FanPost

My Thoughts on the Open Practice

I started writing this as a comment but it got far too long.

With the player introductions it seemed that Stuckey is currently penciled in to start at shooting guard as Brandon Jennings was introduced before him and Stuckey was followed by Josh Smith, Andre Drummond, Moose and finally Chauncey. Assuming this order means anything and they wanted to give Chauncey a standing ovation the rest would likely be our starting 5.

Loved the seemingly tai-chi inspired warm-up exercises led by Arnie Kander which led into more explosive running/coordination tasks.

Peyton Siva was done for the day after that, he had a wrap on his calf and was working with Arnie while the others were doing more drills.

They then ran two fast break drills. Which I hope signals a commitment to really getting out and running. Then they split up into two groups to work on pick and roll rotations on offense and defense. Also a good sign about Mo's coaching plan.

Sheed was defending on the offensive side and talking all sorts of junk. I don't think he'd want to go back to playing. Despite looking solid on post defense, even blocking Jorts at one point, Sheed often grimaced after taking hard screen after hard screen. Not only did he seem really stiff, but I doubt he'd want to deal with that pain at full speed.

The scrimmage teams seemed split up in a way to focus on Brandon Jennings learning to play point and Greg Monroe posting up Andre.

If I remember correctly

Blue: BJ, Stuckey, KCP, JJ, Andre, Mitchell, Jorts

Grey: Chauncey, Bynum, Singler, Josh Smith, Moose, GiGi, CV

Team blue had BJ play the entire time and only occasionally giving up primary ball-handling duties to Stuckey. The offense ran exclusively through him either on the pick and roll or drive and dish. I remember the pick and roll being run most effectively with JJ, where JJ was able to either pop out for a shot or crash the basket. The drive and dish looked like hero-ball until I saw who was out on the floor with Brandon. Stuckey, KCP, Tony Mitchell and Jorts.

On the Greg side of the ball, it was mostly feed the Moose. He got the best of Andre often enough that I'm not sure how any player would be able to guard him without help. Moose even showed some confidence in his 10-15 footer. There was a little two-man game between Josh and Greg, but Josh was largely passive on offense delegating to Moose while still managing to hoist enough long shots to make me worry and then hitting enough of them to make me wonder if I should really be worried.

From watching this, I'm assuming our two major half-court weapons are going to be BJ and Moose. The tandem forms a pretty solid pick and roll combination on their own, but I can also see the primary look being BJ and Josh doing the pick and roll, while Moose is on the opposite low block. This allows for Josh to either run at the rim or pop out on the wing, with both Josh and BJ having the option to feed Moose.

Defensively . . . Blocks then dunks? During the drills they were worked on doubling and recovering on the pick and roll then fighting around it. I wasn't really able to track their progress during the scrimmage as I was a little preoccupied with offense and Sheed's desperate need to keep the floor dry (Sheed mop water?).

Other Notes: While I love me some Chauncey and Sheed, the fact that they both got incredible welcomes while BJ, Josh Smith, and even Andre and Greg only got a smattering of applause bothers me a little bit. Chauncey looks a little older and slower, but can still draw fouls by posting smaller guards. Andre and Tony Mitchell use every opportunity they got to host an impromptu dunk contest. Mo Cheeks is a bit of a taskmaster, forcing the team to restart drills and run for not taking it seriously enough, dropping what seemed to be an f-bomb while admonishing the team that this wasn't going to be a wasted day. At the same time, you can see that there seems to be genuine affection between him and his players. Tony putting down a monster dunk actually seemed to increase the team's focus during drills, making even more of a case for blocks and dunks.

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