Don't blame injuries, blame the game.

Everyone including me is extremely frustrated at the New Orleans Hornets and the way they are playing basketball. Many blame injuries saying that Tyson Chandler is huge to this teams success and when and if he is back we will be back as one of the top 6 teams in the league. Others look towards the management decisions made and the people surrounding the core group of guys.


However I am interested to look at the actual basketball being played. Yes we are something like .500 when Tyson is out which is pretty good. But that is a huge number of games that we should be winning. I am one of the first to point fingers at management decisions, however they do have SOME good players that can do some okay things despite being over payed.


However lets have a look at what the hornets actually do on the court rather than off.


1. Pick and Post-up options:

As we can see here 1 obviously handles the ball while 5 sets a screen for 4 who then goes and sets an on-ball screen for 1. 5 rolls to the basket after setting his screen and 4 rolls looking for the post up. 1 then has two options, a pass to 5 for the dunk or pass to 4 for the post up.

As we can see 2 and 3 do nothing. They would usually be the spot up shooters i.e. Butler, Posey, Stojakovic.

My complaint with this is that it is so bland. There is no off-ball movement and the opposing team can very easily double the 4 and isolate Paul's options. There is no penetration what so ever, just entry or spot-up options.


2. Basic Pick and roll
This is usually what the Hornets run when their first options (fast break) run out. 1 dribbles the ball to a side or at the top and the other players just isolate that pick and roll. My frustrations with this is that this play works well with Tyson and Paul, not Daniels and Armstrong or Paul and Ely etc. Byron it just doesn't, Armstrong sets the weakest of screens, Marks can set "okay" screens but he doesn't do much with them. When Paul gets a screen from West (4) it usually is for the post up for West because the defense switches men and creates a "mis-match."

What's my problem with this? Nothing, but the defense then doubles West then he tries to force the issue and gets stuck, tries to kick it out but then, no ball movement. This basic Pick-and-Roll can be defended very easily because there is no movement other then the two men involved.


3. Other
Yes we do also have the Butler off-ball curl where he gets a couple of screens on the low block, but again all is needed is a quick switch to stop that. There is a couple of other plays that involve Peja, but very little and usually this is either a post-up or a pick-and-pop type of play.


Summary
What can we make of all this? Well it is simple. Byron Scott has not adapted his offense to suit his players on the court. He must have movement off the ball because the defenses easily adapt to the pick and roll offense. How many times have you seen us set a beautiful off-ball screen for Peja who gets a nice midrange shot, none. We need to make adjustments on the offensive end to get back to scoring over 100 points a game, which happens very rarely this year.

But my main problem is the lack of penetration. I love layups, love 'em. Why? Because in a hornets game do they rarely happen. In fact I am sure there are a tonne stat geeks out there that can find the percentage of field goals attempted that are layups (by other than CP and West). We have to be aggressive and when we are, we drive to the cup and lay it in for two. Sure we are made up of a tonne of shooters, but that doesn't mean we still can't be aggressive. I think everyone on the team needs to remember that a 18 foot jumpshot is worth the same as a 2 foot layup.