Trailblazers @ Wolves, 7:00pm CST

[LesGrossman]

Smitch can't coach for ****. I don't get how anybody can support this clown. He literally knows NOTHING about basketball. My brain hurts from all the dumb decisions he makes. Just get a real coach right now, fire the guy and get it over with.

Yea he knows nothing.

Fired from the Job right next year, right?

[alabamawolf]

What do you think happens on that play if Towns is playing instead of Prince?

The NBA has changed since Mitchell was the coach of the year. Golden State guarded Tony Allen with Andrew Bogut in the playoffs last year.

Al-Farouq Aminu is nowhere near the Tony Allen level, offensively.

meh they're pretty close.


edit: i didn't watch the game but it looks like he shot the ball well. Still not a fan of his offensive game

[Quentin]

You guys are a bunch of blind fanboys if you think the players had little or nothing to do with blowing this game. I guess its easier to scream Sam's name in vain but those players on the court let you down just as much as anything Sam did. No excuse for that third quarter.

Yep, they just let the Blazers come back in it and take the lead. At some point you have to just do it as players. Not Sam's fault. If they make shots when they needed to, nobody would be talking about Sam right now. This game was on the players 100%. Bench and Wiggins let the team down big time.

This made me laugh. A coaches JOB is to put the players on the court that are playing well. It's funny that you give Sam a pass for benching Karl (when he was playing well), but not benching other players based on what you say here. Can't make it up.

[cpfsf]

You guys are a bunch of blind fanboys if you think the players had little or nothing to do with blowing this game. I guess its easier to scream Sam's name in vain but those players on the court let you down just as much as anything Sam did. No excuse for that third quarter.

today i only got 5 hours of sleep. i'm not pointing fingers, but i think we all know sam is partly at fault.

[C.lupus]

You guys are a bunch of blind fanboys if you think the players had little or nothing to do with blowing this game. I guess its easier to scream Sam's name in vain but those players on the court let you down just as much as anything Sam did. No excuse for that third quarter.

Yep, they just let the Blazers come back in it and take the lead. At some point you have to just do it as players. Not Sam's fault. If they make shots when they needed to, nobody would be talking about Sam right now. This game was on the players 100%. Bench and Wiggins let the team down big time.

This made me laugh. A coaches JOB is to put the players on the court that are playing well. It's funny that you give Sam a pass for benching Karl (when he was playing well), but not benching other players based on what you say here. Can't make it up.

It's funny how that bolded statement works for you now but before this game everyone was bitching because he was playing Dieng over Towns because Dieng was playing better.

He played Towns for 31:50 minutes. He took him out for ONE play. That one play did not lose the game.

People here have been screaming for Towns to get more minutes. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play Dieng and Towns together. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play LaVine next to Rubio. He did that last night.
He finished the last 7:45 with Rubio/LaVine/Wiggins/Towns/Dieng, which is what everyone wanted.

Some of you guys will whine about anything he does.

[NewWolvesOrder]

He played Towns for 31:50 minutes. He took him out for ONE play. That one play did not lose the game.

under those circumstances, yes it did.

[Quentin]

Yep, they just let the Blazers come back in it and take the lead. At some point you have to just do it as players. Not Sam's fault. If they make shots when they needed to, nobody would be talking about Sam right now. This game was on the players 100%. Bench and Wiggins let the team down big time.

This made me laugh. A coaches JOB is to put the players on the court that are playing well. It's funny that you give Sam a pass for benching Karl (when he was playing well), but not benching other players based on what you say here. Can't make it up.

It's funny how that bolded statement works for you now but before this game everyone was bitching because he was playing Dieng over Towns because Dieng was playing better.

He played Towns for 31:50 minutes. He took him out for ONE play. That one play did not lose the game.

People here have been screaming for Towns to get more minutes. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play Dieng and Towns together. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play LaVine next to Rubio. He did that last night.
He finished the last 7:45 with Rubio/LaVine/Wiggins/Towns/Dieng, which is what everyone wanted.

Some of you guys will whine about anything he does.

Dieng was NOT! playing better than Towns. Towns was benched in the 4th quarters for no reason. You must be part of the country club. Must be.

[Klomp]

Dieng was NOT! playing better than Towns. Towns was benched in the 4th quarters for no reason. You must be part of the country club. Must be.

So you're saying that 2-11 > 4-6????

[NewWolvesOrder]

Dieng was NOT! playing better than Towns. Towns was benched in the 4th quarters for no reason. You must be part of the country club. Must be.

So you're saying that 2-11 > 4-6????

Huh? What?

[LesGrossman]

I was pretty surprised at the dimension of that lapse. How to defend the pnr is such a fundamental thing i cant believe that after the whole preseason and 1/4 of the season they are not on the same page. From the discussions afterwards it did indeed look like Dieng followed a different scheme (hedge vs. ice) which wasnt asked for.

Generally i felt like the big guys were doing a much better job defending screens than in past seasons. We didnt give up open shots nor drives for the most part, there was good temporary help with defending the rolling screener. Thats something that we wont see with Pek simply for his lack of footspeed.

[Klomp]

Dieng was NOT! playing better than Towns. Towns was benched in the 4th quarters for no reason. You must be part of the country club. Must be.

So you're saying that 2-11 > 4-6????

Huh? What?

Orlando game

[cpfsf]

Smitch can't coach for ****. I don't get how anybody can support this clown. He literally knows NOTHING about basketball. My brain hurts from all the dumb decisions he makes. Just get a real coach right now, fire the guy and get it over with.

Yea he knows nothing.

Fired from the Job right next year, right?

8-9 (.471) record with SM before being fired
25-40 (.384) raptors after firing SM

[LesGrossman]

Yea he knows nothing.

Fired from the Job right next year, right?

8-9 (.471) record before being fired midseason
25-40 (.384) raptors the rest of the season

Of course a team whose head coach is fired mid season will suffer. Whats your point? Just pointing out that this award is not all that meaningful. To be honest there are two or three guys who shoudl have gotten it every year but i guess Pop ran out of storage space for all those trophies.

[cpfsf]

Fired from the Job right next year, right?

8-9 (.471) record before being fired midseason
25-40 (.384) raptors the rest of the season

Of course a team whose head coach is fired mid season will suffer. Whats your point? Just pointing out that this award is not all that meaningful. To be honest there are two or three guys who shoudl have gotten it every year but i guess Pop ran out of storage space for all those trophies.

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/midseason-firings-kevin-mchales-placebo-effect/story?id=35285347

Over the last decade, not counting the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, there have been eight midseason coaching changes that roughly corresponded to Houston firing McHale. Specifically, those eight previous teams all had preseason lines that called for at least 41 wins -- meaning the playoffs were a realistic expectation -- and changed coaches in the first half of the season.

On average, those teams won 40.2 percent of their games before the change and 51.6 percent thereafter.

Of the eight teams, just two failed to improve their winning percentage.

[Reddy83]

Yep, they just let the Blazers come back in it and take the lead. At some point you have to just do it as players. Not Sam's fault. If they make shots when they needed to, nobody would be talking about Sam right now. This game was on the players 100%. Bench and Wiggins let the team down big time.

This made me laugh. A coaches JOB is to put the players on the court that are playing well. It's funny that you give Sam a pass for benching Karl (when he was playing well), but not benching other players based on what you say here. Can't make it up.

It's funny how that bolded statement works for you now but before this game everyone was bitching because he was playing Dieng over Towns because Dieng was playing better.

He played Towns for 31:50 minutes. He took him out for ONE play. That one play did not lose the game.

People here have been screaming for Towns to get more minutes. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play Dieng and Towns together. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play LaVine next to Rubio. He did that last night.
He finished the last 7:45 with Rubio/LaVine/Wiggins/Towns/Dieng, which is what everyone wanted.

Some of you guys will whine about anything he does.

I was happy to finally see that lineup, it's a good one. They didn't play well, but having Dieng and KAT together is a great way to balance offense and defense with the bigs. Hoping we use that lineup more to close out games this year.

[LesGrossman]

8-9 (.471) record before being fired midseason
25-40 (.384) raptors the rest of the season

Of course a team whose head coach is fired mid season will suffer. Whats your point? Just pointing out that this award is not all that meaningful. To be honest there are two or three guys who shoudl have gotten it every year but i guess Pop ran out of storage space for all those trophies.

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/midseason-firings-kevin-mchales-placebo-effect/story?id=35285347

Over the last decade, not counting the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, there have been eight midseason coaching changes that roughly corresponded to Houston firing McHale. Specifically, those eight previous teams all had preseason lines that called for at least 41 wins -- meaning the playoffs were a realistic expectation -- and changed coaches in the first half of the season.

On average, those teams won 40.2 percent of their games before the change and 51.6 percent thereafter.

Of the eight teams, just two failed to improve their winning percentage.

Sample size of eight, one of which were the raptors? Nah, not buying, sorry. Still waiting to hear your actual point. Wether they performed after Mitchell firing or not relevant anyway; people who saw him work every day decided to lay him off early in the season, and it was clear that they'd get under fire for that decision after he got the award but they thought its THAT urgent. Meanwhile the raptors are doing just fine without him. That is what we should think about. He didnt get another head coach job afterwards and is in some way benefitting from the unfortunate departure of Flip. That is what we should think about.

[LesGrossman]

This made me laugh. A coaches JOB is to put the players on the court that are playing well. It's funny that you give Sam a pass for benching Karl (when he was playing well), but not benching other players based on what you say here. Can't make it up.

It's funny how that bolded statement works for you now but before this game everyone was bitching because he was playing Dieng over Towns because Dieng was playing better.

He played Towns for 31:50 minutes. He took him out for ONE play. That one play did not lose the game.

People here have been screaming for Towns to get more minutes. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play Dieng and Towns together. He did that last night.
People have been wanting to play LaVine next to Rubio. He did that last night.
He finished the last 7:45 with Rubio/LaVine/Wiggins/Towns/Dieng, which is what everyone wanted.

Some of you guys will whine about anything he does.

I was happy to finally see that lineup, it's a good one. They didn't play well, but having Dieng and KAT together is a great way to balance offense and defense with the bigs. Hoping we use that lineup more to close out games this year.

I believe Dieng with his recent improvement* is a decent backup center in case Pek isnt really returning. For our premium linueup i'd much rather see Bielica out there. Dieng is simply not good enough on defense to justify sitting more talented people, and KAT, despite being able to shoot from outside, is a center, not a wing.



* he stopped trying to do stuff that he doesnt have in him, as pointed out quite often here. I believe that this, for example, should be credited to Mitchell - he may very well be a good training day coach, maybe an excellent one.

[Merc_Porto]

He finished the last 7:45 with Rubio/LaVine/Wiggins/Towns/Dieng, which is what everyone wanted.

Some of you guys will whine about anything he does.

He was desperate.
Only a desperate coach does that. Why ?
Let's see, he obviously doesn't like that lineup... During 3 quarters he doesn't play Lavine/ Rubio when everybody knows that Lavine is a **** 2 and not a PG.

He never plays Lavine/Rubio together or Dieng/Towns.

Sam is a Desperate man right now.
He doesn't know what to do. Never knew.

[Klomp]

He never plays Lavine/Rubio together or Dieng/Towns.

He just did.

[LesGrossman]

He never plays Lavine/Rubio together or Dieng/Towns.

He just did.

Do you really need someone to explain to you what the idea of taht post was, or are you trying to live up to your own signature?