Mo Cheeks is eyeing a high tempo Pistons Squad?

[E-Z]

Detroit's new coach might be out to make me eat some crow this coming season. In an interview with George Blaha, coach Cheeks briefly touches on a few points he wishes to see with the team and Brandon Knight specifically.

I've pegged him as a HC who has a philosophy similar to the slow grind days of championship past (2004) through today. However, his days in OKC may have given him a new outlook? In the interview, Cheeks emphasizes a higher tempo game with tough defense, along with instilling that BK needs to know when to push the ball or to run a set.

I'm not so sure on him suggesting that Drummond will become an immediate threat in the post. I'd just be happy with him making free throws at a 50%+ clip to say the least. Also, the coaching staff will have their hands full with the poor spacing that most fans see on paper. The Pistons added a few shooters, but the verdict is out as to if they can play defense with this group.

[MrBigShot]

I'm cool with trying to force turnovers/turn defense into offense and getting out on the break, but I do hope he also focuses on establishing a legitimate half court offense. The showtime Lakers loved to get out in transition, but when there was nothing there...they slowed it down, got the ball to Kareem in the post and got the heck out of the way. Gotta be able to score in the half court to win in the playoffs...just ask the Clippers.

[Q00]

He touched on this in one of his interviews post-press conference. In addition to OKC, his Philly teams also were fastbreak teams, weren't they? That's one of the reasons I'm not concerned about the "spacing" everyone complains about. That may or not be true in the halfcourt, but there's no rule that says we have to only play halfcourt ball the whole game. I always saw us as being an athletic up and down team with athletes like Smith and Drummond, and Monroe is great at running in the open court too. Its his lateral athleticism that's the issue, but in a straight away sprint he can get out and run as well as any big.

Combined with our upgraded defense, we should be able to force a lot of turnovers and get a lot of our points in transition. Then unlike OKC, we will also have the bigs to pound it inside in the halfcourt when the game slows down. Plus we do have shooters as well with Chauncey, Knight, KCP, Datome, CV, Middleton, Singler, etc. So I'm not concerned in the least bit about our offense. There's a lot of different ways to score other than just shooting. There's pick and roll, transition, post ups, drawing fouls, put-backs, penetration etc.

[imagump1313]

George called Brandon Knight a great guard and a great point guard........ classic George.

[Phenomenonsense]

Lol if you go by blaha this Pistons roster easily should've won the ship last year.

[WillTheThrill12]

What I worry about in an uptempo game is will it be beneficial for Drummond in the long run? Will his fitness/conditioning be up to par long term for it even if he gets 25 mpg? Lots of times last season he looked winded in transition fastbreaks. I guess Kander and Abdenour will work with him on it but still you gotta wonder about that and how we'll address it.

[Q00]

What I worry about in an uptempo game is will it be beneficial for Drummond in the long run? Will his fitness/conditioning be up to par long term for it even if he gets 25 mpg? Lots of times last season he looked winded in transition fastbreaks. I guess Kander and Abdenour will work with him on it but still you gotta wonder about that and how we'll address it.

Dre won't have to run every fastbreak. Often times its just a matter of having your big man get the defensive rebound and throw an outlet pass to the guards. Drummond will be awesome at that because he's a monster on the boards and is a great passer. Monroe too in the same regard, but having both be able to run with the guards at times as well will just make us that much more dangerous.

[joeposh]

This is why I was happy the Pistons went with him over McMillian. Mo's squads are known for playing an uptempo style of basketball that the players really enjoy, as opposed to the grinding ISO system that Nate runs. We have the youth and athleticism to run many other teams off the court, and if we can develop a top tier transition game, it will help make up for our lack of dead eye shooters.

I also think the fantastic hands and passing abilities of our bigs will play a huge role in making this work. Josh, Drummond and Moose are fantastic passers for their position, and Drummond has the hands/reach to poke out or deflect the ball with ease. The ability to find openings off the rebound or steals could pay great dividends.

If our defense can be as suffocating as advertised, we'll get plenty of those opportunities.

[Han Solo]

We are built for High-Tempo. Attack, attack, and keep attacking.

[zeebneeb]

With our previous team, that was a playoff/title team, they were BUILT to grind you into powder in the half-court set. They had shooters, plain and simple. This team right now is a running team, filled with athletes of the highest order.

Add some more shooting, and we could play both ways, wich is deadly.

RUN RUN RUN for right now though. The fewer half-court sets the better.

[need4detroit]

Well, at least we will be fun to watch.

[King Bugs]

He touched on this in one of his interviews post-press conference. In addition to OKC, his Philly teams also were fastbreak teams, weren't they?

We actually faced Mo's 76ers back in the playoffs back in 2008. They were a fastbreak team not in a traditional sense, but they relied heavily on causing turnovers and creating havoc on defense by sagging in passing lanes and getting steals. They overwhelmed us a bit with their athleticism and made us turn the ball over at an uncharacteristically high rate. They even had us down 2-1 in that series.

Then we settled down, stopped turning it over, trapped Philly into a halfcourt game that they weren't comfortable with, and then easily destroyed them in 3 straight games to put an end to that series.

I guess the point of me bringing that up is yeah, being a more uptempo team that tries to overwhelm teams with our athleticism is a great use of our talent. We may even steal a game or 2 in a playoff series (assuming we make the playoffs), but without a reliable halfcourt system we won't be a realistic threat to any top seed in the East. We'll worry about that later though.

[Brapman]

We are built for High-Tempo. Attack, attack, and keep attacking.

Even our deep bench guys are built for high-tempo. Bynum, Stuckey, KCP, Singler, Mitchell, JJ -- we are an extremely athletic team, and all of those guys will run the court like crazy.

[joeposh]

That's right, this isn't what will lead us to a championship -- but it will help us win now, and make a splash in the league. That'll help bring in the extra pieces we need to also grind it out and punish people from the perimeter when need be.

The one thing I worry about is Dre's conditioning. I hope they have him doing cardio like crazy this summer to prep for this style of play, because he was clearly getting gassed in summer league.

[Q00]

He touched on this in one of his interviews post-press conference. In addition to OKC, his Philly teams also were fastbreak teams, weren't they?

We actually faced Mo's 76ers back in the playoffs back in 2008. They were a fastbreak team not in a traditional sense, but they relied heavily on causing turnovers and creating havoc on defense by sagging in passing lanes and getting steals. They overwhelmed us a bit with their athleticism and made us turn the ball over at an uncharacteristically high rate. They even had us down 2-1 in that series.

Then we settled down, stopped turning it over, trapped Philly into a halfcourt game that they weren't comfortable with, and then easily destroyed them in 3 straight games to put an end to that series.

I guess the point of me bringing that up is yeah, being a more uptempo team that tries to overwhelm teams with our athleticism is a great use of our talent. We may even steal a game or 2 in a playoff series (assuming we make the playoffs), but without a reliable halfcourt system we won't be a realistic threat to any top seed in the East. We'll worry about that later though.

yep, that series was what came to mind when I thought they were a fastbreak team. I agree with everything you said, except the last part, because the reason we were able to beat them in a halfcourt game was we had the bigs (Sheed/Dice) and they didn't. This Pistons team will never have the issues of those 76er teams, because we will be the team with the advantage up front most nights. Teams are going to try to get us in an up/down game, so they don't have to deal with our bigs in the halfcourt. So I don't see that as a problem for us now or later. I actually see it as one of our advantages. We will be able to run, but I feel like the halfcourt game is always going to be our strength, and why we will have a legit chance at beating the top seeds.

[DetroitPistons]

I loved everything he said. It sounds like he knows our personnel and what our strengths are. We have some very elite defenders and guys like Smith/Dre/Monroe/KCP love to hedge on P&Rs and play the passing lanes. We could be near the top in TOs caused. The thing that really made me happy though was his emphasis on the bigs. If we can slow it down and run the halfcourt offense through Moose we could be pretty decent in the halfcourt, especially consider how good of passers our big men are. It also sounds like Knight is our PG unless Billups usurps him. I'm not worried at all about our transition game but if Cheeks can establish a quality halfcourt offense too then I will be ecstatic. I can't wait for the season to start.

[joeposh]

I'd also guess this was filmed before Free Agency, since there is no mention of Billups or Smith.

[sc8581]

With our previous team, that was a playoff/title team, they were BUILT to grind you into powder in the half-court set. They had shooters, plain and simple. This team right now is a running team, filled with athletes of the highest order.

Add some more shooting, and we could play both ways, wich is deadly.

RUN RUN RUN for right now though. The fewer half-court sets the better.

Agreed, but if our bigs are running shouldn't we add some depth up front for fatigue purposes as well as silly fouls that happen when teams play the lanes on defense?

I'm going to get bashed for this but if we start CV instead of Monroe I think it helps our offense whether we're running or slowing the pace and if the coach wants our guys to be reaching for balls on defense that might actually encourage CV to do more than stand around on that end. He brings a different skill-set that would certainly help spread the offense while let's be honest, is he really much worse than Monroe on D? This would also enable us to bring in Moose without missing a beat in the paint, it's the same reason guys like Ginobili have typically come off the bench, their skill-set doesn't complement or usually clashes with the starters when they need the ball to be effective. I'm not suggesting Monroe getting less minutes or anything, he would likely still play 18-20 at center and 12-16 at PF keeping him between 30-35 per game. Our frontcourt depth improves greatly without hurting and probably even helping our starting unit and how much better will guys like Stuckey, KCP and Datome be off the bench with a guy like Monroe to draw attention away from them?

Drummond/Monroe/Kravtsov
Villanueva/Monroe/Jerebko/Mitchell
Smith/Datome/Middleton/Singler
Knight/KCP/Stuckey
Billups/Knight/Bynum

Let the bashing begin....

[HotelVitale]

It's not a real strategy to just 'play fast' or 'get out and run.' Every team tries to score in transition as much as possible, it's obviously the place you get the best and highest quality looks. My grammar school b ball coach taught us that.

If you try to play up tempo, it means you're sacrificing some things in order to increase overall game speed. You can try to leak on defense (giving up more rebounds and allowing second chance points), pressure and gamble more for steals (giving up clean lanes to the basket), and try to attack while spreading the floor in the hopes of getting up a good jumper before the defense is set (the old PHX model, which requires you have at least 3 really good shooters). I'm guessing most of you see these ideas don't play well to our strengths.

If you're not doing this stuff, then playing fast in effect just looks like forcing shots early in the clock out forcing drives when you don't have a lane. We need to give Smith every chance to run the break and finish, but do you guys really want us to be leaking on defense and sacrificing orebs to give Smith 2-3 more chances in transition per game?

[Q00]

^Our rebounding will be fine. We will have practically three 10 rebounds per game players on the court together. We can afford to let one of them gamble and still take care of the boards. Though I think we will be just as effective in the halfcourt as in transistion and won't need to run all the time. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to go back and watch film of the 80s when teams had huge frontlines and rarely ever shot 3s. With a frontline as imposing as we have, the last thing we will be worried about is how to score in the halfcourt. Those are problem that jumpshooting teams with no post presence have to worry about, not teams with 3 great bigs on the court together. Its like a great running team in football. Most of the top running teams have weak passing games, and the defense knows they are running and puts everyone in the box, yet they still can't stop them from pounding it up the middle for 5 yards every time. We might have a weak perimeter game, and teams may know we're going inside everytime, but ultimately talent/size wins out, and if we have more talent and size inside than they do, we are going to own the paint regardless. Though I think our perimeter game is going be really good too with Billups/Knight/KCP in the backcourt.

We really have a complete team, its just experience that's going to hold us back I think. Our talent is up there with any non-Miami team though, in my opinion.