This interview with Lionel Hollins is probably one of the most entertaining interview to NBA coaches I've ever read.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...-/?partner=RSS
It touches plenty of interesting topics and his candor is quite refreshing. Anyway, I've noticed Popovich is often criticized in this forum for having an excessive and misguided attraction for small-ball lineups. It doesn't surprise me, because Boston fans have ed for years about their coaches liking small-ball to much. And pretty much every fanbase rants endlessly about their coaches liking small-ball too much.
One of the exceptions is the Memphis fanbase. Due to some puzzling personnel decisions, they have a handful of true bigs in their roster: Randolph, Gasol, Haddadi and top-2 pick Thabeet. Darrell Arthur would have been their 3rd big if not for injuries and even though I think he should be a perimeter player, more precisely a specialist in wing defense, he's the size and game of a PF. The only thing close to small-ball they played was DeMarre Carroll seeing 200 minutes at the 4.
So, it was interesting to read this part of the interview where Hollins mention their needs for the next season. He even cites the Spurs.
This relates to an old conundrum in basketball coach: to match up or not to match up? There's a school of thought that firmly believes you "dictacte" the terms of the game, "you do what you do", and don't mind about the opponent personnel and style of play - if there's mismatches you try to take advantage of those in your favour and you keep doing what you believe it's correct.GC: Do you have any minutes at the 5?
LH: See, that’s the other thing that hurts Hasheem. We play in the West. As soon as the game starts, everybody goes small. We’ve tried at different times and stayed with it and it’s been effective for us, but you can’t count on it every night. You play Portland, they take everybody out of the game and they play with Juwan Howard at 5 and Brandon Roy at 4, and they’ve got Andre Miller and (Martell) Webster and back then they had (Steve) Blake. And they’re playing all these guys in the game. You can’t play the way you want. The San Antonio Spurs found that up with the Suns these last two weeks. You can try all you want. They kept trying and those guys just kept torching them. Whoever they put (Tim) Duncan on, that was on the perimeter, he scored.
GC: You can say all you want about “dictating the game” but when they’re dictating threes in your face it’s no fun?
LH: It’s not fun at all. You play New Orleans, they play David West at 5. Houston. All these teams. So it really restricts the amount of time you can play Hasheem. Even when Marc is playing, to keep Marc and Zach on the court at the same time is difficult. Marc made tremendous improvements in being able to go out and play some of the 4s. He even guarded Nowitzki, which allowed us to play him and Zach together. But if you can’t guard that guy, you can’t play those guys together.
Another one is more flexible with line-ups, subs utions, game management and playing style and proposes finding solutions for the problems the opponent creates. The negative part is that you may lose some iden y as a team and you can end up finding solutions for problems that may not exist (I guess that's what most fans criticizing their coach for going small will say they criticise them for but I think that's baloney).
IMO, and even though at lower levels there's no foolproof formula, the strategy of matching up is the only good one at the NBA level - Hollins words indicate he agrees. There's just too many players/rosters with enough quality/versatility to create mismatches you can't solve by not making counter-moves at a lineup level. In particular when it comes to small-ball, sometimes you just need speed out there that you bigger guys can't offer. Sometimes you really need to space the floor with shooters and there aren't a lot of 7 footers who can shoot. And the "let's wait and keep doing what we're doing and everything will be fine in the end" approach doesn't work all the time not only because the mismatches arent' always symmetric but also because sometimes the execution just isn't there and games end after 48 minutes. You can't just say "yeah, they're going on a 30-0 run but it's just the start of the 4th and we just have to keep pounding the ball inside, deal with their fronting in a smarter way, stay calm making the entry pass, oh and rebounds will start falling our way". Obviously, if you have those great equalizers like, say, Odom, who can defend perimeter 4s, even in transition, while allowing you to stay big and are still able to stretch the floor, that's great, but players of that type aren't easily available every Summer.
As an external observer, my opinion is that the Spurs priority this off-season in terms of personnel should be acquiring some guy who can allow them to match-up with small-ball line-ups better than they did in the last few seasons. To me that was also the Spurs' roster biggest flaw this season. Bonner is a nice stretch 4, but he lacks the defensive intensity+rebounding+reliability to play an important role in the playoff rotation of a contender. This guy should be good enough to be a 3rd big and play 30mpg when needed (a player who can stay on the floor even when his scoring contribution isn't there), not good enough to be a good 5th big. Every season the league is becoming quicker - the game relies more on speed, fastness and spacing and less on size. And I think this trend will persist in the forseeable future, meaning that even in the near future a small-ball lineup solution will be at least as necessary as the typical "a legit 7 footer" in any respectable roster. Even more. Can Splitter be that guy? I'm not sure. He may be, he's very quick footed for his size, but can he stick with true small-ball 4s, guys like Granger or G Wallace? Doubt it. Even if you believe so, Splitter isn't someone who's able to stretch the floor - he's a subpar/streaky shooter from the 12ft area. Maybe the Spurs can go for a "by commission" approach, slotting Jefferson to play the 4 in some cases, Splitter in others. I think that's a flawed solution.
So, in my opinion, the Spurs need to add more versatility to their big man rotation besides Splitter - that's the only way Popovich will stop being criticized for going small too often.
very interesting...
you would think that in the long run---that going small and shooting from outside---would eventually fail---due to the percentages...but who knows?
maybe , in the future-you would see teams going to a full-time zone---to be able to at least block off the areas for rebounding---and to prevent penetration---
but somehow---teams frown on zone d's---but it seems to at least counter the small ball approach...imo
The problem I had with Spurs' small ball wasn't necessarily the act of going small, but it was due to the horrible personnel the Spurs had when it comes to small ball..I ran the numbers and posted them here a few months ago(through February IIRC), and the Spurs were outscored during small ball by a massive margin, only having a positive net +/- a few times during small ball stints..
I can't really think of anybody the Spurs could realistically acquire that would fill the role, at least off the top of the dome..
I definitely believe that part of the reason Jefferson was acquired was so that he could occasionally play the small-ball PF, but obviously it didn't work out for a number of reasons, and he clearly didn't feel comfortable at PF(even complaining about it in the media)..
The team with over the top talent dictates the matchups. That's what San Antonio did back in the day when Tim was still in his prime and what teams like the Lakers do today.
If the talent gap is small then teams will try to play to their strengths, including small-ball.
Like Harlem said, the biggest problem for the Spurs and going small is that the personnel was subpar to play that way. When the season started we had Finley and RJ as possible small-ball PF.
When a team goes small and you don't match up, the other team has a quickness edge at the PF spot while you have a size edge at that spot. The key is what team draws the more of its edge.
It's as simple as that. Spurs bigmen have never been able to win that "edge" battle. They were slow and didn't have the offensive game to create a huge mismatch in their favor.
IMO, Splitter will greatly help Spurs against small ball teams. He won't be killed by most of the small ball PF thanks to his quickness and good defensive awareness on the perimeter. On the other end of the court, he could do serious damage against a small player thanks to his low post game.
This +1
In the past Duncan could make the Suns pay getting the ball on the block and scoring at will.
Unfortunately that wasn't the case this year.
I think both of these are true. The problem is, I think there are also far more high-impact "small" players than there are skilled bigs. So for the vast majority of teams, staying big creates less of an edge in your advantage than going small does for your opponent... because the small player is relatively more talented than the big player.
I mean, consider if the Spurs were playing against themselves. The advantages posed by a Parker/Hill/Ginobili/Jefferson/Duncan lineup would far outstrip the disadvantages against a Parker/Ginobili/Jefferson/Bonner (or Blair)/Duncan lineup.
suns won because they made us a jumpshooting team. blitzing duncan on the post every single play and blitzing manu on the screen and rolls making our role players beat them. our role players outside of maybe dice were terrible. and not having any shooters cost us.
One of the problems with San Antonio's small ball is that even their regular players are either average or below average in size. If a good, versatile guy played the 4 position at 6'7" or 6'8" while surrounded by other players with size, I could see it-- but instead there's often an average sized Parker at PG, an undersized Hill at the 2, an average sized Jefferson at the 3, and an undersized Blair at the 5. It's one thing if you have a height disadvantage at one spot, but it's hard to overcome that disadvantage when it extends to three or four spots. By comparison, if the Lakers decided to experiment with an odd small ball line up of Odom at C, Artest at PF, and Kobe at SF, that group would be almost equal in size to the Spurs when they played their "bigger" line ups. Really, Duncan is the only player with significant minutes that has exceptional size and length for his position on the entire team.
..this makes sense---but you/we are forgetting one thing----
personnel aside--it is the COACH who decides whether to go small---or to stay big and punish the small team---so to speak---
and I am not sure I ever saw Pop try and make the small team pay---maybe because of lack of personnel---but
and this has been beaten to death---but that is why it seems bizarre that our bigs or potential bigs were not properly developed and/or used enough...
Don't forget the Spurs also go small to rest their old veterans (Duncan, McDyess). The best bigs the Spurs have can't play heavy minutes during the regular season which really hurts in the crazy regular season schedule especially against rested/young and athletic ballclubs. Spurs depth is also undersized and not the most athletic with Blair, Bonner, Mason Jr. and Hill. Spurs almost have to play small ball given their personnel.
Spurs have been lacking mobile bigs thats for sure though. Hopefully Tiago will be athletic enough to compete against the NBA tweeners.
Last edited by Cane; 05-19-2010 at 12:44 AM.
50% in 2's = 33% in 3's, right?
Im All About doin what works Best For your team...... some teams can Do It... some cant.... Teams Just Have to play There style of basketball, and stop trying to play to other teams strengths...
There's a reason smallball's been much more of a gimmick than a recipe for championships: location, location, location. The game of basketball is essentially about real estate. Rim-front property is where it's at.
If talent is equal and the team is properly constructed, size wins out -- the percentages favor the dunk and layup to the jumper. Will there be aberrations and instances where it doesn't win out, in a 7-game series? Doubtful (games not series).
But if you don't have the bigs that can take advantage of their size offensively, you can't own that rim-front property and the percentages skew. The advantage has been erased or even become a disadvantage and smallball begins to find real success.
It's a simple game if you've got the right players. Just watch Tim play against the Warriors . . .
Indeed, but I doubt this will hold true to the future. As true big men become more and more rare, it will be cheaper to find a talented quick guard that can blow past slow big men than it will be to find a dominant 7 footer than can keep up with and deny those other guards. Fast and athletic is the future thanks to the way the rules of the game are changing each season.
Fact is, the more you cater to fast players, the more you force out non-fast big men, and fact is, the bigger you are, the slower you tend to be.
As has been said in this thread already, the crux of our problem is in these facts. The big men the spurs get are ether athletic and dumb or slow and smart. Everyone entering the league is super athletic. Big men come at a serious premium. Even slow immobile 7 footers command money. Add this in with the fact that we have undersized and slow players at our non-big positions and you are in no position to dictate mismatches. People here have harped all year that the Spurs should force their compe ion to match up to them.
Problem is people don't match up to the likes of Rasho, Ian, Nazr, Bonner, or Blair. They torch them with slashers that blow on by or jump shooters that jab-step to an easy shot. Not to mention the atrocious pick-and-roll situations that always lead to open jumpers or an open lane.
This probably won't be resolved this year and we likely will still have problems both playing and matching up to small-ball. Hopefully it remains a gimmick for another year and not the future.
I for one would be in favor of a few rule changes that brought more of the big fellas back into the game.
When we were winning Championships we had a bunch of smalls starting or in rotation who could reliably shoot the 3s, spread the floor and let Duncan work inside.
Now we don't. You can talk all you want about the mythical LONG 3, the Dirk Stopper, who can defend the perimeter like a guard, rebound like a PF and shoot 3s all day long--but they are awfully hard to find and even harder to sign.
We're more likely to find a tweener who is a SG/SF. And we haven't picked up one who can fill the bill completely. Hill is probably the closest new guy
I think that it's difficult to use zones to counter a small, quick, shooting line-up that is clicking unless you are able to put even more quickness on the floor. Especially as long as the 3 seconds defensive rule exists.
Yeah, I agree the main problem was the lack of proper personnel. But I also think that staying small would lead to even worse +/- numbers for small-ball line-ups.
Can't think of anyone the Spurs can acquire without giving up a major piece either.
Jefferson rarely played PF in New Jersey. He played some spot minutes there with the Bucks and he (a) sucked (b) expressed his displeasure. Yeps, he's not comfortable.
I don't think the mismatches always work that way. Maybe in the long run, but can you really wait for the long-run in every situation. The Spurs used to have Horry, who was one of the "great equalizers". Plus, the 2003 Duncan isn't coming back. The Spurs may lack a big line-up who can punish teams for playing small against them and gain a huge majority of the battles for 2 decades or so.
Splitter... I think he'll do a great job in most perimeter oriented PFs. I'm not sure how effective he'll be versus true small-ball 4s, guys like, say, Danny Granger. Maybe . Another problem is how playing Splitter at the 4 + another big at the 5 (Duncan, Blair) will affect the Spurs offense versus small-ball line-ups. That will create subpar offensive spacing versus teams who will dominate the transition and will bet on creating havoc defensively.
And it won't be next year.
It's a bit worse, there's less opportunities to grab offensive rebounds and keep the possession.
I think that used to be true. I believe size is losing importance relatively to speed and quickness - and that's why you're seeing more and more small-ball line-ups.
Obviously, ideally you have the quickness + size, but that's not always possible and you have to make options.
Fully agreed.
I agree with sabar. That was a very solid post. But what the league is evolving to is a product of the player being produced and the dearth of quality Bigs -- the true pivot is beyond an endangered species.
It is that fact that changes the equation, not a new formula in the form of smallball. Talent being equal, if you own the paint offensively and defensively you're going to find a greater level of success. Again, it's the percentages: layups, dunks, board-control and a protected rim > jump shots, quickness and creativity.
That will never change; the quality of the pivot has (more than maybe ever).
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