What if the solution was this simple

by JohnTongEchoesinmyhead on Jan 17, 2012 11:50 AM EST

Siva making 3's.

Seriously. If Siva is a threat from behind the arc, then opponents can't slack off him defensively & clog the lane. The result:

(a) Siva is a threat to beat his man off the dribble, draw help defenders, and find an open teammate,

(b) There is more space in the middle of the floor for Chane and Deing to operate,

(d) more made 3's = more points,

(e) The big man defender has to come out higher on the high pick-and-roll, opening up the roll option,

and since (a) - (e) all lead to more open looks and more made shots...

(f) more made shots = more press defense.

This doesn't solve our inability to defend the opponent's 3 pt shot, but it seems like it could solve our offensive woes. What am I missing?

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How about this.....

Fixing someones shot is waaay more difficult than it sounds, so to turn this thing around this season I don’t think that is the fix. What I have been wondering about (and they may have tried this in practice and it didn’t work well at all) is what if we stuck Chane at the top of the 3 point line and ran our offense like we did a few years back with David Padgett. Now I am not saying Chane will be as good or better than Padgett but at least he can take his man off the dribble if need be so he would be a threat there plus he can hand off to Siva or set a brick wall of a screen on somebody. Not to mention with our 4 at the top of the post and SF, SG and PG spread out around the perimeter it would open it up down low for Dieng. Also Chane isn’t a true PF so this would also place him in more of the SF/PF hybrid position that he needs to be in anyway imo. I am no coaching guru but even when our offense was struggling earlier in the season I have wondered just how effective that might be

by hyperflux on Jan 17, 2012 12:49 PM EST reply actions

There's a difference between fixing a shot that's never worked well, and fixing one that used to work well

Siva’s senior year of HS he shot 37% from 3. His Fr. year at UL he shot 40% from 3.
It’s not like he has terrible mechanics, or has never shot a high percentage from 3. (And it’s not a volume issue, either. He took 126 3’s as a HS senior and still hit 37%.)

To me, this suggests it is fixable.

As for your suggested fix—I AGREE 100%. However, what you are suggesting is an offense Pitino has used with not only Padgett, but TWill, Garcia, and Ellis. As such, it’s hard for me to believe they haven’t tried this in practice. So, I am even more willing to believe this was tried and failed in practice (as you parenthetically suggested).

by JohnTongEchoesinmyhead on Jan 17, 2012 1:37 PM EST up reply actions

You are right that Siva's shooting --whether on 2's or 3's-- is a key missing element.

I think I hear an announcer state that Siva hit 44% of his field goals last year, and is like 34% this year.

Shooting is something Siva NEEDED badly to work on over the off -season…AND in the pre-season workouts.

Apparently Siva—and Pitino—didn’t focus on this enough—and I blame both of them….

This is something that only a lot of time and practice can fix—it may improve some during this season with a lot of practice, but won’t be fixed overnight

by frankpos on Jan 17, 2012 1:12 PM EST reply actions