Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching

[jpotter33]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

[Moranis]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

Al was +11 tonight. Led the team.

[green_bballers13]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

KP is out and Kornet prob had his best playoff game yet.

[Goldstar88]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

Horford played 28 mins. He didn’t have a good game, but Joe is going to stick with Al in the end as he is one of the leaders of this team and he trusts him.

[jambr380]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

KP is out and Kornet prob had his best playoff game yet.

Kornet had a couple nice offensive rebound put backs in the first half, but he was just horrible out there. Unplayable. If Joe likes what Al brings, then I don't know why he doesn't go to more of it with Tillman.

At least he didn't play Horford 39 minutes like he did last game.

[Roy H.]

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

[jpotter33]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

Al was +11 tonight. Led the team.

An excellent example of why individual +/- games are the absolute worst metric to use to gauge a player's performance. No person in their right mind watched that game and thought that Al was an essential part of putting up 11 more points during his time on the floor tonight.

Beyond the defense, offensively he doesn't even really create spacing anymore given how poor he's shooting. They're playing more off of him than I've ever seen.

[blink]

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

Horford was getting toasted over and over again against Garland though, gotta try something else, even for short bursts.
Give him a different look, save a foul...??

[jpotter33]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

KP is out and Kornet prob had his best playoff game yet.

Not sure where this is coming from. He wasn't quite as bad as Al, but he was also a huge mismatch opportunity, as well as not securing a few key boards leading to second chance points.

He definitely had some better games in the Heat series before this.

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

This is the only logical rationale I can see, though that doesn't make it correct by any means. Plenty of coaches (think Thibs) get over-reliant on their main guys in the playoffs, and it usually doesn't end well.

[CelticSooner]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

Al was +11 tonight. Led the team.

An excellent example of why individual +/- games are the absolute worst metric to use to gauge a player's performance. No person in their right mind watched that game and thought that Al was an essential part of putting up 11 more points during his time on the floor tonight.

Beyond the defense, offensively he doesn't even really create spacing anymore given how poor he's shooting. They're playing more off of him than I've ever seen.

Cleveland and anyone else for that matter are crazy if they don't sag off him. If he gets hot and beats you so be it. The more and more minutes he piles up the less effective he will continue to be on both ends of the floor though. Mazzulla isn't thinking about this rationally, there are two more potential series left to go and he's going be completely useless if it doesn't change.

[jpotter33]

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

Horford was getting toasted over and over again against Garland though, gotta try something else, even for short bursts.
Give him a different look, save a foul...??

And when he played X early in the series, he played really well and was part of a big run due to increasing the perimeter defense and not having to rely on the extreme drop coverage and/or switching to create a mismatch.

[tenn_smoothie]

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

And that is one more tendency of Joe's that makes him a bad coach and could well contribute to another playoff failure. Why did we even bother acquiring Tillman ? This is the exact circumstance we got him for.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

And that is one more tendency of Joe's that makes him a bad coach and could well contribute to another playoff failure. Why did we even bother acquiring Tillman ? This is the exact circumstance we got him for.

I think its more about the matchups. He likes Kornets length and heft against an undersized Cavs team. And Horford has the experience.

[ozgod]

Joe doesn't trust Tillman yet.  I think it's a mistake not to play him, but Joe usually sticks with who he knows.

That's the conclusion I came to in the game thread as well. He obviously doesn't trust X or Q to do what we the fans think they should be capable of doing. He trusts Luke but not those guys, at least not when the game is still in question. He's had a number of opportunities to play them so there's something he and his staff are seeing that we are not. Maybe it's  a lack of chemistry with the other players, or they have to think about where they need to be in the defensive scheme as opposed to just being there, or Al is one of the leaders when it comes to calling where people should be, or they want someone who the Cavs can't cheat off defending on the perimeter, or any number of things.

Or Joe could just be an idiot, and since this is the Fire Joe thread, that's also more than likely 

[Moranis]

Okay, educate me on the Al stuff. What is the rational argument for Joe continuing to rely so heavily on Al when he has been so bad on both ends and is ultimately just a mismatch target and opportunity for the Cavs at this point? They're only going to beat us with a ton of threes, so what sense does it make to continuously grant them open three point opportunities every possession by virtue of playing our immobile bigs? How do you not even try X in a game like tonight or last game, despite him playing very well in the limited minutes in games one and two?

Al was +11 tonight. Led the team.

An excellent example of why individual +/- games are the absolute worst metric to use to gauge a player's performance. No person in their right mind watched that game and thought that Al was an essential part of putting up 11 more points during his time on the floor tonight.

Beyond the defense, offensively he doesn't even really create spacing anymore given how poor he's shooting. They're playing more off of him than I've ever seen.

Or maybe you are underestimating his defense.  Mobley, for example, had 13 of his 19 points when Horford was on the bench.  Garland also picked up his scoring a lot when Al was on the bench, because there was a lot more room for him to operate. Kornet is just a bad defender. He got torched, while Horford knows where to be and when to be their defensively.  That stuff matters a lot, especially to playing winning basketball.