bstein14 wrote:Ivey's effort on defense has been much better. It is certainly possible that Monty was trying to get Ivey to increase what he was providing on that end of the floor. I don't mind benching players for bad defense because we need accountability. On offense, having Ivey/Ausar sit in the corners waiting to catch a three ball as much as they have been given their athletic abilities has been a mistake for sure. I feel like Monty did that in Phoenix because he had great shooters but he didn't really adapt his coaching offense as well as he should have for the group of players he inherited. It's a learning process all around but you'd expect more of him having watched film on the guys from the previous year and trying to do a bit more to put them in position to succeed out there instead of just thinking everyone needs to catch and shoot while Cade goes one on one and tries to break down the defense.
Yeah, it would certainly be more reasonable if Monty was really like “no blow by guys” and stuck to it. If you saw Cade and Bojan getting benched for the same or worse issues on that end and REALLY made it about accountability instead of just holding one guy to a different standard.
He did the same thing to Ausar with TO’s. Benched him for the TO’s while Cade was at the height of his sloppily turnovers this season and we never saw the demotion and never took the ball out of his hands.
Obviously the offensive role with Ivey was purely Monty just not knowing his personnel. Pretty clear that he likely didn’t watch any game film from last season or ask anyone about the strengths and weaknesses of the players he was about to coach.
You even watch the postgame press conference from last night and Monty didn’t say a positive word about JI even though he carried them to a win. Didn’t really even mention him other than saying something like “Burks got Ivey and Sass to calm down”. Obviously there’s some saltiness there. It’s bizarre and petty behavior from a guy Monty’s age and in his position.