2021-2022 MAVS NEWS: 4th in West | WCF loss [ARCHIVED]

[TXBamanut]

I don't know if it's a binary, black-and-white thing like that, but the whole "teams are too good at defending set plays now, so getting shots off of the flow offense is better" narrative is something I've heard multiple coaches promote over the past few years and not something unique to Carlisle/Dallas. Basically, the idea is that the offense reacts to the defense rather than the other way around. 

When it comes to Porzingis, specifically, why would it make sense to run plays for him when he has only really ever been efficient in the opposite scenario? NY was bad when he was featured there, and in order to improve since he arrived, Dallas has depended on running their offense through him less and less as time has gone on. At least, that's how it seems to me.

That is my point...my post was a sarcastic response to a dumb assertion.

It depends on the type of player.  One isn't "less valuable" than another necessarily, it's a player by player basis.  It's in EVERY sport. 

This is an extreme example to highlight the point.  If you have a strong big running back, you run the ball, not just split him out continuously and run bubble screens when he isn't super quick and doesn't catch well.  You CERTAINLY don't do it repeatedly, and then proclaim the guy a failure because you don't get the production  you'd like to see out of him.  NO...as a coach, you run things that work, within the philosophy of how you want to try to win, that maximize players.

That's why you don't put THJ in the dunker spot and you put Dwight Powell there.  It's not even basic basketball, it's basic sports.

If a play gets someone open, then great do it.  If it's flow, then it's flow.  The point is to keep the defense off balance, so set plays mixed with flow makes more sense.  The truth is the "flow offense" is similar to the spread in football and you come to the line with 3 plays and depending on that the defense does you do that...and sometimes, you don't audible into it, the team reads it optimally or in more complex versions, you see the stand up and look to the sidelines and get the signals. 

All the same, you don't just not have a structure and run around hoping things happen.  You put players in certain spots at certain times to help the team succeed, by helping them succeed in the moment.   The truth of the matter is that the defense will eventually catch up to "flow" (unless they just keep basically legislatiing defense out of the game)...as it will to the all wing, positionless basketball and it will come back around again in some sort of resurgence in the cycle goes again.