My issue with Brad is that he didn't pull the third stringers out of the game fast enough - he allowed the Lakers to cut the lead to single digits before subbing our starters back into the game.
Brad is a player's coach first and foremost. Doubtless he subbed in those young men to give them an opportunity to earn some playing time, or to try and showcase themselves to stay in the NBA next year. Also he probably wanted to reward his starters and rotation players by sitting them early at the end of a 3 game road trip, and reward those end of bench guys who probably work hard in practice but never see the court. What he didn't expect was for them to implode with consecutive turnovers, fouls and poor decision making.
Here's the timeline for the subs. At the time the Fakers had this team on the floor: Cacok (2.4ppg), McKinnie (3ppg), Antetokounmpo (0.8ppg), Horton-Tucker (8.7ppg), McLemore (10.6ppg)
- 7:01 - Wagner checks in for Kornet, score is Celtics lead 113-86 (27 point lead)
- 6:16 - Nesmith checks in for GWill, score is 113-89 (24 point lead)
- 5:33 - Waters checks in for Pritchard, Ojeleye checks in for Langford, score is 113-89 (24 point lead)
Between 5:33 and 1:50 (3:37) Wagner, Nesmith, Waters, Ojeleye, and Edwards gave up 17 points, turned the ball over 5 times (3 to Wagner with offensive foul, traveling and bad pass), 1 to Edwards (traveling), 1 to Waters (bad pass), committed 4 fouls, and shot 1-5. And this was with Brad calling (others would call it wasting) a timeout with 3:29 to go with the score 115-102.
Finally Brad had enough after the Fakers scored 6 more points in the 1:41 after his timeout and he put his Big 3 back in along with GWill and Kornet. Clearly to try and make a point.
- 1:50 - Kornet checks in for Edwards, GWill checks in for Wagner, Jaylen checks in for Nesmith, Smart checks in for Waters, Tatum checks in for Ojeleye, score is 115-108 (7 point lead)
So looking at the sequence of events above, I'm not sure on what planet Brad takes the blame over and above the players who were on the court from the 7:01 mark to the 1:50 mark. The lead was nearly 30 points against the Fakers 3rd string. Cacok, McKinnie, the baby Antetokoumnpo, these guys play like 5 mins a game. And Horton Tucker and McLemore are hardly LeBum and AD. They're not even Kuzma and KCP. Vogel had raised the white flag long ago. So we're going to blame Brad for not leaving starters or rotation players in against these guys? He's trying to preserve players for the playoffs. Imagine the outrage if someone gets injured, whether it's a starter or a key player like Pritchard or Langford. The outrage would be far, far greater than the stick Brad is taking right now for putting in guys who he wants to try to give some playing time that would ordinarily never see the court, some opportunity in case we DO get injuries and these guys have to play more minutes than they are right now.
I know Brad gets a lot of hate and criticism here, more so because the team has performed poorly this season. But honestly, we have many other, more valid things to blame him on than this. He didn't do anything that 99% of other coaches wouldn't do: sub in reserves during a blowout to give them some PT and an opportunity to earn more PT; call a timeout to compose those guys, who were probably panicking because they haven't been in a garbage time situation where the other team (of 3rd stringers too) make a run; give them an opportunity to dig themselves out of the hole they created and hopefully avoid having to send his starters back out there and increase the risk of them getting injured; and finally making the decision to send them back out there to preserve the victory.
Hindsight is 20/20 and it probably felt different to us who were watching the Fakers catch up in real time but if you look at the sequence of events above, in my humble opinion there has to be some personal responsibility, and it rests with the 5 guys who were on the court and who ended up with +/- of -17 and -20 when everyone else was a +11 to +20 and Jaylen being a +36. And to me it's not even so much that they don't have the ability, sure they're end of bench guys but they're playing other end of bench guys. They came in thinking it was going to be Gino time cakewalk and they got a rude surprise, and Brad gave them every opportunity to get themselves out of it before he had to step in to preserve the win.
In any case, way too much time has been taken hashing this unsavory end to the game (including by me
) it's a shame it's taken away from what has been a great road trip and a solid run by the team. We have our two stars firing on all cylinders and the rest of the team, end of benchers aside, seems to be heading in the right direction. And this has all happened without Fournier, so there's only more upside to go.
Topic: Celtics (29-26) at Lakers (34-21) Game #56 4/15/21 (Read 45020 times)