Brooks offense is all ISO , huh

[Thunderhead]

Been running Horns for years , this was from the 2011 playoffs, they ran the same set consecutive plays to finish off the Grizz . They used every option off the side PnR ...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_YalLrtfsw[/youtube]


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw1R6w-NFnQ[/youtube]


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl9f9IdkEAE[/youtube]


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Sa7nHN4sQ[/youtube]


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDFo1RIilE4[/youtube]

[bbms]

Am I mistaken or did you just cherry pick some great off the ball movements from Durant on one of his best playoff performances to this date? Take for comparison what the Thunder used to do when Harden and Collison were doing in OKC or Westbrook's performance when Krstic and Green were our starting bigs. Great offense set up was never something consistent about our starting line up after the Perkins trade.

Now it's coming back, and something tells me it's more about the improvement overall in offensive awareness of the roster than some coaching chops by Brooks.

[Thunderhead]

Am I mistaken or did you just cherry pick some great off the ball movements from Durant on one of his best playoff performances to this date? Take for comparison what the Thunder used to do when Harden and Collison were doing in OKC or Westbrook's performance when Krstic and Green were our starting bigs. Great offense set up was never something consistent about our starting line up after the Perkins trade.

Now it's coming back, and something tells me it's more about the improvement overall in offensive awareness of the roster than some coaching chops by Brooks.

Nope, there's no cherry picking there, if you listen JVG, he says that's one of the Thunder's fav plays, its called Horns. And its one of many varieties of options from Horns.

The Harden/Nick play you are thinking of, is called Corner 2 . Its a common set, you can search for it on YouTube and find various variations. Since Harden left, they've still run the play with KMartin , even with KD, here it is


[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuu3IE4jhI8[/youtube]

[Thunderhead]

On Corner 2, what normally happens on that play, is KMartin ( in this case , it was Harden before him ) sets up in the corner, then comes back to take a dribble handoff from Nick. He then uses Nick as a screen to get an open 3P, or to drive the hoop.

Defenses begin anticipating the play, and the back door cut becomes available, as it did in the above vid.

[bondom34]

Or are we just forgetting the entire time Russ and KD were out and ran a beautiful offense, albeit with terrible players?

[Thunderhead]

Horns is probably one of the more common sets , here's a vid

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt3C_NB5n70[/youtube]

[bbms]

Or are we just forgetting the entire time Russ and KD were out and ran a beautiful offense, albeit with terrible players?

Which sometimes happened. But never could be used to label the Thunder. That'd be just forgetting the routinely bad late game executions by the Thunder, whe we usually had our best on court but couldn't get crafty there. Just flat out show off of talent.

The problem here has been ever about consistency on build ups and unbalanced rotations.

Didn't know Horns was the name but I definitely remember Harden scoring some base line layups on similar set ups. The issue is not the lack of ability to go that way. The issue is consistency. We have and had the potential to play great ball movement, but sometimes wasn't the case. And we always played better with ball movement. I remember 2012 series against the Spurs and they had twice the number of average passes per possession in the first two games of the series. Thunder got even in passing, back door swept.

Things like these are the basics the Thunder missed.

[bondom34]

Ever think its mostly iso bc it works?

[bbms]

Ever think its mostly iso bc it works?

Giving Perkins the ball in the low post also works. Is it the most efficient way to get the score?

[bondom34]

Ever think its mostly iso bc it works?

Giving Perkins the ball in the low post also works. Is it the most efficient way to get the score?

No, but they've had an efficient offense. Giving it to KD is efficient.

[Thunderhead]

Ever think its mostly iso bc it works?

Giving Perkins the ball in the low post also works. Is it the most efficient way to get the score?

Come on man, that was rare and by accident.

They used Perk other ways on offense, to keep him from being a liability.

Fact is, they've been a top 5 offensive team by ORtg, almost every year. That could easily have been screwed up by a coach trying to install a system.

And while they've done that offensively, they've also been elite defensively, in DRtg.

Your splittin hairs, or more of a case of , " coach doesn't do things as I woud do them, so coach is wrong " . That's the real issue.

[spearsy23]

The difference has always been that the Thunder offense is centered around getting three main players in advantageous positions, but it has often marginalized already limited players. Because two players often are out of the play and not moving it leaves an easy overload for the defense. The offense isn't as bad as we often make it out to be, but we create a lot of early offense that helps our o-rating. We were often putting KD and Russ in isolation instead of letting them move towards the basket or away from the defense, which isn't necessarily bad but needs to balance. Lately we've had more hand-offs and curls that help move the defense and create space for Russ AND cutters.

[spearsy23]

Also, this isn't an indictment of Brooks. In order to have a good free flowing offense You need creative offensive sets, but you REALLY need good offensive players.

[Thunderhead]

And as to Brooks last second play calls, go through these buzzer beaters, and find where any other coach, is doing anything a lot differently than getting the ball to your best shooter who is also best at creating his own shot ........... cause that's about all ya gonna get in late game situations.

A designed play to get an uncontested shot at the end of games, is very very rare. And if you get an uncontested shot, its almost always due to a defensive error.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJEm4VweBzU[/youtube]

[Thunderhead]

The difference has always been that the Thunder offense is centered around getting three main players in advantageous positions, but it has often marginalized already limited players. Because two players often are out of the play and not moving it leaves an easy overload for the defense. The offense isn't as bad as we often make it out to be, but we create a lot of early offense that helps our o-rating. We were often putting KD and Russ in isolation instead of letting them move towards the basket or away from the defense, which isn't necessarily bad but needs to balance. Lately we've had more hand-offs and curls that help move the defense and create space for Russ AND cutters.

They prefer to play offense in transition, by design. Brooks keeps saying, they're a defensive team first , and then they want to run off TO's and stops. That's why they want KD and Russ to rebound, so they can instantly start the break.

[spearsy23]

And as to Brooks last second play calls, go through these buzzer beaters, and find where any other coach, is doing anything a lot differently than getting the ball to your best shooter who is also best at creating his own shot ........... cause that's about all ya gonna get in late game situations.

A designed play to get an uncontested shot at the end of games, is very very rare. And if you get an uncontested shot, its almost always due to a defensive error.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJEm4VweBzU[/youtube]

That video is way too long to go through play by play, but that first one was actually a really well designed play. Starting with Wall inbounding, multiple options to get the ball in, once it's in a handoff then Nene setting a pick where Beal has the option to curl, backdoor or (his choice) get to the three point line. Nene's man should be hedging the screen which leaves the full middle of the court open as Wall breaks his man down (no help? Wall can go by anyone), now Beal's man is scrambling to get back into position so he can't even see the play, Nene's man is dragged out of the play and has to overcommit to blocking the layup attempt leaving a wide open space for Nene when he rolls. I thought that was beautifully designed.

And I think you're confusing what people actually complain about, it's not game winning possessions but half court offense in the last few minutes. Realistically how good it is just depends on how well KD is shooting. I don't have a problem with isoing in the half court as long as there is player movement off the ball.

[spearsy23]

The difference has always been that the Thunder offense is centered around getting three main players in advantageous positions, but it has often marginalized already limited players. Because two players often are out of the play and not moving it leaves an easy overload for the defense. The offense isn't as bad as we often make it out to be, but we create a lot of early offense that helps our o-rating. We were often putting KD and Russ in isolation instead of letting them move towards the basket or away from the defense, which isn't necessarily bad but needs to balance. Lately we've had more hand-offs and curls that help move the defense and create space for Russ AND cutters.

They prefer to play offense in transition, by design. Brooks keeps saying, they're a defensive team first , and then they want to run off TO's and stops. That's why they want KD and Russ to rebound, so they can instantly start the break.

Absolutely, I just tried explaining that to the Jazz fan in the game thread last night.

[Thunderhead]

And as to Brooks last second play calls, go through these buzzer beaters, and find where any other coach, is doing anything a lot differently than getting the ball to your best shooter who is also best at creating his own shot ........... cause that's about all ya gonna get in late game situations.

A designed play to get an uncontested shot at the end of games, is very very rare. And if you get an uncontested shot, its almost always due to a defensive error.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJEm4VweBzU[/youtube]

That video is way too long to go through play by play, but that first one was actually a really well designed play. Starting with Wall inbounding, multiple options to get the ball in, once it's in a handoff then Nene setting a pick where Beal has the option to curl, backdoor or (his choice) get to the three point line. Nene's man should be hedging the screen which leaves the full middle of the court open as Wall breaks his man down (no help? Wall can go by anyone), now Beal's man is scrambling to get back into position so he can't even see the play, Nene's man is dragged out of the play and has to overcommit to blocking the layup attempt leaving a wide open space for Nene when he rolls. I thought that was beautifully designed.

And I think you're confusing what people actually complain about, it's not game winning possessions but half court offense in the last few minutes. Realistically how good it is just depends on how well KD is shooting. I don't have a problem with isoing in the half court as long as there is player movement off the ball.

yes, that first one is a nice play, though , there was only 0.6 seconds left when they scored, any disruption and they don't get the shot off, there's too many moving parts. The rest are not that pretty.

As to offense in the final minute, who does play great offense then ? Defense intensity is ramped way up, nerves are ratcheted, I don't see a lot of great execution in the final minutes from just about anybody. It gets really hard to score, for everybody.

[bbms]

Ever think its mostly iso bc it works?

Giving Perkins the ball in the low post also works. Is it the most efficient way to get the score?

Come on man, that was rare and by accident.

They used Perk other ways on offense, to keep him from being a liability.

Fact is, they've been a top 5 offensive team by ORtg, almost every year. That could easily have been screwed up by a coach trying to install a system.

And while they've done that offensively, they've also been elite defensively, in DRtg.

Your splittin hairs, or more of a case of , " coach doesn't do things as I woud do them, so coach is wrong " . That's the real issue.

That was just illustration, but the hat fitted. Well, the thing is not about thinking differently. The thing is that Brooks never cared about offense. His philosophy has always been "let the guys figure out". Thunder don't do isos because it works, it does because Brooks has no interesting in messing with Westbrook and Durant. And that is a huge mistake. Thunder always finds it difficult to give Durant the ball on PO Series against physical defenses. This allowed Durant to be nullified by 58 year-old Kidd. To struggle agains the Grizzlies. To piss us all off because of stagnant offense or lack of ball movement.

He prefers to lecture on the importance of a rebound instead. This is why he's a players' coach. Because he's easy to get. Easy to play by. Embrace Brooks. Don't embrace Brooks. Up to you. But this is just dumb not to consider this a legitimate criticism.

[bondom34]

How do you know, do you attend practice?

BTW the o rating is at 108.7 which would be 6 or 7 in the league since either of Russ or kd have been healthy. The d is top ten too. Terrible coach needs to change things fast.