Will Doc Ever Coach a Team Out of the First Round?

[Who]

Make an adjustment already.  The Hawks made an adjustment.  It is working.  The Celtics respond by playing different lineups, but change nothing they do.

What adjustment did Atlanta make?

The more interesting question, what adjustment would you like Doc to make?

[EJPLAYA]

If all the defensive credit goes to Tom Tib, he should take the blame too for our lack of defense, wouldn't that be fair?

That's true Bud... Since everyone was giving all the props to Thibodeau for the coaching, he is the reason we lost this one. Doc doesn't even actually coach this team if you believe everyone's posts all year. He just is the cheerleader. Let's start a thread having TT get run out of town!

[ktw7]

"What ADJUSTMENTS do you guys think Doc should be making?! He is letting his stars play the game. Should he come out in Boston with a starting lineup of Perk, BBD, Posey, TA, and Sam?! He is playing his best guys the majority of the minutes and they are getting caught up in the emotion"


No, but he could use Tony Allen to guard Joe Johnson, and he could run some plays for Ray Allen in the 4th quarter rather than be entirely predictable and go to Garnett every play when garnett was 9 for 21 for the game and Ray was 8 for 14 (with 5 threes!).

[mahonedog88]

Without question he's gone if we lose this series...

And besides Larry Brown, I would actually love to see Tom Thibodeau step up and be the new coach if it happens.  You can always see Tom standing up with Doc whenever the team is on defense on his end, and he actually seems to have more energy on the sideline than Doc does

[vinnie]

Simple question:  Is it just a coincidence that Doc Rivers has never coached a team that won a playoff series? Regarding going to Garnett on almost every posession down the stretch, the best thing was the fact that KG basically had the entire Hawks' team guarding him on every one of those shots.  I just do not get what is happening here.  But, as I said after the last loss, I am really worried about this series.  I strongly believe right now that the Celtics could lose this series.  I do not think they will, but I would say right now they are no better than a 60 percent favorite to win the series.

[wdleehi]

Make an adjustment already.  The Hawks made an adjustment.  It is working.  The Celtics respond by playing different lineups, but change nothing they do.

What adjustment did Atlanta make?

The more interesting question, what adjustment would you like Doc to make?

They found a way to get Bibby open.  Bibby is getting the Hawks offense started. 

[BASSTHUMPER]

put scalabrine in to D that dude that looks like jaws from the james bond flixs...

[connerhenry43]

not going out there and sticking up for rondo after that punk josh smith knocked him into row 3 (and no foul was called, but that is par for the course for this series) was inexcueable.

hey doc, defend your team!

[rondohondo]

 I can see it now. Danny will do the Pat Riley thing and name himself head coach if Doc blows this series .

[Casperian]

Well, I think this one is to blame on the coaches.

34 consecutive points from two players! 34!

That wasn`t LeBron going nuts, that was frikkin Joe Johnson and Josh Smith. They scored most of their points with the same plays. I mean, that screams adjustments.

We took one bad three-pointer after another. Yeah, I blame the players for this, but Doc is the one who has to make the adjustments.

Where was Perk? We needed boards.

If you lose one game in our situation, you can say "Oh well, we had a bad night". But two?

[EJPLAYA]

"What ADJUSTMENTS do you guys think Doc should be making?! He is letting his stars play the game. Should he come out in Boston with a starting lineup of Perk, BBD, Posey, TA, and Sam?! He is playing his best guys the majority of the minutes and they are getting caught up in the emotion"


No, but he could use Tony Allen to guard Joe Johnson, and he could run some plays for Ray Allen in the 4th quarter rather than be entirely predictable and go to Garnett every play when garnett was 9 for 21 for the game and Ray was 8 for 14 (with 5 threes!).

If TA is in the game to guard JJ and you want plays run for Ray that means that Rondo is sitting on the bench. Who is going to get the ball to Ray in the right spot with that being the case. We know that TA can't run the floor. He can't even dribble. Rondo did have 12 assists with his poor shooting.

TA would have committed about 4 quick fouls on JJ and been sitting on the bench with more free throws.

How come no one is ripping the refs as usual?! 33 free throws to our 18?!

 I also blame KG and his elbows and shoves in that first half which gave them too much fire. You can't tell me that wasn't brought up in the half time speech.  I am surprised at how easy to anger he and PP are which has again haunted us. They need to look over at Ray and see how you should act. Cool all the time.

[keepthefaith]

This series is on Doc.  Doc has no excuse if the Celtics were to lose this.  One game lose in Atlanta, fine.  Two!!!  This team has no excuse. 



Make an adjustment already.  The Hawks made an adjustment.  It is working.  The Celtics respond by playing different lineups, but change nothing they do.






Listening to him right now is making me more and more upset. 


The Celtics offense was fine in the 4th.  The shots were good, they just didn't fall. 

The Defense was fine in the 4th.



This team is defense.  And they didn't play defense going into the 4th.  House should not have been in there.  Atlanta not longer had issues getting in to their offense. 


I would rather see Tony Allen in there at that point.  Keep the defensive pressure up.


This is where coaches are important.  And the Celtics just blew a 10 point lead to the Atlanta Hawks. 


Doc, step up.  You have to win one game in Atlanta if this team is ever to have a chance of winning a title.  Play like this after this round, Celtics go home early.

The big three played almost the entire game other than PP who missed a big stretch in the first half due to stupid fouls. Rondo played 35. Perk played 25, which is his season average. Powe came in and did nothing. Sam came in and as usual did nothing. House came in and was cold (which is exactly why I didn't want Sam taking his minutes.) He did nothing.

What ADJUSTMENTS do you guys think Doc should be making?! He is letting his stars play the game. Should he come out in Boston with a starting lineup of Perk, BBD, Posey, TA, and Sam?! He is playing his best guys the majority of the minutes and they are getting caught up in the emotion. They are the ones playing like the rookies, not Atlanta. He has changed matchups defensively. The players just aren't getting it done. Stop blaming Doc just because you don't like the guy. He isn't the one missing the shots.

Think about this. If you had said we would have outrebounded them  this game, including 15-8 on the offensive boards, turned it over 10 times vs. their 17, and they went 4-18 from the floor, wouldn't you think we'd blow them out?! Had KG, PP, Rondo hit their shots we would have. Put the blame where it rightly lies. Doc put the stars in a position to win and Ray Allen was the only one that stepped up to the plate.

You think the only way a coach can make adjustments is with his rotation? You have a lot to learn. You are right, shots were not falling for the Pierce and KG as much as usual, but thats also because the game was getting out of hand and they felt that needed to force things. A good coach would bark out a series of plays for the team to settle into and not allow them to continue to play one on one. Its not like he cant tell his players what to do. Maybe the reason the Celts are so good at converting on plays coming out of timeouts is because thats all Doc ever talks about in timeouts, maybe he should spend more time describing whats going wrong and how they can adjust fix the problem.

[wdleehi]

i just wrote a big long post, and the site failed to upload it. ArrrggghH!

not in any mood to write again, so I will just ask, If the c's lose, is doc gone? I have to say yes.

Ainge assembled a great team. they did it in the regular season, but what doc has done in the playoffs has been, in my mind, predictable. he is a terrible, terrible coach, and he is the main reason they lost tonight.

so i will ask my fellow c's fans: if they lose two out of the next three, is doc gone?

There is no way this question should be coming up against the Hawks. 

There is no way the Celtics should lose to the Hawks. 



But if the unthinkable happens, with the age of this team, you have to make a change.

[gar]

Tony Allen would have worked but Ray Allen was hitting shots so do you take Rondo out and put Allen on Bibby? Worth a try - why House? Also give Garnett some rest. He stopped defending when he got in foul trouble and was gassed toward the end. Perkins played great and Powe was good on D.

[nickagneta]

Doc definitely deserves some of the blame for what happened tonight but he is not the only one that failed to do their best tonight.

Ray Allen couldn't stop Joe Johnson if there were two Ray Allens on the court.

Can someone please make free throws.

Defensive rebounding, it's called blocking out.

The refs made every ticky tack and sometimes even more blatantly questionable foul against the C's in the first half that they put the C's in foul trouble and led a serious turn in momentum every time they blew the whistle. I wrote down twelve bad calls from the end of the first quarter til just a couple of minutes left before the half. 12!!! That's one bad, wrong, or seriously questionable call a minute!!!

Doc screwed up by not switching Ray off Johnson. He screwed up playing Powe so much and Perk so little. Rondo was a freak and only had 35 minutes. And going big for the last 5 minutes would have been a lot more effective(Perk/Pierce/Posey/KG/Rondo) than that small crap lineup he put on the floor.

But he is not going to win in the eyes of the Doc Bashers. They wanted more Eddie and got it and then they whine that Eddie's cold because Doc has been sitting him. Eddie was useless tonight, maybe Doc knows what he's doing on that front. All the Doc Bashers wanted more Powe after the last game. You got more Powe and he was useless. You wanted no PJ and got it.

Doc is making adjustments. Adjustments the Doc Bashers have been calling for. And yet it is all his fault when those adjustments don't work because the players suck.

Realistically Atlanta beat the hell out of this team and everyone needs to share the blame.

Doc did not in any way lose this game all by himself.