That I agree with. I think it can be largely summed up in a lack of dribble penetration as I don't think it would be feasible to repeatedly feed the ball into those two on a constant basis.
How many points in the paint are these two capable of? These guys love the fadeaway jumper. The lack of points in the paint is partially the blame of just not having the personnel to do it. The other problem is the fact that guys just stand around too much instead of cutting and moving the ball.
I think Bill made an excellent point in chat the other day. Instead of lamenting the lack of PIP, we should be celebrating total domination in POP. I don't understand the obsession with paint scoring. We needed points yesterday, from anywhere. This origin of points snobbery is counterproductive.
It's important because it doesn't evaporate in the playoffs like the open jumpers do. We are really scoring well this season, but our best % is from in the paint... yet we aren't going there often. It's the same theory as with a great 3-point shooter. If a guy is shooting 50% from 3-point land, then that proabably means that he is only taking the most open shots. He should shoot more of the marginal ones until his % goes down to 40%. Not that this hasn't been mentioned before, but Amir Johnson seems to provide things that fill our weaknesses. He gets a ton of offensive rebounds, shoots 84% of his shots from in the paint, and can run.
The question is would the rest of the team pick up the pace. I have been commenting the last few weeks that we are not getting any easy baskets. Would love to think that his energy would infuse the rest of the team but... We may never know.
I am intrigued by this Cris Webber that you speak of. Could he be the calmness the bench needs to play up a storm?
Even though Webber is slow as syrup, he's a good enough passer than the bench unit could break off of his rebounds and outlet passes. Then he could just sort of do some reverse cherry picking by waiting around on the defensive end. This is all total speculation and I'm also willing to concede that he may be a big gaping weakness on both ends of the court. But if he's in shape and can play at last year's level, then it is worth a shot. I guess I'd rather have him on the team than Bresec, even though I like the attitude.
Interesting, some weeks ago fans demanded for Hermann and Brezec playing time, now you are ready to get rid of them...
That's the benefit of playing your bench. You find out what you have. I still think Herrmann provides value and depth at the 3 spot. He's been cold shooting, but so have Jarvis. Bresec is valuable as a backup big. But if we can upgrade that spot, then he becomes expendable.
I like Primoz. I think he has a permanent place on this team as a young, big enforcer. A poor man's Bill Laimbeer. That said, he needs to badly lose a little weight.
If you read the sports coverage from around the country, many writers indicate exactly the same thing. But Flip is head over heels in his playbook, and he can't see what is actually happening. Everytime the same assessment: we haven't hit enough shots.
AJ is an excellent jump shooter. Flipper just hasn't set up any plays for him to take mid range jump shots. AJ can play in a half court offense or in a running offense. His game on offense is effective in both schemes.
roscoes right i agree i remeber last year against the bull game 3 in the playoffs we were getting crushed and everybody whined and left the chat.. while a select few stayed and we waited it out and we came back and won then everybody came back to the chat and acted like they had been there the whole time
If Webber really wanted to be midseason pickup for Joe, then you think he would be working out somewhere these past couple of months and no show up out of shape. The problem last season was that we the fans and Flip relied to much on Webber to be the missing link and with Flip ball his minutes were higher than they should be and his D let us down. Anchoring the bench for 12 mins a game maybe all that we need to bridge the starters rest. The points in the paint go up, he can believe it or not draw a double team and we all know he can pass. His layups are as good as Big Baby's and more frequent than you will ever get out Dice.
Tempted to start calling the Low "PIP". The PIP man. Unless you have a great post player you almost need to hit the jumpers in order to open up the paint. I think that was our problem last year against Cleveland. No one could hit the side of barn. Most teams wish they had the kind of ball movement the Pistons have. But we have to hit our shots to open things up. Thats my 2 cents.
I concur here. Dice and Sheed seem to have no mobility when they are passed the rock outside the paint....it's catch and shoot for Dice inside the circle and and catch and shoot for Sheed 2-3 feet behind the arc. I guess old habits never die when you are conserving energy standing still instead of moving around trying to get open near the hoop!!
But we are hitting our shots now. That should be opening it up inside... but we aren't taking advantage of it. Jump shots are great, but there will come a game in the playoff when the complaint here will be that our offense got stagnant. The reason will be that the other team took away our jump shots. It's not only post moves, we need slashers (afflalo from Webber) and drives by guards (Stuckey). We need offensive rebounds and put-backs (Amir). And finally, we need some fast breaks. We have the biggest blocked shot differential in the league, which is perfect for fast breaking.
