#Spacing - Steve Clifford Thread

Post #1821 » by **yosemiteben** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:12 pm

For those curious, our pace this season was ranked 20th in the league, and was just over one possession per game less than the 10th ranked team and three possessions per game more than the 30th ranked team. Offensive efficiency may have been an issue, but not really pace.

Elden Payton · Post #1822 » by **Elden Payton** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:09 pm

@fats

I never said that Malone was an offensive coach, only that he can coach offense.

He'd be a huge upgrade on Clifford imo.

HornetJail · Post #1823 » by **HornetJail** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 11:42 pm

PockyCandy wrote:Well, I've been wondering about Clifford's offense for a while, so I'll ask you guys and see what I get:

1: Does the team actually run plays? All I saw was some PnR and isolations, OKC-esque stuff. we do sometimes, but it's not good. if big al is playing- no. throw it to him and gtfo of the way. cliff's biggest weakness is relying on Al way too much

2: Why does the team play at a snail's pace? It looks like the personnel would flourish under a fast-paced system. al

3: Is Kemba Walker actually any good? This is off-topic, but he plays like Lou Williams (I don't have a very high opinion of Lou.)he'd be great if we ran an offense and had a few floor spacers (or even 2). but instead, the whole offense is crowded, there isn't a lot of ball movement- it sticks with al in the post, or lance, or hendo, and then kemba is forced to take way too many bailout shots because none of that **** works. they are three very talented players, but they don't fit with each other and they sure as hell don't fit with kemba or MKG

4: Would you like D'antoni to be the coach?

could we split D'Antoni and Clifford? Clifford's defense and D'Antoni's offense would be great. It would finally get Rich Cho to sign some shooters too

DY_nasty · Post #1824 » by **DY_nasty** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:19 am

clifford's defense sucks though.

HornetJail · Post #1825 » by **HornetJail** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:27 am

DY_nasty wrote:clifford's defense sucks though.

It's not all bad. We've been top 10 two years running. You can have all the good defensive players you want- it takes a pretty solid defensive scheme to mask Big Al's Runway.

catch20two · Post #1826 » by **catch20two** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:45 am

Looking at the Celtics, Brad Stevens is the answer or someone like him. Should've offered Shaka Smart a job before he went to Texas. There's a new wave of coaches that are more modern to the way basketball is played today and Clifford is old fashioned. I don't hate Cliff Dogg but I'm not that high on him anymore either since he's been exposed with our team having expectations and other teams taking us serious, not to mention MKG's injuries.

DY_nasty · Post #1827 » by **DY_nasty** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:05 am

BizGilwalker wrote:
DY_nasty wrote:clifford's defense sucks though.

It's not all bad. We've been top 10 two years running. You can have all the good defensive players you want- it takes a pretty solid defensive scheme to mask Big Al's Runway.

Without MKG on the court, his defense is really just not that impressive

Elden Payton · Post #1828 » by **Elden Payton** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:15 am

MKG is Clifford's defense, it has been proven time and time again.

He can't even recognise how good Biyombo is on defense.

What a moron.

catch20two · Post #1829 » by **catch20two** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:34 am

Eh Dunlap couldn't make us a top 10 defense with MKG. Gotta give Cliff Dogg some credit. The problem with Cliff is that he doesn't adjust or divert from his gameplan regardless of what's killing us and he's quick to sacrifice alotta defense for a lil offense which make it hard for me to view him as a defensive-minded coach.

Liver_Pooty · Post #1830 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 4:00 am

Spurs fans bitch about Pop, for whatever reason, Thunder fans hate brooks, Heat fans hate Spo, Piston fans are doubting Gundy.

No matter what occurs fans bitch about their coach. We could hire Phil Jackson and we'd be bitching because the triangle would work in this offense like old people screw. Just the way it is

catch20two · Post #1831 » by **catch20two** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 4:05 am

Liver_Pooty wrote:Spurs fans bitch about Pop, for whatever reason, Thunder fans hate brooks, Heat fans hate Spo, Piston fans are doubting Gundy.

No matter what occurs fans bitch about their coach. We could hire Phil Jackson and we'd be bitching because the triangle would work in this offense like old people screw. Just the way it is

Right on bro. Clifford deserve at least another year unless Red Auerbach is resurrected. It's not like Clifford has had a great cast of talent. He's misused a blah roster but that's kinda easy to do when your options are so minimal and you're too old fashioned to trust young players without experience.

Post #1832 » by **yosemiteben** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 4:06 am

Thibs is about to get run out of town, etc.

Liver_Pooty · Post #1833 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 4:31 am

yosemiteben wrote:Thibs is about to get run out of town, etc.

Only because Chicago's management and owner are a bunch of idiots.

He does play his players too many minutes though.

DY_nasty · Post #1834 » by **DY_nasty** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:43 am

catch20two wrote:Eh Dunlap couldn't make us a top 10 defense with MKG. Gotta give Cliff Dogg some credit. The problem with Cliff is that he doesn't adjust or divert from his gameplan regardless of what's killing us and he's quick to sacrifice alotta defense for a lil offense which make it hard for me to view him as a defensive-minded coach.

Dunlap couldnt make us a top 28 defense because that roster was fundamentally broken and literally incapable of playing defense AND securing a rebound at the same time. He knew it when he started camp - and that's the reason why we were running the most aggressive halfcourt and full court traps the NBA has seen in years. Why? Because forcing turnovers and getting hot at the same time was the only way we'd ever be able to win a game and he wasn't wrong at all for it. We never even tried to play real defense for a full half under Dunlap lol.

Our defensive numbers without MKG post-allstar break are comical. Not only that, but playing someone like Maxiel who doesn't have the footspeed to cover the ground necessary in today's NBA over Biyombo and Noah Vonleh is just... well, its unexplainable.

I don't know. I was okay defending Cliff's stuff last year but I've never seen a Charlotte NBA team simply not try. These last dozen games have just been pathetic.

Braggins · Post #1835 » by **Braggins** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 6:32 am

Our roster in Dunlaps year was so horrible. Whenever we talk about Dunlap/Cliff together people act like all we did was add Al and Clifford magically transformed us into a competent team. Corey Higgins, Matt Carroll, Reggie Williams, Gana Diop (sorry Lamar), Tyrus Thomas, Hakim Warrick, Ben Gordon, Jeff Taylor, Jannero Pargo, Byron Mullens (started)... The fact that Dunlap's team basically had the same offensive rating as our team under Clifford despite 3/4 of his roster being complete garbage and the other 1/4 being rookies or sophomores says all that needs to be said about Clifford. Imagine Clifford trying to coach an NBA team with 3/4's of his players being about on Maxiells level...

Liver_Pooty · Post #1836 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 6:44 am

We're still talking about the head coach for Loyola Marymount?

Cool

Braggins · Post #1837 » by **Braggins** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:43 am

Liver_Pooty wrote:We're still talking about the head coach for Loyola Marymount?

Cool

You know your team has hit rock bottom when Dunlap can still get a couple pages of discussion on their real gm forum lol.

Elden Payton · Post #1838 » by **Elden Payton** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 7:55 am

Good or bad, Dunlap most definitely left a lasting impression.

Braggins · Post #1839 » by **Braggins** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:58 pm

For what its worth, The Kings pace under Malone last season was 96.7 according to Hollinger's stats. Ours was 94.7. Sacramento's pace was 97.8 this season compared to 95.5 for us, although half of the season was under Karl so this season's pace might not be a good comparison.

Post #1840 » by **yosemiteben** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 3:13 pm

DY_nasty wrote:
BizGilwalker wrote:
DY_nasty wrote:clifford's defense sucks though.

It's not all bad. We've been top 10 two years running. You can have all the good defensive players you want- it takes a pretty solid defensive scheme to mask Big Al's Runway.

Without MKG on the court, his defense is really just not that impressive

Let's consider context. Without MKG in November we got to have Kemba playing the worst D of his career, Al being a worse version of himself, Lance only pretending to care about playing defense, and Marvin doing ok in ISO situations but not being a real help defender.

Without MKG in the spring we got to have Kemba still playing the worst D of his career, Mo playing even worse D than Kemba, Cody hurt, and Al basically playing on one leg.

I can't get all that upset with Cliff for not maintaining an elite defense in those situations.