Countering the "switch" on PnR

[KJ7]

Seems the better teams we've played lately (namely Denver and LA) are doing a great job of switching on PnR. Unfortunately Amare is one of the worst back-to-the-basket big men I've ever seen and that's when he can actually get hold of the ball (seems like he just stands there when a player fronts him and either gives away an offensive foul or just asks for the ball to be lobbed over, which we never do).

Gentry's biggest prob IMO is that he insists on keeping Amare involved in the offense. He would rather throw him the ball to go one-on-one with his man rather then get someone else involved on the PnR. It baffles me!

I recall in the season Amare was injured we had 2 forwards who were great at posting up smaller players in Tim Thomas and Diaw. Now we have none!

Do we continue to ask Nash to go one-on-one against their bigger players?
Should we try to obtain a player like this with someone like Lopez?
Could Earl Clark be that player?
Should we start PnR'ing with Hill/JRich who are both *much* better at posting up smaller players?

Anyone else got any ideas?!

I really think is we sort out this issue then we will be pretty much impossible to stop offensively but if we don't more and more teams will cotton on and we could come to a stutter offensively.

[pidi]

you´re right - the best post up player on the team is j-rich. which sucks.
lopez is much worse than ama´re - he travels all the time, he´s forgetting his feet.
lou can´t dribble.
why not trying earl clark? he seems to feel comfortable with his face to the basket / shooting zhe 15 feeter.

any ideas? not realy, a trade would help here alot. maybe play collins or trade for his brother...

[statisback]

Seems the better teams we've played lately (namely Denver and LA) are doing a great job of switching on PnR. Unfortunately Amare is one of the worst back-to-the-basket big men I've ever seen and that's when he can actually get hold of the ball (seems like he just stands there when a player fronts him and either gives away an offensive foul or just asks for the ball to be lobbed over, which we never do).

Gentry's biggest prob IMO is that he insists on keeping Amare involved in the offense. He would rather throw him the ball to go one-on-one with his man rather then get someone else involved on the PnR. It baffles me!

I recall in the season Amare was injured we had 2 forwards who were great at posting up smaller players in Tim Thomas and Diaw. Now we have none!

Do we continue to ask Nash to go one-on-one against their bigger players?
Should we try to obtain a player like this with someone like Lopez?
Could Earl Clark be that player?
Should we start PnR'ing with Hill/JRich who are both *much* better at posting up smaller players?

Anyone else got any ideas?!

I really think is we sort out this issue then we will be pretty much impossible to stop offensively but if we don't more and more teams will cotton on and we could come to a stutter offensively.

Amare isnt as bad as you make it seem. Yes he has declined but at one point he was the best offensive big man in the game. I would say that was about just 2 years ago.

[hunterxaz]

Biggest problem with Amare this season is that he's very timid. He's scared to drive to the hole unless there is a wide open path.

There were days when Amare would posterize people and just not give a crap who was down there, cuz he knew he could dominate just about anyone in this league. I think it's a psychological thing, not a physical. If he can get over that mental hump of being scared to injure himself, he can go back to 25/10. The problem is, he knows this is his contract year, unless he goes for his option next season. This is a two-edged sword though... on one hand he has to play elite if he wants a max contract, which 1/4th of the way through the season he hasn't. On the other hand, if he somehow injures himself yet again, that ruins his chances for him likely to go anywhere else, other than the Suns for his career.

[KJ7]

It's a physical thing IMO ... he used to have the most explosive first-step for a big man I've ever seen. He couldn't even dribble back then and he'd still beat his man on the drive.

Now he is fundamentally better but nowhere near as good one-on-one ... which leads us to this dilemma about finding an alternate option when teams switch on the PnR.

My point RE: Amare was just that we need to look for another option on PnR if he's not getting the job done. Would Hill/JRich be able to beat someone like Fischer/Billups consistently in the post? If they could then why don't we try that option? After all we have 2 of the best jumpshooting big men going round so crowding shouldn't be an issue.

Hill lost possession on one but got fouled on 2 other plays when they posted him up ... I just don't understand why we didn't 1) try it with JRich and 2) continue posting up Hill.

[dantian]

you have the problem up side down, mister! If anything, we have been too reliant on Nash dribbling and delievering the scoring pass that we never really worked on posting up sets properly. By that I mean, we seem only to do them out of necessity relying on the "natural" posting up talent the players have in them without practising in real games against good defense. And from the TOs Nash made trying to pass into posts we have additional evidence that they don't plan on doing this, yet occationally forced by good teams to do so with disaster. And your answer was, let Nash gets worn out with more one-on-one plays?

[MaryvalesFinest]

They should have Clark guard the opposing teams PG or SG. Right now Dudley is to slow and Hill is 37 and can't play defense like he once could.

[rsavaj]

It's a physical thing IMO ... he used to have the most explosive first-step for a big man I've ever seen. He couldn't even dribble back then and he'd still beat his man on the drive.

Now he is fundamentally better but nowhere near as good one-on-one ... which leads us to this dilemma about finding an alternate option when teams switch on the PnR.

My point RE: Amare was just that we need to look for another option on PnR if he's not getting the job done. Would Hill/JRich be able to beat someone like Fischer/Billups consistently in the post? If they could then why don't we try that option? After all we have 2 of the best jumpshooting big men going round so crowding shouldn't be an issue.

Hill lost possession on one but got fouled on 2 other plays when they posted him up ... I just don't understand why we didn't 1) try it with JRich and 2) continue posting up Hill.

+1. Nash somehow found a way to beat the big man though last night....he was just on fire.

[Classick]

They should have Clark guard the opposing teams PG or SG. Right now Dudley is to slow and Hill is 37 and can't play defense like he once could.

+1

I really dislike how the last few first rounders have been given very limited PT. I would love to see EC start getting about 10 minutes per game or so. Just take a few minutes away from RoLo.

[b-ball forever]

Jrich's body strength/athleticism/post skills make him an interesting PnR option under the right conditions, but the problem with running a PnR with a PG and a swingman (instead of w/ a bigman) is that both the opponent's bigmen are usually still there in the paint instead of one of em being drawn away from the basket, which doesn't leave much space for the swingman to post up into or drive into afterwards...

Guess we could run some plays to open up the lane first like give the ball to Frye in the corner to draw one of the opposition's bigmen away from the bucket, have Nash and J-Rich cut towards a certain spot in the highpost, have Frye hand the ball to Nash, then have Nash run into the pick set by J-Rich. Kobe switches onto Nash and Fisher switches onto Rich, then J-Rich sould have a clear enuf path to either drive or post up towards the bucket.
Hopefully Rich is able to pass the ball back out to an open Frye at the right time if Frye's man comes back in the post for the help D.
Can't really do that too often tho.

Could also get Frye to a play bigger Pick n pop/Pick n roll role for now. If Fisher/Billups switch onto Frye, he gets an easy shot opportunity.

Right now Frye needs to be a bit less of a poon and mix up his offense a bit, he's almost exclusively been a jump shooter on offense so far this year. He doesn't have the body strength to be a low post iso back-down type big, but he used to be a solid presence under the basket, had some decent post moves, and would roll to the basket after picks pretty often early in his career.
For now at least that is, Frye can go back to being a puss ass jumpshooter only once Amare gets back his explosiveness and abilty to get to rim at will, regardless of switches

Lopez is the type of goof that tends to set moving screens intead of actual picks, and he can't back down his man without losing the ball either, so stay away from him offensively and leave him trying to clean up the offensive glass under the basket since that's one thing he's actually good at.

Clark could develop into a dangerous PnR threat that can either cut, post up off the switch, or pop up the J, but for now he isn't there yet.


So basically while waiting for Amare to fully recover, the best options we got to counter the switch on the PnR are prolly a combo of letting Nash keep the ball and try to beat the big guy, getting Frye to mix up his game a bit and get more involved in the PnR, and running a few PnR plays between Nash and Rich if one of the enemy's bigmen is drawn outta the paint.

[garrick]

Amare has been doing a bit better these past couple games where he curls behind Nash at times but he does get lazy and kind of stands around a lot of times.

[raff]

Could also get Frye to a play bigger Pick n pop/Pick n roll role for now. If Fisher/Billups switch onto Frye, he gets an easy shot opportunity.

Right now Frye needs to be a bit less of a poon and mix up his offense a bit, he's almost exclusively been a jump shooter on offense so far this year. He doesn't have the body strength to be a low post iso back-down type big, but he used to be a solid presence under the basket, had some decent post moves, and would roll to the basket after picks pretty often early in his career.
For now at least that is, Frye can go back to being a puss ass jumpshooter only once Amare gets back his explosiveness and abilty to get to rim at will, regardless of switches

I think i mentioned this in a game thread a little while back. Frye would be much more of a threat on offense if he learned to just look like he was thinking about putting the ball to the floor instead of spot up to shoot every time he gets the ball. The game I was thinking about, which I don't remember now, he never even hesitated to drive to the hoop. If he could add even one move with that, and we could use that to mix up the PnR, that would be awesome. That way, a Nash and Frye PnR or PnP could go either way. That pair up would be a much more legitimate threat while Amar'e works himself back to his old PnRollin' self.

[KJ7]

Jrich's body strength/athleticism/post skills make him an interesting PnR option under the right conditions, but the problem with running a PnR with a PG and a swingman (instead of w/ a bigman) is that both the opponent's bigmen are usually still there in the paint instead of one of em being drawn away from the basket, which doesn't leave much space for the swingman to post up into or drive into afterwards...

Considering both our big men are good jump shooters I don't think this will be too much of an issue. If one of their big men gets sucked into the middle then it's a free jumper for our big men. We could prolly get Amare to curl up to 18-20 feet after JRich has established himself in the post.

I agree we could/should go for a mix of things but at the moment we just look so lost after they switch and everyone stands and looks at Nash like "we're outta ideas dude!".

I also agree that it should depend on who our opposition is. If there is a particularly big PG maybe go with Hill instead of JRich. So maybe against someone like Dallas/Kidd we would go with Hill on the PnR to get the extra inches.

Against smaller PG's go JRich ... he should be way too strong/athletic for 90% of PGs.

RE: Earl Clark - I also think he has a good chance of being the kind of guy we need. He has pretty good ball-handling skills but at the moment he looks more comfortable facing up rather then posting up. Haven't seen that much of his post-up game to really know but he certainly has the skill-set.

[Miklo]

Good thread - I've been pondering this since you posted it. I'm pretty much on the same page as BBF here so there's not much for me to say, but I agree that getting others (especially J-Rich) involved in the P n' R will be good, if nothing other than to mess up the scouting reports a little bit.

Another separate problem that I would put equal to this is teams shutting Nash's passing game down by switching a taller player onto him. He has really choked this season when teams switch their SG/SF onto him. My proposed solution for that is, if they start doing it regularly during the game you put Nash and Dragic or Nash and Hill up top to run a 2-passer system. You can keep the pace going by feeding the ball constantly between the 2 playmakers and whoever sees an opening first bullets it down into the open lane, wherever that may be.

[aIvin adams]

this is the only interesting issue ont he suns right now imo. since the NY game the opposing team's strategy has been set. im surprised it took that long, actually..it's pretty much always been the best strategy against the nash PnR. of course it didnt work all the time, but everytime i see a pg struggling over a screen my eyes light up like im at a kid rock concert and a women is grabbing the bottom of her t-shirt while letting out a drunken hollar.

it was good to see nash start to overcome the switch against the magic and esp the nugz. reminded me of the '06 dallas series when nashs cored like a man possessed.

jrich is the clearcut #2 option for thr PnR (altho i read and recognize the argument for using hill sometimes) but unless amare gets better at grabbing and handling the ball in traffic (is it just me or did he used ot be amazing at this?) then the suns are screwed come playoff time.

[tsherkin]

The easy answer here is to put Amare at the 5, J-Rich at the 4 (on offense) and Frye at the 3 (on offense).

Then you just run PnR with Richardson, because he doesn't need to dribble in any kind of significant way, just roll to the hoop and maybe take one or two direct-line dribbles towards the hoop. He has the power and athleticism to finish very well. You do the same with Amare. Then you've got Frye, the 2 and Nash stretching the D with their range (or Frye, Nash, the 2 and Richardson, if you're running PnR with Amare).

That kind of ends this issue.

[b-ball forever]

Putting J-Rich closer to the basket at the 4 and Frye @ the 3 from the start of the offensive plays would usually mean the other team would have their PF guarding J-Rich and their SF on Frye.

It'd work OK against several teams, but vs teams with big/physical PFs like the Nugz that'd force Rich to set picks on guys who have a big size advantage on him. Not easy to set a proper pick and then roll towards the bucket on a guy who's much bigger then u...

Would be an interesting mismatch option against teams that don't have banger PFs. For example I remember one of the reasons the Magic were so dangerous was cuz of all the weird ass role mismatches they'd give opponents on offense.
On the defensive end Jameer would gaurd the PG, Pietrus took the SG, Hedo the SF, Shard the PF, and Dwight the C... but then in terms of offensive roles it was almost like Turkeyglue was their PG, Jammer their SG, Shard their SF, Pietrus their PF, Dwight their C.
Drove defenses nutz.

[KJ7]

BBF - Very good point re: playing smaller players on Frye defensively. I remember a few teams used to do that with Marion when he was purely a jump-shooter in half-court. Freed up their bigger players to take on Nash and LB. He used to try to get closer to the basket and do some of those ugly flick-shots with mixed results.

At least if Frye does get a smaller player that should be a green-light to post him up. If Frye can't post up smaller players then we really need to start looking at a different player to start.

I can almost guarantee that Spurs are gonna be switching on the pick against us next game so it's gonna be interesting to see what tactic Gentry uses to overcome it. I really hope we don't purely rely on Nash to shoot over big men and take them on. I really do think that in those instances we have to make Amare a jump-shooter and not part of the PnR. If Gentry is stubborn about that then I can see us suffering for it.

[JohnVancouver]

BBF - Very good point re: playing smaller players on Frye defensively. I remember a few teams used to do that with Marion when he was purely a jump-shooter in half-court. Freed up their bigger players to take on Nash and LB. He used to try to get closer to the basket and do some of those ugly flick-shots with mixed results.

He put up one last night that was just unbelievably fugly, after executing a bizarre spin move on the baseline. he looked like a kid trying to make himself dizzy ...

but he's playing pretty good for the mavs - 15 and 15 the other night