem to put a different lineup out there every 3 minutes, until 1 goes on a run and then he leaves them out there for 15 minutes?

As a coach taking over a team used to winning, and used to running a certain system, you cannot come in and change everything, then turn around and seemingly 2nd guess yourself constantly. You have to come up with a rotation of guys who you think are going to work and stick with it a few games, You have to at least act like you know what you are doing, so far that seems to be the opposite of what Shaw is doing.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#18 » by basketbob » Sun Nov 10, 2013 8:55 pm

Posted this on a trade board thread called "Denver fire sale". Thought it might add to this discussion as well.

I think it's possible (am desperately hoping?) that what we're seeing from Shaw is in fact player development. What presents itself as 'Shaw's system' looks a lot to me like "Playoff Basketball 101", a course which most of Karl's teams seem to have collectively skipped. The results we're seeing look like exactly why Karl had his teams play in something of a high risk/high reward system. He was playing according to the strengths and weaknesses of his players. Shaw may be trying to actually correct those weaknesses, at the expense of reg season wins. Having said that, i hope he doesn't completely discount Karl's success as gimmickry. These guys are pretty good at playing high risk defense and running. I've always wanted to see them take it to the extreme on the defensive end with tons of pressure on the ball all night, rolling out a 10 man rotation (maybe in 'hockey lines') and making the other team's lungs burn (see the last 5 or 6 minutes of last year's game 6). It might be a gimmick, but with (some of) these players and this altitude, it's a gimmick which could produce remarkable results -- particularly if it doesn't come at the expense of developing the capacity to play 'playoff-style' basketball, as it seems to have for Karl.

As to a fire sale, i think the Nuggs could afford to have the kind that clears out all those collectively neutral-value long term contracts (Hickson, Mozgov, Arthur, DreMiller, Foye, Randolph, Nate) that are going to guys who likely have reached their development ceilings in exchange for either expirings or prospects/picks paired with bad contracts, thereby extending the 'success horizon' of this core. Since 5 of those 7 players represent Connelly's entire body of work, however, i doubt that's the direction they'll take.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#19 » by The Rebel » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:17 pm

I hate to be the one to say it, but General Managers do not usually jetison their own signings, they start with the previous regime's guys.

With McGee out it would not surprise me to see them go after an actual skilled big, but I think everybodies value has taken a hit so far this year.
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Re: Warning: Knee Jerk Reaction Inside! 

Post#20 » by torotoe » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:35 pm

The Rebel wrote:I hate to be the one to say it, but General Managers do not usually jetison their own signings, they start with the previous regime's guys.

With McGee out it would not surprise me to see them go after an actual skilled big, but I think everybodies value has taken a hit so far this year.


Imagine how much better off the Nuggets would be had he not signed those guys in the first place.

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