ace3g
04-19-2012, 05:52 PM
Before Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra went back to the drawing board after his team’s collapse in the 2011 N.B.A. finals, he first turned to Oregon’s football coach, Chip Kelly. In Kelly’s spread offense Spoelstra saw some of what he desired in his own team: a concrete use of elite athleticism, incredible speed in both personnel and approach, and a firm understanding of how to use the field of play as a tool of legitimate advantage.
Spoelstra emerged from his meetings with Kelly with a clearer idea of where his team could go and a particular buzz phrase that encapsulated his new systemic standards (via Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com): pace and space.
Those were the two crucial tenets of Kelly’s spread offense, and thus they would therefore double as the underlying principles of Spoelstra’s new offense.
But while Spoelstra may be the chief N.B.A. proponent of the “pace and space” terminology, those two concepts have long catalyzed the change in philosophy in San Antonio. Gregg Popovich had a proven system that had worked for a decade, but when faced with his stars’ decline in athleticism, he oddly turned to pace and space for entirely different reasons. For Popovich and the Spurs, pace and space weren’t mechanisms to best use their physical advantages; they were the most sensible way to mitigate the very natural decline of a basketball institution inching further and further away from his prime.
Tim Duncan is still a star, but he is not the Tim Duncan of old. He works from the block as a reliable force, but not a dominant one. He rebounds consistently, but needs ample help. He still bears every bit of defensive knowledge he has accumulated, but has lost the ability to shade every stage of a pick-and-roll without surrendering a sliver of advantage to the offense. He is productive and capable, but Popovich was among the first to realize that what Duncan needed most was pace and space.
But what Duncan needed, in a more literal sense, was Tony Parker.
Parker has long been a big part of the Spurs’ plans, but in the last few seasons his role and importance have changed drastically. No longer is San Antonio’s offense the tri-dependent attack that leaned almost equally on the talents of Duncan, Parker and Manu Ginobili; the new-look Spurs are almost shockingly reliant on Parker’s skills, as he remains San Antonio’s primary conduit to both pace and space.
http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/the-recipe-in-san-antonio-pace-and-space-and-parker/#
Spoelstra emerged from his meetings with Kelly with a clearer idea of where his team could go and a particular buzz phrase that encapsulated his new systemic standards (via Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com): pace and space.
Those were the two crucial tenets of Kelly’s spread offense, and thus they would therefore double as the underlying principles of Spoelstra’s new offense.
But while Spoelstra may be the chief N.B.A. proponent of the “pace and space” terminology, those two concepts have long catalyzed the change in philosophy in San Antonio. Gregg Popovich had a proven system that had worked for a decade, but when faced with his stars’ decline in athleticism, he oddly turned to pace and space for entirely different reasons. For Popovich and the Spurs, pace and space weren’t mechanisms to best use their physical advantages; they were the most sensible way to mitigate the very natural decline of a basketball institution inching further and further away from his prime.
Tim Duncan is still a star, but he is not the Tim Duncan of old. He works from the block as a reliable force, but not a dominant one. He rebounds consistently, but needs ample help. He still bears every bit of defensive knowledge he has accumulated, but has lost the ability to shade every stage of a pick-and-roll without surrendering a sliver of advantage to the offense. He is productive and capable, but Popovich was among the first to realize that what Duncan needed most was pace and space.
But what Duncan needed, in a more literal sense, was Tony Parker.
Parker has long been a big part of the Spurs’ plans, but in the last few seasons his role and importance have changed drastically. No longer is San Antonio’s offense the tri-dependent attack that leaned almost equally on the talents of Duncan, Parker and Manu Ginobili; the new-look Spurs are almost shockingly reliant on Parker’s skills, as he remains San Antonio’s primary conduit to both pace and space.
http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/the-recipe-in-san-antonio-pace-and-space-and-parker/#