EJ on NBATV Discussing Princeton Offense

[hands11]

I never had a problem with EJ's offensive system, even though Dat calling it the "weave and heave" was pretty hilarious.

We had and still have a team full of perimeter scorers and little interior offense. The offense EJ implemented suited our strengths and put our best offensive players in the best situations to score and use their talents. It was predicated on isolation sets that yielded few assists but was still effective. Yes, it was a perimeter system and yes, if we weren't "feeling it", it was going to be tough for us to win games, but that's what you get when you lack consistent interior scoring.

I'm with fishercob, it was EJ's defensive scheme (or lack thereof) that was my biggest complaint of his and the man's demise as coach of the Washington Wizards.

I don't have a problem with the offense per say. If you have the right players to run it. If people are saying it is what Boston ran back in the day then ya, that looks pretty sweet. When the systems matches the talent, you have success.


The triangle is what worked for MJ and mates. Great talent. Great systems that matched it.

My problem with us running it was that is was to complicated so it was hard to introduce new players to it. If you have the right players running it and the core stays together, then it can be sweet. Keeping the core running the system well allows new plays a solid picture of what they need to do and it gives them time to learn it.

But for us, this offense and EJ as the head coach translated into slowly developing our youth and not forcing players to grow through their weakness. What is did well on one hand - cover up some weaknesses - actually stunted the growth of our young talent on the other.

That is what I see us recovering from now. Tapps had to take off the training wheels so now we are seeing players learn to ride without them. It is yet to be seen with ones will be able to and which won't. DMAC seems to be one that may make it but he still has a long way to go.

I have seen progress in several players. It's just not going to translate directly into wins. Specially when we are playing the best teams in the league.

So the Princeton is good, the triangle is good, the high post is good. They are all good.

And EJ was a good assistant coach to teach the Princeton. He just wasn't a good HC for the group - age - talent - maturity - etc that we had. The shoe just didn't fit well.

Give him a group of smart, mature, vets that are established and I think he would be fine. Say, coach of the Boston team. That would be a better fit for him. But then again, who wouldn't be better coaching a group like that ?

To coach that group you have to either coach a team up that has younger talent to get established as one of the best or just be lucky by being in the right place at the right time.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

I never had a problem with EJ's offensive system, even though Dat calling it the "weave and heave" was pretty hilarious.

We had and still have a team full of perimeter scorers and little interior offense. The offense EJ implemented suited our strengths and put our best offensive players in the best situations to score and use their talents. It was predicated on isolation sets that yielded few assists but was still effective. Yes, it was a perimeter system and yes, if we weren't "feeling it", it was going to be tough for us to win games, but that's what you get when you lack consistent interior scoring.

I'm with fishercob, it was EJ's defensive scheme (or lack thereof) that was my biggest complaint of his and the man's demise as coach of the Washington Wizards.

I think he had a scheme. He just didn't know how to teach it...

[fishercob]

I never had a problem with EJ's offensive system, even though Dat calling it the "weave and heave" was pretty hilarious.

We had and still have a team full of perimeter scorers and little interior offense. The offense EJ implemented suited our strengths and put our best offensive players in the best situations to score and use their talents. It was predicated on isolation sets that yielded few assists but was still effective. Yes, it was a perimeter system and yes, if we weren't "feeling it", it was going to be tough for us to win games, but that's what you get when you lack consistent interior scoring.

I'm with fishercob, it was EJ's defensive scheme (or lack thereof) that was my biggest complaint of his and the man's demise as coach of the Washington Wizards.

I don't have a problem with the offense per day. If you have the right players to run it. If people are saying it is what Boston ran back in the day then ya, that looks pretty sweet. When the systems matches the talent, you have success.


The triangle is what worked for MJ and mates. Great talent. Great systems that matches it.

My problem with us running it was that is was to complicated so it was hard to introduce new players to it. If you have the right players running it and the core stays together, then it can be sweet. Keeping the core running the system well allows new plays a solid picture of what they need to do and it gives them time to learn it.

But for us, this offense and EJ as the head coach translated into slowly developing our youth and not forcing players to grow through their weakness. What is did well on one hand - cover up some weaknesses - actually stunted the growth of our young talent on the other.

That is what I see us recovering from now. Tapps had to take off the training wheels so now we are seeing players learn to ride without them. It is yet to be seen with ones will be able to and which won't. DMAC seems to be one that may make it but he still has a long way to go.

I have seen progress in several players. It's just not going to translate directly into wins. Specially when we are playing the best teams in the league.

So the Princeton is good, the triangle is good, the high post is good. They are all good.

And EJ was a good assistant coach to teach the Princeton. He just wasn't a good HC for the group - age - talent - maturity - etc that we had. The shoe just didn't fit well.

Give him a group of smart, mature, vets that are established and I think he would be fine. Say, coach of the Boston team. That would be a better fit for him. But then again, who wouldn't be better coaching a group like that ?

To coach that group you have to either coach a team up that has younger talent to get established as one of the best or just be lucky by being in the right place at the right time.

I'm an Ernie guy. I wasn't against the Eddie firing, and think I understand why Ernie did it when he did.

But hands, that bolded statement is dripping with irony. Were it not for injuries, EJ would have had his team (starters, at least) of smart, talented vets and he would have been "fine." He just kept showing up to gunfights with switchblades.

The D still sucked, though.

[Kanyewest]

And guess what? The defense still sucks!

[pancakes3]

i can't get the video to load.

but on a more basketball related topic, i like the princeton but i don't think it's as effective in the NBA. The weaves and cuts are all good solid basketball moves, but a major aspect of the princeton is the backdoor cut. Your big man is supposed to be on the high post, drawing out the defensive center, leaving the baseline open to cutters. In the NBA, the centers and help defense are so much quicker than those in college, or even in years past that the backdoor cut can't be executed as well. A defender like Dwight Howard can easily recover and make a block, or at least alter the shot. That's why when we see EJ's princeton, we think weave and heave. There have been instances where butler shakes his man and gets a backdoor layup but those are exceptionally rare.

Another aspect of the princeton offense is spreading the floor with shooters. This prevents players from cheating in and narrowing passing lanes. A perimeter full of shooters who can catch and shoot forces the defense to play close to their man and making the passing lanes wide open for cutters. Again, this is better suited for the college game where the players aren't as big or as long. Also, our roster has absolutely 0 credible deep threats, much less a catch-and-shooter.

plus, haywood/etan are less than optimal centers for running the princeton since they're not skilled enough in passing to find the cutter.

It'd be really nice of Haywood does a lot of tennis ball drills and can come back able to catch balls while rolling. A Haywood/Arenas pick and roll would be a great set play to start out possessions with to go along with the AJ/Arenas pick and pop.

[yungal07]

Another reason the PO is less effective in the pros vs. college is that in the NBA you have only 24 seconds to run the offense vs. 35 in college. The PO is based off of patience, development and progressions. In college 35 seconds is a good amount of time to go through at least 3 or maybe even 4 PO progressions. In the NBA, you don't get that many. Maybe 1 or 2. And then after that you have to rely on 1-on-1 plays. It worked for us, because when the offense broke down we had Gilbert, Caron, or Jamison to bail us out. But against great defensive teams, if you don't have a simple low-post game to attract a double team, pretty much any sort of set offense is negated.

[fishercob]

Pancakes and yungal,
You may indeed be right that its not as effective in the NBA as in college. However, per the numbers posted above, the Wiz offense under Eddie was nothing if not effective.

[Wizards2Lottery]

Assistant coach material. That's Eddie Jordan. His ego was too big to allow another coach to run his own defense, which is too bad because this Wizards team would have gone places under him if he could have put more faith in Haywood + a legit defensive coach.

[hands11]

I never had a problem with EJ's offensive system, even though Dat calling it the "weave and heave" was pretty hilarious.

We had and still have a team full of perimeter scorers and little interior offense. The offense EJ implemented suited our strengths and put our best offensive players in the best situations to score and use their talents. It was predicated on isolation sets that yielded few assists but was still effective. Yes, it was a perimeter system and yes, if we weren't "feeling it", it was going to be tough for us to win games, but that's what you get when you lack consistent interior scoring.

I'm with fishercob, it was EJ's defensive scheme (or lack thereof) that was my biggest complaint of his and the man's demise as coach of the Washington Wizards.

I don't have a problem with the offense per day. If you have the right players to run it. If people are saying it is what Boston ran back in the day then ya, that looks pretty sweet. When the systems matches the talent, you have success.


The triangle is what worked for MJ and mates. Great talent. Great systems that matches it.

My problem with us running it was that is was to complicated so it was hard to introduce new players to it. If you have the right players running it and the core stays together, then it can be sweet. Keeping the core running the system well allows new plays a solid picture of what they need to do and it gives them time to learn it.

But for us, this offense and EJ as the head coach translated into slowly developing our youth and not forcing players to grow through their weakness. What is did well on one hand - cover up some weaknesses - actually stunted the growth of our young talent on the other.

That is what I see us recovering from now. Tapps had to take off the training wheels so now we are seeing players learn to ride without them. It is yet to be seen with ones will be able to and which won't. DMAC seems to be one that may make it but he still has a long way to go.

I have seen progress in several players. It's just not going to translate directly into wins. Specially when we are playing the best teams in the league.

So the Princeton is good, the triangle is good, the high post is good. They are all good.

And EJ was a good assistant coach to teach the Princeton. He just wasn't a good HC for the group - age - talent - maturity - etc that we had. The shoe just didn't fit well.

Give him a group of smart, mature, vets that are established and I think he would be fine. Say, coach of the Boston team. That would be a better fit for him. But then again, who wouldn't be better coaching a group like that ?

To coach that group you have to either coach a team up that has younger talent to get established as one of the best or just be lucky by being in the right place at the right time.

I'm an Ernie guy. I wasn't against the Eddie firing, and think I understand why Ernie did it when he did.

But hands, that bolded statement is dripping with irony. Were it not for injuries, EJ would have had his team (starters, at least) of smart, talented vets and he would have been "fine." He just kept showing up to gunfights with switchblades.

The D still sucked, though.

Yeah, he would have had that but not by his doing. Haywood happened in spit of him and I wouldn't call GA mature just yet. So yeah, he would have had a group of starters who could run his system and DSong on the bench.

That way it worked well last year when AD was healthy. He had that kind of group.

A lot of what was bad about EFJ has been well documented. #1 as you mentioned is the D but #1A was how poorly he implemented/grow bigs and younger players.

Maybe part of the problem he had with younger players was that he aways tried to win every game no matter what the situation. i.e. play AJ, CB, GA max minutes to get the win. I think he even over played them early in season so he could win enough to be the all star coach.

He had to prove himself to be valuable by hanging his hat on something. Wins, more pts, whatever. He was always playing for the next contract because he was unproven and he know he wasn't EGs man. I said it before, he had to establish his name as a HC so if it didn't work out here he could get a gig somewhere else.

He had some moments where that was less the case and while he wasn't EGs man he know he was Abe's so he stuck around and did it his way. But he had to know EG was going to get him eventually if he messed up enough. That was were he blow it. I just never got the sense he was doing EGs bidding. I seemed like he was not on the same page by not playing the right players that EG got for him.

Tapps seems to be doing it differently which makes me thing that way even more.

As for EJ, a good example of this would have been the playoffs last year. There was no use in playing the games just to see AJ load up on points. We were way short handed. We weren't going anywhere. Those were playoff games where the best we could have done would have been to get younger players like Blatche playoff experience. Same was even true the year before when we didn't use Blatche or Haywood enough in the playoffs. Haywood was so pissed he wanted out.

As much as I don't like watching us loose this year, this has been a good year for me as a fan of this team. I am way less frustrated with the loses because I believe we have a better coach that is focused on getting this team to play a style that can win in the playoffs and I believe we are going to put in the work this year to make us better down the road.

We are going to see a lot more Blatche, McGee, DMac and Crit this year and they are going to all show valuable improvement both on the floor and in maturity. I left NY out because I'm less sure his light bulb burns more then 40 watts.

[hands11]

i can't get the video to load.

but on a more basketball related topic, i like the princeton but i don't think it's as effective in the NBA. The weaves and cuts are all good solid basketball moves, but a major aspect of the princeton is the backdoor cut. Your big man is supposed to be on the high post, drawing out the defensive center, leaving the baseline open to cutters. In the NBA, the centers and help defense are so much quicker than those in college, or even in years past that the backdoor cut can't be executed as well. A defender like Dwight Howard can easily recover and make a block, or at least alter the shot. That's why when we see EJ's princeton, we think weave and heave. There have been instances where butler shakes his man and gets a backdoor layup but those are exceptionally rare.

Another aspect of the princeton offense is spreading the floor with shooters. This prevents players from cheating in and narrowing passing lanes. A perimeter full of shooters who can catch and shoot forces the defense to play close to their man and making the passing lanes wide open for cutters. Again, this is better suited for the college game where the players aren't as big or as long. Also, our roster has absolutely 0 credible deep threats, much less a catch-and-shooter.

plus, haywood/etan are less than optimal centers for running the princeton since they're not skilled enough in passing to find the cutter.

It'd be really nice of Haywood does a lot of tennis ball drills and can come back able to catch balls while rolling. A Haywood/Arenas pick and roll would be a great set play to start out possessions with to go along with the AJ/Arenas pick and pop.

You nailed it. Good read.

[doclinkin]

Thing that stands out pretty starkly to me from the video is the constant reminder that the offense on one side of the court is supposed to feature the Center, to angle for high % shots. And per the usual screed the squad was slightly handicapped by 5's with suspect hands on the catch and re-pass. Not even mentioning the face-up game & range out past the FT line.

What we saw here with EJ was a hybrid Princeton, tweaked to maximize the strengths of our particular players. When Etan and Haywood (and the KFB) were featured at all, it was when they weren't in traffic, but never as the first option pass. I recall the first few years of EJ's tenure Etan and Haywood (and the KFB) constantly lost balls in traffic, either bouncing it off their hands, or stripped by short defenders on the squat-jump.

Instead EJ modified the offense to suit whatever personnel he had, even when that meant sacrifices had to be made at the other end. Tweeners at all positions on the court, playing the most skilled players he had for as many minutes as they could bear, and then some. And forget the usual definitions of PG, SG, SF, etc that handicap many coaches into playing a highly talented player off the bench instead of finding a role for them on court. The offense occasionally faltered, but in general we scored pretty well per 100 possessions. In some years it was pretty startling that we managed to win and kill giants (even while losing to lesser competition; I'm pretty sure I recall us beating at least one NBA Finals contestant every year) all despite the evident holes in defense. The offense was rarely the problem. Even last year without Gil.

Talent wins in this league. Doc Rivers was the dollar-store EJ until he landed KG. And better believe if we ended up with Garnett ( with Arenas and Caron healthy at the same time) we could have made a run too.

That's the reason why I'm happy to embrace the opportunity to tank, even though it lands us yet another young rookie who will need time to adjust before becoming a reliable rotation player, or starter. New coach, fine, we'll see tweaks and wrinkles that will probably require roster shuffling, and an adjustment period. But, talent, no coach in the league wins the championship without it. We've got a solid foundation, interesting parts, remains to be seen if we have the right mix. I'm happy to take a small step back if it helps us long term.

[Kanyewest]

Assistant coach material. That's Eddie Jordan. His ego was too big to allow another coach to run his own defense, which is too bad because this Wizards team would have gone places under him if he could have put more faith in Haywood + a legit defensive coach.

Or maybe it's possible Randy Ayers ran the defense and he sucked at it. People gave Ayers all the credit when the defense was doing well last season but the blame all fell to EJ when injuries hit (i.e. Daniels and Butler started missing games).

[DCZards]

That is what I see us recovering from now. Tapps had to take off the training wheels so now we are seeing players learn to ride without them. It is yet to be seen with ones will be able to and which won't. DMAC seems to be one that may make it but he still has a long way to go.

Tapps has indeed taken off the training wheels...except for maybe McGee. But his ability/willingness to do that has little to do with his coaching style. It's more the result of injuries (BH&GA) and the Wizards W-L record--and the subsequent low expectations that everyone currently has for the Zards.

In other words, when you're out of the playoff hunt you can experiment more and let young, inexperienced players like McGuire and Critt play through their mistakes.

[fishercob]

More from Wiz Insider (how do I make this a link to the post's blog -- i've seen Miller and doc do this) on EJ's appearance:

Jordan later broke down the Princeton offense. Snow, the former point guard who spent time in Seattle, Philadelphia and Cleveland, sounded like he really admired and respected Jordan. Since Snow has expressed his desire to sit behind the bench, maybe he was angling to join Jordan's next staff, when-and-wherever that may be.

Snow said the Wizards were always difficult to prepare for on offense because players were always moving. He also talked about the deceptive ways Jordan called plays, either by wiping his head or coughing.

"He's got the best signals," Snow said.

Jordan patted himself and said, "Baseball coach."

Snow said Jordan always tried to confuse him with his play calling and he said he never knew what was coming.

"And, all of sudden, it's a hit and run," Johnson said.

[bulletproof_32]

More from Wiz Insider (how do I make this a link to the post's blog -- i've seen Miller and doc do this) on EJ's appearance

To make the "Wiz Insider" text the actual link, you need to enter it like this:

(url=http://blog.washingtonpost.com/wizardsinsider/)Wiz Insider(/url)

You'll just need to replace the parens () with brackets [].

[fishercob]

thanks bp!

Have a great weekend!

[bulletproof_32]

^Looks like you've got the hang of it. And yes, you got me.

By the way, you're welcome.

[fishercob]