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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 4731012, member: 12088"] Absolutely. Though I have wondered sometimes with Azzi in the first two years (or partial years) whether she too often passed up the shot a play was run to get her even though it was a decent shot. The hope to get "the best shot" with one more pass may sometimes undermine the rebounding setup that is built into a particular play. I've seen two versions of Geno's frustrations with this: 1) he publicly urged players two years ago to adopt more of a "just break off the play and go [to the rim]" mentality. Nika has been the recipient of this advice, but I think Azzi, too. Paige has always understood this as well as anyone in he history off the game. 2) he discourages prolonging the play to get an even better shot than planned. Without a creator like Paige on the floor, 2 can be deadly for an offense because the shot eventually taken (assuming there is one) is out of the flow. And by "flow" I mean the rest of the team expects the shot at one of the inflection points in the play they're running, and they know when to get position for a rebound. 1 doesn't suffer from this, since breaking off the play early to get a shot usually means midrange or closer and the need to have position for the rebound isn't quite as urgent. A "read and react" offense is built around the [B]communal[/B] improvisational skills of the whole team. But we haven't had a steady enough roster the last two years to develop this shared sense. This may be why he has focused more on 1, since mistakes in this mode are less deadly and demoralizing than passing around for 30 seconds and never getting "the best shot" or being stuck with an off-balance perimeter shot with no chance for a rebound. In the annals of the "read and react" offense, we've had a lot of great teams. The Gabby-Katie Lou-Phee years were particularly well-attuned to each other. They read each others' movements as well as the defense, knew when to make one more pass and when to break off the play. The beginning of this past season looked like it could recreate that magic, until Azzi went down, and then Dorka, etc. Nika was able (almost single-handedly!) to compensate for this a bit, but in the end we just were not a great "read and react" team by the end of March. I won't dwell on this sore subject. Think back to two seasons ago, when Paige came back in March, and even though it took a few games, they began to look like one of those teams, especially in the Indiana game. Well, Paige is coming back [B]again[/B], and it begins to look like we might have another inspired "read and react" squad. It's not just about who will be the pg, since everyone has to be ready to trigger the offense when we're really clicking. But it won't hurt to have Paige making lots of decisions, and Nika able to find Azzi Aubrey Q and Caroline in the clutch, and KK who seems to have a strong sense of when to break a play off and just go. [/QUOTE]

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