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Hi Heat board,

I was curious of how the offense was ran during the 05-06 season. I figure the offense was set up by SVG at the start, but what happened once Riley took over? Was there a transition of SVG's offense into Riley's?

Been curious about this for a while. Any details would be great, thanks!

My memory is fuzzy, but yeah, I do think the offense was different. As I recall, it was actually a lot simpler under Riley, he seemed to ascribe to the theory that Wade and Shaq could simply physically dominate their respective matchups. Stan used a lot more double-stacks, staggered screens, etc, to get Wade going, and used him more on the ball on the wing, but Riles used Wade more at the top of the key or off the ball. Just my impression though, that was many many years ago

no the offense was still the same, pound it into Shaq and good things happen. we were really killing teams. The offense changed when we matched up against the Mavs and got down two games. Wade went off and carried the team on his shoulders and won us the game. He has been carrying ever since and thus was the start of hero ball. SVG and Riley are both fans of pounding it into the big man. But it wasnt working against the Mavs and Wade was superhuman and it worked.

mopper8 wrote:My memory is fuzzy, but yeah, I do think the offense was different. As I recall, it was actually a lot simpler under Riley, he seemed to ascribe to the theory that Wade and Shaq could simply physically dominate their respective matchups. Stan used a lot more double-stacks, staggered screens, etc, to get Wade going, and used him more on the ball on the wing, but Riles used Wade more at the top of the key or off the ball. Just my impression though, that was many many years ago

I remember it being simpler under Riley as well but that could be being anchored by the Mavs final.

The offense was better the year before (could have been the different players and Shaq's decline overrode Wade's improvement though)

GreenHat wrote:

mopper8 wrote:My memory is fuzzy, but yeah, I do think the offense was different. As I recall, it was actually a lot simpler under Riley, he seemed to ascribe to the theory that Wade and Shaq could simply physically dominate their respective matchups. Stan used a lot more double-stacks, staggered screens, etc, to get Wade going, and used him more on the ball on the wing, but Riles used Wade more at the top of the key or off the ball. Just my impression though, that was many many years ago

I remember it being simpler under Riley as well but that could be being anchored by the Mavs final.

The offense was better the year before (could have been the different players and Shaq's decline overrode Wade's improvement though)

Wade's improvement vs Shaq's decline cancel each other out I think, but the difference was the 04-05 team had much better spacing. Eddie Jones, Damon Jones, even Rasual Butler were all consistent threats from distance for us.

The only traditional knock down 3 guy on the 06 team was Posey, and while Williams, Payton and Walker still took plenty, none were very good at making them (J-will a respectable 37% on 5 attempts a game, GP a terrible 29% on 3 attempts a game, 'Toine a surprisingly decent 36% on almost 5 attempts a game).

As a team, the 04-05 team shot 37.7% from 3, the 05-06 team shot 34.5%, that's a huge difference.

And yeah, Kapono was on the 05-06 squad, but he barely ever played, 06-07 was his breakout year.

Tim_Hardawayy wrote:

GreenHat wrote:

mopper8 wrote:My memory is fuzzy, but yeah, I do think the offense was different. As I recall, it was actually a lot simpler under Riley, he seemed to ascribe to the theory that Wade and Shaq could simply physically dominate their respective matchups. Stan used a lot more double-stacks, staggered screens, etc, to get Wade going, and used him more on the ball on the wing, but Riles used Wade more at the top of the key or off the ball. Just my impression though, that was many many years ago

I remember it being simpler under Riley as well but that could be being anchored by the Mavs final.

The offense was better the year before (could have been the different players and Shaq's decline overrode Wade's improvement though)

Wade's improvement vs Shaq's decline cancel each other out I think, but the difference was the 04-05 team had much better spacing. Eddie Jones, Damon Jones, even Rasual Butler were all consistent threats from distance for us.

The only traditional knock down 3 guy on the 06 team was Posey, and while Williams, Payton and Walker still took plenty, none were very good at making them (J-will a respectable 37% on 5 attempts a game, GP a terrible 29% on 3 attempts a game, 'Toine a surprisingly decent 36% on almost 5 attempts a game).

As a team, the 04-05 team shot 37.7% from 3, the 05-06 team shot 34.5%, that's a huge difference.

And yeah, Kapono was on the 05-06 squad, but he barely ever played, 06-07 was his breakout year.

Yeah that's what I meant by different players. Its funny how because we won the title that team is remembered as the better team.

Looking back at the numbers now I would take the younger Shaq/Wade over their counterparts the next year.

04-05 team was definitely better than 05-06 team in my mind.

mopper8 wrote:04-05 team was definitely better than 05-06 team in my mind.

It's a shame Wade injured his ribs in the ECF. I thought we would've won the championship that year, even though Timmy and Ginobli were playing out of their minds that postseason.

DatD-Wade3 wrote:

mopper8 wrote:04-05 team was definitely better than 05-06 team in my mind.

It's a shame Wade injured his ribs in the ECF. I thought we would've won the championship that year, even though Timmy and Ginobli were playing out of their minds that postseason.

It's an interesting thought. If we win the title, Riley probably still makes moves in the offseason, but maybe not as big. SVG all of a sudden has a lot of cache, and it's hard to see him getting pushed out, especially if he doesn't have to deal with so many egos.

He could possibly still be our coach now tbh.

mopper8 wrote:

DatD-Wade3 wrote:

mopper8 wrote:04-05 team was definitely better than 05-06 team in my mind.

It's a shame Wade injured his ribs in the ECF. I thought we would've won the championship that year, even though Timmy and Ginobli were playing out of their minds that postseason.

It's an interesting thought. If we win the title, Riley probably still makes moves in the offseason, but maybe not as big. SVG all of a sudden has a lot of cache, and it's hard to see him getting pushed out, especially if he doesn't have to deal with so many egos.

He could possibly still be our coach now tbh.

I actually hadn't thought about that. I think we'd still contend in 05-06 because like you said, 04-05 team was better. But unless the freak Wade injury didn't happen, 07-08 would've still happened which I think SVG would've been let go, making Spo coach. The course could still be the same. The key is that freak shoulder injury in 06-07 to Wade.

I think the 04-05 team was better but I don't think we beat the Spurs. Of course we probably don't beat the Mavs the next year if Wade didn't have one of the best couple of games in a row.

A title would have given SVG more juice but I still think he gets let go at some point because of his personality.

I don't think we would have beaten that 05 Spurs team. But I agree, it's really unfortunate that we never got to see what could have been with the 05 Wade injury.