BDM22 wrote:It's now official. Flip has managed to take a solid move (adding Theo), and turn it into a terrible one by cutting Max/AJ's minutes instead of Dice's.
Also, when was the last time this team really out executed a team down the stretch of a game? Just wondering, I can't seem to remember. This team used to be money in a close game down the stretch. Now we have to be up by double digits, or stumble to a shaky win. Not sure what happened, though I can take a guess...
LB was one of, if not the best coaches in the league at game planning and drawing up out of bounds plays. It might not have been sexy to see us walk the ball up, but the team knew how to execute and LB knew what plays to call.
Part of the problem I have with Flips "Flex" offensive is that it's reactionary. That is to say it's designed to take what the defense gives us. The problem with that is we're frequently given jump shots and that makes us a perimeter oriented team. We'll rarely dictate to the other team how our offense is actually run. That's why you'll so frequently see us go away from advantageous matchups or effective plays; we'll go with the path of least resistance.
In some ways I feel that makes us mentally weak. I actually miss the Carlisle days when we'd just pound a matchup until the opposing team proved they could stop it.
The other problem we have is our offensive execution is entirely reliant on balance. Against good defensive teams such as Boston & San Antonio we often struggle. Look at what Miami did to us 2 years or Cleveland last year where we averaged around 82-85 ppg or what we're doing against Boston this year. All they have to do is disrupt out balance and we struggle.
And when Dice isn't hitting (he's really slowed down recently as he did in the ECF) that puts even more pressure on the remaining starters. If the opposing team can take away just one of our guys then suddenly we're virtually playing 3 on 5 at the offensive end and we really struggle to score. We don't have that individually dominant player that can break down the defense or really create easy baskets for anybody else. We have to work hard for every shot we get. We don't run. We aren't a great offensive rebounding team. Nobody consistently draws double teams. Hard to win games against good teams when you can't even break 85.
There are 2 solutions that don't involve trading for an elite scorer; run more and send more people to the offensive glass. We need to find ways to generate more easy baskets against elite defensive teams because frankly we aren't good enough to score on them at the pace we need to out of our set offense.
