smokes
Huge Member
Even though I haven't been the biggest D'ant supporter in the past, I think he coached his tail-off last night. We played that entire second half with as Steve Kerr put it "Melo and a bunch of guys." When it looked like the game was going to get out of hand, our Knicks clamped down on defense and started making shots. The team didn't give up and some of that credit has to go to D'ant.
Now you can nit-pick that last play to death all you want. Melo got the quick double team and knew exactly where to go with it. It was up to JJ to just finish the play, like he had done just a couple minutes before, but he decides to over-pass in the ball in the lane. That's on JJ and I'm sure he couldn't sleep last night thinking about why he didn't just go up strong. But the play was there, JJ just needed to finish it.
I give MDA credit for a few things. One he has us here in the playoffs playing good basketball. Honestly I would never have expected this two months ago, I could never see us playing defense like this. I applaud MDA for this. But the guy cannot manage games.
There are 100 ways you can distribute the blame in this game, and yes the bottom line is we were extremely unfortunate, and should/could have won this game regardless of those coaching errors. But... WHY? Why should we have to put up with throwing countless games away in the final seconds? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE LOSSES CAN BE PARTIALLY ATTRIBUTED TO POOR COACHING!
Not fouling when we have a foul to give, awful substitution patterns, letting other teams go on huge runs against us without taking a time out or making any kinds of adjustments, and not being able to draw up a play to at least get us a LOOK at the last shot...
I mean jesus, sure other players get forced to take tough shots and miss them in game winning situations... At least their coach gets them a SHOT! Game 1 we had some wild 3 to try to win (when we only needed a 2 to tie), game 2 we didn't even get a shot attempt. I think it was Crazy who said it above at least other coaches know how to get their players a look.
Other people have said it too, you give the ball to your best player at center court... You don't push him towards the corner when he has no space to move! Go to youtube and watch some of Kobe, Lebron, Wade going to work on game winning shots under coaches like Phil, Stan VG, even Mike Brown and Spoelstra! These guys always make their move from the top of the key.
MDA "trusting his players" is just a shitty excuse and if it's not he needs to stop being so naive. Melo is not even a PG or a true playmaker. Give him the ball sure but to just let him run the whole play? What the hell?
I SMH so much about everything that happened the last 2 games and I still believe the referees are far more to blame than MDA. Game 1 we had Stat as the only guy on our team doing a great job. Game 2 we had Melo. When is MDA going to do a great job during an actual game?