Last season Flip ran a PG pick & roll offense to start the season. GA played the PG position and really had trouble getting a lane for himself and turned the ball over alot. At first i thought he was struggeling coming off his injury while also learning a new system, but then i noticed Foye (and later on Livingston) was having the same problems.

As i was able to watch some more full games (found a new site to download them haha) i was able to look at it more closely and noticed that, in my opinion, Flips system had a large part in the offensive struggles. When Arenas walked the ball up court, Jamison would give him a pick. Now, instead of slingshooting off Jamison into the lane forcing the D to rotate, he dribbled sideways most of the time. While doing so he left a lot of seperation between him and Jamison alowing his defender to get over the screen easily and thus to stay in Gilberts grill. Gilbert was then forced to either throw it back to the rolling Jamison or to someone else coming of another screen (the Rip Hamilton role i guess). Since the P&R took about 5 seconds the oposing D was already in place to disrupt the pass (hence the turnovers). The third option for Arenas was to get in to the lane anyway and force himself to the basket for a heavily contested layup (hence the trouble finishing).

As noted Randy Foye had much of the same problems as did Shaun Livingston at first. When Flip changed to the 2 guard offense we saw a much better Livingston. Further more the ball got passed to Andre Blatche in the post early and we saw a little bit more of a 'post passing split offense' (a la Tim Duncan and the Spurs) with Miller spotting up at the perimeter (hence Blatche's assists going up). Flip said that he would use the 2 guard offense more often the next season but i noticed during Summer League that he didn't quite yet. Wall would walk up the ball, McGee or Booker would set the pick and Wall left a lot of room between him and Javale/Grown a$$ man. He then either threw it up for the Alley with (the often early leaking) McGee or hit Martin comming of a screen. When he went to the cup he got fouled a lot on the heavily contested layup or settled for a 17 foot jumper. I think this was large reason for Wall's low FG% aswell.

From what i could see from training camp scrimmiges (mostly midnight maddnes though) it looked like the same sh*t all over again. Now with Wall's explosiveness he should be better getting by his man than Gilbert was last year, coming off his injury, but he too has a nag for turning the ball over. Furthermore this system seems to lead to a lot of (contested) midrange jumpshooting since the D is already in place and thats the the best look you'll get this way. with mediocre midrange shooters like Al Thorton, Trevor Booker and the slightly better ones in Josh Howard, Nick Young and Yi I see a lot of trouble heading our way.  

Basically i am just worried about our offence i guess and i wanted to share my thoughts on the subject with you guys. Maybe some of you were able to see some of the drills at the patriot center in person and can tell us a bit more on what type of offensive plays were practiced and how the P&R is used.