Joe has made some mistakes, sure?but the people solely blaming him are crazy.
We have had 20 point leads in both games and the players choked?mainly our *best player* and we have lost by a combined 4 pts
Tatum has shot just 29% from the field (12-of-42) and 25% from three-point range (5-of-20) through two games. He has attempted only nine free throws while committing eight turnovers in the series. Tatum had a PER of 29.1 in the first round and just 11.2 in the first two games of the second round.
Almost solely on this bum?.if he plays even average we are going to New York up 2-0
I liked what Roy said on the previous page:
In evaluating coaches, I don't think you ask "is he the reason we lost?"
Rather, it's "did he put us in the best position to succeed?"
To me the main role of the coach is to prepare the players to put them in the best position to succeed, and assist them from the sideline as they play the game. From the post game interviews clearly Joe thinks his plan, which is the same plan he's basically had this team execute for 3 years, is a good one. He kept talking about failure to execute, by missing open shots and live ball turnovers. So I think the questions we should be asking are:
1. Is Joe's plan the best plan for this team to be successful?
2. If yes, did the players execute the plan to the best of their ability?
3. If no, did Joe make changes to the plan and develop a new one, or have a fallback, that the players, being unable to execute his original plan, could execute better?
I think the first question is very subjective and we've discussed it ad nauseum on this forum. Clearly Joe (and Brad) have a scheme where they feel a perimeter barrage is what will bring the team success. Even if you shoot 30% the sheer volume of 3s you take will overwhelm teams because of the volume. Supporters will say that it's the plan that brought them a championship and a 61 win season this season. Detractors will say it's too reliant on the ball going in the hoop (yes I know it's basketball and the goal is to make the ball go in the hoop), and that it failed in 2023. You could make arguments each way, and we all have, so I won't belabor the point.
To answer the 2nd question I tried to look at the stats for both games, from an overall perspective and then focusing on Q4. Here's what I found after digging into NBA.com's Advanced Box Scores:
I don't think there's any question whatsoever that there was a failure to execute from the players. They shot 35% overall, 25% from 3 for both games...even in game 2 their 2FG% was down to 44%. The Knicks shot better than us, they were more reliant on the 3 for their points in Game 1 where Anunoby kept getting open and killed us, while in Game 2 we struggled to guard Towns and Mitchell, while Hart burned us in transition. Interestingly in Game 2 we actually scored as many points in the paint as NY with their double big lineup did.
As we all saw our execution got worse in the 4th quarters of each game, we shot 19% overall in G1 (33% from 2 and 13% from 3) while the Knicks shot 40% (20% from 2 but 60% from 3). So they hit some big 3s in the last quarter of G1 which killed us. In G2 we shot 20% overall, 23% from 2 and 18% from 3. They shot 50%, 65% from 2 and 30% from 3.
The 3rd question is where I think Joe has to take some responsibility. We can argue that the reduction in 3pt volume from G1 to G2 (60 to 40) shows some adjusting from G1 to G2, and in the the 4th quarter of G2 we took twice as many 2s as we did in Game 1 (we just happened to miss 78% of them). But NY scored 10 points in the paint in the 4th, and none of them were from turnovers. I know KP was sick, but was there a substitution we could have done? Those 10 PITP that NY scored were on Horford and Holiday.
And obviously something that doesn't show up on the stats was his decision to foul Robinson to get him out of the game. If you have to give up fouls to get someone out of the game there's obviously a problem with your defensive execution, but it left the team with no fouls to give when Brunson scored what ended up being the game winning free throws. And there's obviously also the decision to repeat the same play that had worked a few possessions before - it didn't help that Tatum screwed it up twice, but NBA coaches are pretty smart and Thibs would have been on the lookout for it.
But I think end of day, while Joe has culpability, we can't hide from the fact that our players collectively laid giant eggs on national TV twice in a row. And they choked in the 4th quarter. They weren't even making 2s, even though they were shooting a lot more of them. With this performance, it doesn't really matter what the plan is, if you shoot that bad no plan will work. They have to take the lion's share of blame, and have a good look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves if this is the way they want to go out.
Topic: Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching (Read 706432 times)