A modest suggestion for how to get Hawes more involved on offense

Last night's game was a good win, but it felt like our style of play would not be able to produce win after win after win, particularly on the offensive end. We are one of the best streak scoring teams in the country, but we need to develop a way to score when our high pick and role dribble game is not working. We did a good job of taking advantage of mistakes made by Oregon on D (like forgetting that Appleby will shoot three pointers), but as the season wears on, good teams make fewer mistakes. I don't think we could play a similar game on MacArthur court, when OU has Aaron Brooks, and expect to win.

In my mind the way to establish more consistency in the offense is to run the offense through Hawes more, which means we have to improve our ability to get him the ball. Last night we struggled mightily with this, as our offense was baffled by Oregon simply fronting Hawes (which they did ALL NIGHT).

For the front to work, a weakside defender has to be enough of a deterrent to the lob pass, without giving up an open shot to the man he is guarding. A typical way you see teams attack a post front is to clear out the lane, pull every other player to the perimeter, and then put your post feeder on the elbow of the same side of the court. This forces the weakside help to make a choice of what to guard. Help in the post and risk a quick ball rotation/skip pass from the center to your now open man who has been spotting up for some time. Or stay home, and watch as your opponents coordinated 7 footer gets a ton of easy finishes around the rim.

Right now, there are three things preventing UW from successfully dealing with the front:
1. UW primarily attacks from the weak side or the top of the key, and in general the ball handlers run the offense from too far out. This makes any entry pass into Hawes take too long, thus allowing the help defender to guard both the shooter and the lob pass.

2. UW does not vacate the post consistently. Too many times last night you saw Pondexter hanging out close to the rim with his defender near by. Quincy kept looking to receive an alley-oop pass that was never really available, and all he successfully did was screw over Hawes. If Q-Pon wants to get buckets for discount prices, he needs to wait at the three point line until Hawes gets the ball before he crashes the lane.

3. UW doesn't rotate the ball quickly. Too much dribbling allows the defenders to maintain decent position on the off the ball players. Pass the rock fast and get better angles, please. I don't think I saw one crisp two pass perimeter ball rotation from UW all game.

Hawes named Pac 10 player of the week

Bob Condotta has it here. Hawes, in a classic PR move, says Brockman should have gotten it.

Dan Raley has a nice article on his uncle, Steve Hawes.

And it looks like the USC game will not be televised locally. Bullshit. Looks like I'm going to Sport.

Stop throwing skip passes and get the ball to Hawes!

Please. After watching the pepperdine game last night, a few things really jumped out at me.
1. Pondexter looks really big, fast and coordinated. His size, combined with his quick feet allowed him to practically swallow up the opposing guards, and completely took away their penetration.
2. We only have one true point guard on the team in Dentmon. Appleby and Oliver are shoot first players and do not do a good job of running the offense.
3. Hawes and Brockman were the smartest players on the court. They did a great job of working together and often the result was easy layups.
4. If we had played more in control on offense we would have won by 30 (or more).

This game was exciting and troublesome at the same time. In years past, there were clear physical weaknesses for UW, with a lack of athletic depth and/or size. This will not be a problem this year. Our D was there, we forced 23 turnovers and the other teams ball handlers were clearly rattled for much of the game. For the most part, we took them out of their game plan of isolation, penetration and dish to open shooters early in the shot clock. Pepperdine often had to attempt 3 or 4 all out drives per possesion to get anything, and I can't recall more than a couple easy fast breaks for a team that is built on pressure D. Dentmon, Perry and Pondexter look like excellent perimeter defenders already, and should give teams fits all year.

We had 24 turnovers, plus about 5 or 6 plays where our big men rescued horrible passes that should have been turnovers. I want to rewatch the game, but if I had to guess, 15 of these were on either poor execution of breaking the press or slowly lobbed skip passes, mostly by Appleby, Nelson and Oliver. Also, although they were not "turnovers" per se, there were a few occasions when Hawes had great position on the near post, and instead of getting him the ball, we put up a quick shot off the dribble. And missed. Pretty much evey time Hawes touched the ball, something positive happened, so if we are not in a fast break, why not hit the big man? He'll either have a high percentage shot, or get doubled and make a pass to an open shooter spotting up (79% True shooting percentage last night, combined with only 2 turnovers on 7 assists).

I know it is early, but Appleby in particular does not seem to understand how to run an offense or create shots for himself or his teammates. He's a great spot up shooter, but until he learns to feed the post and look for kickouts on double teams he will struggle. Last night he was too content to pound the ball while his quicker defender stayed with him. From the way he was approaching offense, I was not surprised that his stat line looked as bad as it did. Last year he had the luxury of having both Dentmon and Roy act as facilitators on offense, and now that he is being asked to play this role, his lack of point guard skills is apparent. I hope he figures it out, because we do need his outside shot. Oliver had trouble with this as well, but he gets more of a free pass, since he's a freshman and this was his first real game.

It looks like our go to lineup right now is Hawes, Brockman, Pondexter, Perry and Dentmon. This group plays great D and the chemistry between Hawes and Brockman is beautiful. They both really understand offense, and Brockman probably got 10-12 points by anticipating the ball going to Hawes, cutting to the weak side of the basket, and putting in an easy layup on a nice feed from our center. Hawes is truely a special player, and even though he looked timid for some stretches, he was amazingly effective. I can't wait to see the numbers he puts up when he is strong enough to play 28 minutes a game. Pondexter is a great slasher, and is a beast in the open court. He has a great handle for his size and is a strong finisher. He does not look comfortable shooting from the outside, and his jump shot will be something to watch this year. That being said, you'll have to look hard to find a better starting frontcourt than Brockman/Pondexter/Hawes.

All in all, we'll take the win, and I'm looking forward to Nicholls State tonight.

Hawes #12

CHN, collegehoops.net, listed their inaugural top 100 players for this upcoming season. Spencer Hawes was number 12 in their power rankings, while Jon Brockman was #64. No other Husky was named. To read the complete list, click here.

Some notable Pac-10'ers: Aaron Afflalo UCLA #11, Marcus Williams Arizona #20, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute UCLA #31, Chase Budinger Arizona #33, Gabe Pruitt USC #35 (academically ineligible), Nick Young USC #42, Malik Hairston Oregon #66, Ayinde Ubaka California #74.

Not bad representation from the Pac-10.

Hawes back next Wednesday!

Read more here! All I have to say is Thank God!

Specer Hawes: Don't scare me like that

UW's Hawes to have knee surgery. I don't think I was the only fan whose heart paused momentarily upon reading this headline in the Seattle PI. I've feared this ever since we signed The Big Man. Fortunately, it looks like a minor scope job, and he is still expected to play in the opener.

As everyone knows, the Hawes family has long contributed to UW basketball. Beginning with his uncle, Steve Hawes, who averaged over 20 and 10 each of his 3 years at UW and went on to have a 10 year NBA career, and Spencer's dad, Jeff Hawes, Spencer now extends their legacy. Even with the dominant numbers Steve Hawes put up, it appears that Spencer has an even higher ceiling, and if it wasn't for a generational talent in Greg Oden, he would have unquestionably been the #1 center prospect in the nation last year (and maybe even the best center in college basketball this year). He is the second consecutive best of the west winner to go to UW (Brockman won it the year before - former winners include Paul Pierce and Jason Kidd), and given that our new small forward, Quicy Pondexter, was the #16 ranked recruit in the nation this year, one could argue that we have the most talented starting front line in the nation.

Hawes was fortunate to play for the U18 national team, coached by Lorenzo Romar himself, which happened to win their international championship this year. He was one of the best players on the team, filling it up with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks in the final against Argentina. This summer he also played on the Seattle team at the Rucker Park tournament that lost in the finals, with the likes of Nate Rob, BRoy, Jamaal Williams, and Jamal Crawford (scoring 22 points and grabbing 18 boards in their 92-85 overtime semifinal victory). Needless to say, I can't wait to see him in husky purple and gold.

With the addition of Hawes, I wonder how this year's UW team plays. Romar has never had a true post presence before, and this will be the first time that he has a size advantage against opposing teams. Although I doubt we will slow it down, we now have the foundation for a solid half court offense, which will better equip us to deal with slow it down teams like the Cougs. As for numbers for Spencer this year, I really don't know. My guess is this:
13 points
8 rebounds
1 assist
2 turnovers
1.5 blocks