Random thought from the game: Is Hinrich the best guard ever to be so horrible in fast break situations?
huh? are you referring to a specific break? Hinrich's not even the worst guard on the bulls for blowing fastbreaks.
Oh...one horrific break jogged that thought. Whose in your opinion is worse? Assuming you will say Gordon which is laughable, I assume you missed today's tv crew saying the Celts were game planning for Gordon in the open court b/c he is such a threat.
I don't know Jay. That play where Rose was leading the fast break and Gordon cut out to the three point line instead of filing in the lane . . . pretty brutal. Mark Jackson claimed it was Rose's fault -- and maybe he should have slowed down if he didn't know exactly where his wing man was, but Gordon is supposed to fill the lane. It made me mad. Not as mad as when Tyrus didn't pass to Rose at the end, hogging the ball so he could take the last set of free throws, of which he missed one. But whatever. Ugly. Does that make Gordon worse than Hinrich on breaks? I wish we didn't have to debate these kind of things.
It looked to me like both teams were trying to lose. And at least the Celtics can claim they were jobbed by the refs, because they were.
Kirk Hinrich is a horrible fastbreak point guard, and that's because he thinks the way to run a fastbreak is for him to dribble it up everytime. I've called him the instant fast break killer in the past. If you watch Derrick Rose, he push the ball ahead (usually to Gordon) when the situation calls for it. If you watch Gordon, he will push the ball ahead (usually to Hinrich interestingly enough) if the situation calls for it. Not Kirk, he loves to dribble that ball up the court, killing the fastbreak.
Ben Gordon is somewhere in the top 5 in fastbreak scoring in the NBA, maybe #1 this year. I hope no one is dumb enough to call him bad on the fastbreak.
It seems that the open 3pt shot is a big part of the fast break play these days. I've seen countless plays in the NBA the past few seasons where a guy will pull up for the 3 instead of driving to the basket for the easy layup. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how they practice it.
If you count the one where BG flared out instead of filled the lane, and the two in game two where BG refused to pass to the open man, I'd say he's way ahead of Hinrich in the blown fastbreak category. One of the reasons he has so many fast break points is that he doesn't pass when he probably should. It's also a reason why his TO's are down, too, though. On the Hinrich play, the other guys were covered, or had bad angles iIrc. Hinrich should have pulled up and I remember it being an ugly play, but it wasn't as ugly as some others....
It's not just the overdribbling. It's the ineptitude at finishing. And the inability to make the right pass at the right time (although this is related to the overdribbling). He is much better in the half court which make him a real oddity IMHO. I think part of it is he has enough vision and ball skills for a pick and roll but not enough to run a reasonable break.
Derrick Rose blew the pass. He saw Gordon was flaring out, but made the pass wide right. If Rose delivered a good pass, then Gordon would have had a wide open three. And don't spew crap about how Gordon was supposed to go to the basket, because the Bulls routinely run on the Rose/Gordon two man fastbreak, where Gordon flares to the wing, while Rose penetrates and kicks it out to Gordon. The Celtics took away the angle for a pass that Rose usually uses, and Rose failed to make a good pass.
You always take the easy layup over the 3. Always. Neither of you guys actually played organized basketball, did you. Let me qualify that, past the 7th grade level.
^Goes for a false personal attack because he doesn't have a valid argument. When I played basketball, I pretty much exclusively took layups and floaters on the fastbreak, maybe a pull up jumper here and there, but never a pull up three. Only time I took a three on the fastbreak was if I caught the ball on the wing with the defense already in between me and the basket. But I'm also not the player with the record for most three pointers in the first five years of an NBA career....and it wasn't going to be an easy layup for Gordon anyhow, even if he chose to go in for the layup, as theree were two Celtics already down there. The three point shot on the fastbreak is straight out of Seven Seconds or Less. Take a look at who our coach is.....It's a pretty smart strategy when you have a great three point shooter, as it's a way to find a guy who is constantly covered an easy three point shot.
Past the seventh grade? And you don't stop if there is a guy between you and the guy with the ball because that allows the defenders to double up on the ballhandler. It wasn't a good play no matter how good of a three point shooter you are...
