From the monthly archives:

April 2011

Opinions: Should the Pacers Keep Frank Vogel?

by Alex Yovanovich on April 30, 2011 at 8:38 am · 13 comments

The Indiana Pacers head into the offseason with many questions after a relatively successful end to the 2010-11 season culminating with a first round playoff loss to the Chicago Bulls. Larry Bird’s future is about to be decided after he meets with owner Herb Simon. The tide has turned and most experts are projecting Bird to return to the team. That means the next big question is should the Pacers keep interim coach Frank Vogel?

Vogel got a lot of love nationally throughout the Bulls series. In fact, a Facebook page has sprung up that has become a campaign headquarters of sort for Vogel. It seems that mainstream thinking is that the 37-year-old coach has done more than enough to return to the blue and gold. Here’s a sampling of the some of those comments.

Chris Mannix from SI had this to say:

It’s true, Bird will have options. The pool of head coaching candidates is a deep one. He could go for the veteran hand [Jeff Van Gundy, Rick Adelman, Mike Brown], the rising star [Mike Malone, Mike Budenholzer, Kelvin Sampson] or the experienced assistant [Lawrence Frank, Mike Woodson, Dwane Casey]. He could tap into the TV booth [Kevin McHale, Mark Jackson] or dip into the college ranks.

His choices are good. But there is one that stands out: Vogel.

Mannix then argues why Vogel should be retained:

“He simplified things, which was good for that team,” said an Eastern Conference executive. “He was always prepared and the players responded to him.”

There’s something else Bird will have to consider: Money. The Pacers ranked 27th in Forbes’ most recent team valuations; the publication called Indiana “among the most troubled organizations in the NBA.” It attracted an NBA-low 13,538 fans per game last season, the fifth straight year it’s ranked in the bottom five in attendance.

Why is that important? Because experienced coaches like Van Gundy, Adelman or Brown could command between $3 and $5 million per season, a price tag the Pacers are unlikely to pay. Even Frank and Woodson made in excess of $2 million in their last coaching stops. Indiana won’t get Vogel for less than $1 million, but entering a potentially lockout-shortened season, it might not have to pay much more than that, either.

Indeed, reasons not to retain Vogel are few and far between. Indiana has a pretty good thing going. It’s core group — Hansbrough, George, Hibbert, Darren Collison and Danny Granger — is 28 or younger and under the team’s control for at least the next two seasons. They will lop some $30 million off the cap this summer and Bird has made it clear that if another team is looking to sell a star, he’s interested in buying.

Vogel has a rapport with his players. They trust him, believe in him. And he believes in them. On his way to dinner with his coaching staff Thursday night, Vogel’s mind was already at work with ways to improve the team next season.

Meanwhile, Rob Mahoney of The New York Times NBA Blog Off the Dribble had this to say:

This series was marked by not only (Paul) George’s true arrival on the N.B.A. scene after a rocky rookie season, but also that of Frank Vogel, the Pacers’ interim coach for 38 games. Everything that George accomplished in this series was possible because of his coach’s insight, preparation and audacity.

Vogel had the nerve to allow George, a rookie swingman who had played 61 games as a pro, and started just 19 times, to defend Rose, the league’s likely most valuable player. More important, Vogel didn’t overreact to Rose’s 39-point and 36-point games — both Pacer losses – to start the series, as he stuck to the game plan that had given his team a fighting chance.

Desperation can act as a siren’s call to some, but Vogel was having none of it. Four of the games in this series ended in a coin flip as a result of Vogel’s strategic commitment, a great triumph for a No. 8 seed contending with what many thought to be the best team in the league.

Indiana’s players deserve credit for their effort and execution throughout the series, but Vogel proved himself to be a resourceful coach who doesn’t just put his players in position to succeed but also discovers new avenues to success.

In game five of the Bulls series, current TNT NBA analyst and former Phoenix Suns President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Steve Kerr used his forum to say this:

“It’s a no-brainer to re-sign (interim coach) Frank Vogel,” Kerr said. “They play hard, they play a lot of people and they play with a lot of energy.”

Eric Freeman of Yahoo! Sports Ball Don’t Lie had this to say:

So it stands to reason that Vogel and the Pacers would like to remove the “interim” tag from his title. And that is exactly what’s likely to happen soon.

All parties want this to happen — Vogel, the front office, the players, and the fans — which means a deal will almost certainly get done soon. Vogel deserves it, too. He made the Pacers relevant and exciting again when they had been punchlines for several seasons. That’s no small feat.

However, it’s important to note that Vogel is also a free agent. If a deal doesn’t get done soon, it’s possible to imagine another team with a vacancy — like, say, the Rockets or Warriors — making a gigantic offer for Vogel’s services. That might be seen as poor form, considering the Pacers are Vogel’s team right now, but no one ever said finding a good coach was a moral pursuit.

Yet that course of events would be unlikely. Expect Vogel on the sidelines next season and several more.

Ok… back to reality.

Look, I think Vogel did a good job with this team. He will probably be the coach next year. I have not seen anyone credible make a strong argument otherwise. There’s no denying the fact that he got the Pacers to the playoffs. That’s something that Jim O’Brien could not do in his tenure.

However, let’s interrupt the euphoria for a moment to ask a few tough questions.

Is the 20-18 finish to the season just a short-term bounce that was not an accurate representation of Vogel’s abilities?

The offense that we saw down the stretch consisted of a few very simple plays and became easy to defend down the stretch of tight games. Does Vogel have a real, cohesive offense that he will install for next year?

What defensive philosophy is Vogel going to adhere to that will best utilize the players on the roster?

Can Vogel be critical of players that don’t perform in big situations? For instance, when Roy Hibbert is close to a no show in four of five playoff games maybe the positive reinforcement simply isn’t working. Would Vogel be willing to jump on Hibbert if that’s what it takes to get him right?

I really think the answers to these questions are more important than the short-term excitement created by the competitive series with the Bulls. The reality is that if Vogel is hired we won’t know the answers to any of these questions until next season… but that doesn’t mean that you don’t ask the questions during his interview.

Related Topics: Frank Vogel, Herb Simon, Larry Bird

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Pacers vs. Bulls Spiderwebs – Game 5

by Tim Donahue on April 27, 2011 at 3:52 pm · 12 comments

As a supplement to the playoff game recaps, we’re going to post Synergy “spiderwebs.” This will show the offensive distribution in plays and points for each team. The data is provided by the fantastic site mySynergySports. Hopefully, it will help us understand each team’s approach, as well as what worked and what didn’t.

Click here for others in the series.

Bulls Offense

Because spiderwebs operate on percentages of totals, and because Chicago hit a ridiculous 8-for-15 from three point range in Spot Ups, the visual on the chart above wasn’t as striking as I was hoping it would be. Therefore, I’ll need to direct you to look past the big spike in Spot Ups, and once more at the PnR ballhandler.

Last night, the Chicago Bulls scored 116 points and posted an offensive efficiency of over 124. They got 15 points out of 13 PnR Ball Handler plays, or about 1.15 PPP. In the two games in Conseco, their offensive efficiency was less than 99 points per 100. Take a look at the spiderweb for those games:

From the Game 4 Spiderwebs:

In two games at Conseco Fieldhouse, the Pacers’ defense has completely choked off Chicago’s use of the PnR Ball Handler. The Bulls have only been able to finish this 22 times, and in those 22 times, only scored five (5) points, or 0.23 PPP. Couple that with the reduced damage by the Bulls on their offensive glass (31% in Indy vs. 45% in Chicago), and the Pacers have been able to hold the Bulls Offense to less than a point per possession.

Clearly, the Pacers were unable to sustain their defensive success in Game 5. It’s fair to question whether success against the PnR Ball Handler is a leading or trailing indicator, but future opponents of the Chicago Bulls may want to consider the two spiderwebs to follow.

In Games 1 and 5, Chicago got 13% of their plays out of the PnR Ball Handler and scored 1.18 PPP on them. They won both games, posting offensive efficiencies of 122.6 and 124.4, respectively.

In Games 2, 3, & 4 of the series, Chicago again got 13% of their plays out of the PnR Ball Handler, but only managed 0.36 PPP. Their offensive efficiency dropped to 102.0, 102.4, and 97.0, respectively. They still won two of the three games, but easily could have lost all three.

It’s a small sample size, so it’s far from definitive. Take it for what it’s worth.

For reference, here is the series-to-date spiderweb for the Chicago Offense.

Pacers Offense

Over the course of this series, the Pacers have managed only 101.4 points per 100. However, if you take out Game 1 — which featured a fluky Pacer shooting performance — that drops to 97.8.

I lifted that last sentence almost verbatim from the Game 4 Spiderwebs, updating only the numbers to include Game 5. Why? Because it’s basically the offensive story of the series (and maybe overall) for the Pacers. The Bulls have a great defense, the Pacers have – at best – a mediocre offense. Put the two together, and…

Where the defense was encouraging in this series, the offense was thoroughly discouraging. Danny Granger (21.6 ppg, .522 eFG%) picked up his game, and an argument could be made that Danny’s performance in a 1-4 losing series with these kind of offensive numbers only serves to underscore that he cannot carry a playoff team. The big problems will need a more thorough and lengthy discussion, which we will have later, but we can touch on them now.

First, as I mentioned in the last spiderwebs (and ad nauseum elsewhere), the Pacers have no “offense.” Which is to say that they do not have a system and playbook with a coherent flow of options. With the exception of a few vestiges of the O’Brien’s thoroughly failed motion offense, almost everything is an incredibly simplistic one-option set. You can do this if (a) you have execution of merciless precision or (b) you have talent that can overwhelm the defense. The Pacers have neither, and Vogel or his replacement will have to find a happy medium between the overly complicated O’Brien offense and the crudely primitive offense run over the last three months. One that will perform much better than either.

Second, the Pacers have no reliable post presence. To be specific neither Roy Hibbert nor Tyler Hansbrough were capable of being the “hub of the wheel,” and honestly, I don’t think either ever will be. Hansbrough came a long way this year, but he will always be undersized, and that will always be a detriment to his back-to-the-basket game.

Hibbert, well, we’ve talked about before. In the Chicago series, the Pacers got 46 plays out of the post, scoring 39 points and turning the ball over seven times. Twenty nine of those plays were to Roy, but only 17 points came out of those 29 plays. In the 17 non-Hibbert post opportunities – mostly Danny and Tyler – the Pacers scored 22 points. Roy was responsible for four of the seven turnovers.

Limiting the offensive issues to these two items is reductionist, but as we go into the summer, it’s an area of significant concern for the Pacers. They’ll need a better plan of attack, more offensive firepower, or probably both if they want anything more than moral victories in future playoffs.

In any case, I’ll once again leave you with the series-to-date spiderwebs for the Pacer Offense.

Please see Jared’s recap for a full discussion of Game 5.

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Pacers Get Blown Out in Game 5, Go Fishing

by Jared Wade on April 27, 2011 at 2:38 am · 8 comments

The Pacers season comes to a close as fishing season begins. (via TNT’s Inside the NBA)

Game 5 was an unfortunate and anticlimactic end to what was otherwise a fun, competitive series. But it proved what we all knew: one of these teams is for real and the other is the Indiana Pacers.

Danny Granger, as he did throughout the postseason, kept the Indiana attack afloat early, forcing his way to the hoop for 11 of his team’s 25 first-quarter points. (He finished the game with 20 points on 16 shots, 6 boards, 3 assists and 3 turnovers.) Despite the best efforts of their captain, who shot 43-for-90 (47.8%) in his five-game playoff run, the early hole was one the Pacers would never climb out of. The Bulls never trailed in this one after a hot start and it really was never even a game.

As in a few of the other games against Chicago, they could never get their offense going.

Roy Hibbert was again little more than patio furniture, oscillating between ineffectiveness and foul trouble early. To his credit, he did help spark the only thing we can even really consider a run, scoring 6 points coming out of half time as the Pacers cut the Bulls lead to 4 at one point. But he and his teammates couldn’t establish him down low and he turned the ball over twice in 9 third quarter minutes, which together only allowed him to get three looks from the paint in period.

Tyler Hansbrough was aggressive in the paint (8-for-9 from the line), but maybe more than in any game I can recall off hand, his limitations were on full display. Perhaps it was the fact that loud-softy Carlos Boozer spent so little time on the floor or perhaps it was just one of those nights, but regardless, Tyler was unable to create any clean looks. Every way he tried to hurl the ball at the rim was stymied. He was a wind-up car running into a wall. Nothing he tried worked. But he had nothing else to try so he just tried the same thing again. That type of motor is a good thing, but sometimes it looks like he’s having a series of mini-strokes out there rather than making a basketball play. After his surreal Game 1, he finished the series shooting 10-for-41 (24.4%) in the last four. Not so helpful.

Darren Collison continued doing his “not not solid but not not unmemorable” thing and added in one stretch of ugly futility during the third quarter, of which he played all 12 minutes. Didn’t sit — but didn’t really score, didn’t really fuel the offense and definitely didn’t really guard anyone. This felt similar to about 50% of the games we saw out of him this season. Some aging and some offseason work can hopefully lower that rate.

Paul George’s continued woeful inefficiency on offense will likely again be excused by his primary assignment of guarding Derrick Rose. But since he didn’t even do that particularly well on this night, it’s worth highlighting that his 2-for-8 shooting night dropped his five-game total to 10-for-33 (30.3%). Combine that with Tyler’s terrible production in series and we’re looking at two of the Pacers starters making 19 FGs from Game 2 through Game 5. That’s less than 5 makes combined per game from 40% of your starting lineup. That’s asking the other three guys to do a lot — and lest we forget one of those other three guys has the last name Hibbert. (Tyler and Roy combined to cough up 8 of the team’s are-you-serious 20 turnovers.)

Off the bench, Dahntay Jones added a semblance of a spark. So did AJ Price. But Jeff Foster wasn’t himself, Josh McRoberts’ best play was getting himself thrown out of the game for back-hand flailing at Joakim Noah (who Granger called “cowardly”) and Mike Dunleavy spent the last 19 minutes he ever will play in a Pacers jersey doing exactly nothing of interest. Brandon Rush made a few shots but was otherwise himself.

So … OK … The Indiana Pacers couldn’t execute or score. This isn’t altogether shocking. They’ve failed to be able to score against much worse defenses than Chicago’s all year long.

The real issue was the other end.

They have played poorly on offense in a few of these games and still been right there. The difference was that their defense fell apart in comparison to the other nights. In fairness, let’s first remember that Keith Bogans hit 5 of the 7 threes he took. Can’t blame anyone for that. If you asked most opposing coaches before the game whether or not they would want Keith I-Presume-His-Middle-Name-Is-Front-Iron Bogans to take 7 threes — even in an open gym — they would just smile and nod uncontrollably, unable to even speak due to gleeful euphoria like that of a puppy hearing a can opener. Additionally, the Pacers turned Boozer into a complete no-show — almost literally considering his 1-for-5 shooting in 16 minutes. (He was in foul trouble all night.)

His teammates were clearly excited about his play and happy to celebrate. (via @JohnCTownsend)

The only other caveat we need to put on the Pacers weak defensive showing is that the turnovers didn’t help. They gave up 34 points on possessions where they gave the ball away. That’s a ton and some of that helped the Bulls score 17 points off of transition and finish the game with a blistering 123.4 points-per-100-possession scoring rate. Oddly, the Pacers did manage to keep them off the offensive glass again, however, only surrendering 8 all night.

Other than that, Chicago did whatever it wanted.

In Frank Vogel speak, there was plenty of mouth out there but no smash.

Joakim Noah, in particular, was just on another plane from an energy and aggressiveness perspective. Likely high on adrenaline and emotion from having his grandfather in the stands watching him play professional basketball for the first time ever, he was a ball of napalm. He was acting like a fool, sure, but dead-ball situations aside, he was just more active than the whole Pacers front line — something that was more immeasurably helpful than anything else but still translated to 9 FTAs and 4 blocks on the stat sheet. (By contrast, he averaged 3.9 FTAs and 1.5 blocks per game on year.) Joakim is one of the best defensive players in the NBA, and everyone in the building, including the coolest man in attendance, became well aware as to why if they didn’t know already.

Derrick Rose was brilliant. So much for having a gimpy ankle. He hit 8 of his 17 shots, getting into the lane for 4 buckets in the paint to go along with 4 long jumpers (including 3 threes). He was all over the court on the defensive end as well, forcing a few steals and, most memorably, making the 7’2″ Hibbert look like he was 2’7″ when Rose blocked Roy’s shot at the rim. Splendid “how DARE you question me?” bounce-back game for him after two stinkers.

Luol Deng continued to play like perhaps the most overlooked player in the league. 24 points (on 14 shots and 8 trips to the line), 6 boards, 7 assists, 3 steals and 1 block. And don’t forget the high-level defense and even-keeled, play-within-the-offense decision-making. For all the things in the series you could point to that have made the Bulls look vulnerable as a contender, Deng’s play serves as a huge counter-argument. He was — tonight and throughout the playoffs — superb.

You may have noticed that, in recapping this loss, I’ve focused more on the individual contributions than the team nuances. Really, this is what the game and this series was about. One team had 4 of the 5 best players in the series and the other had Danny Granger, some interesting role players who poured their hearts into virtually every play and an “Aww Shucks … Why Not Us?” plucky young coach who got a band of underachievers to believe that they could hang.

It would be disingenuous to call this one a “gentleman’s sweep” considering that every game aside from the final one was in the balance in the final minute. But the simple fact is that one team had the players that could make plays and the other did not. The way we got to a 4-1 Bulls series win was unexpected, but the result was not.

Fun series though. And it should be a fun offseason.

Let’s not let one discouraging game change the whole narrative of the last week and a half.

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Vogel: If We Win Tonight, We’ll Win the Series

by Jared Wade on April 26, 2011 at 1:41 pm · 5 comments

Pacers (still) interim coach Frank Vogel is bold, foolhardy, delusional or on drugs depending who you ask. But you can’t say he doesn’t have some stones.

According to the Chicago Bulls, Vogel thinks the Pacers will advance to the second round if they can win Game 5.

“We feel like if we win this game tonight, we’ll win the series.”

Perhaps it’s just me, but I probably wouldn’t have said that if I had to play against Derrick Rose even if he had a hurt ankle — or an amputated leg.

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