Best in-series adjustment?

[Clangus]

What is the best in-series adjustment you have seen a coach/team make

Pippen on Magic
Payton on MJ (Games 4 and 5 '96)
spring to mind, but I was hoping to find something closer to now.

Suns going zone was also a good idea.


Please list the adjustment and the coach...

[Excellence]

Excluding this year, whenever Popovich starts Manu Ginobili.

[BossHoggin]

Mike Brown working his magic

[RoyceDa59]

2007 NBA finals, end of game 6 and all of game 7. Greg Popovich put Bruce Bowen on Chauncey Billups which ultimately lead to Billups getting blocked in the finals minutes and the Spurs closing out the championship. He knew the pulse of that Pistons team was Billups, and Mr Clutch had a long, strong, tough defender on him for the biggest game of the year. Ginobili guarded Prince and Parker chased around Hamilton. It was a bold and effective move by Pop. Gotta love it.

[RoyceDa59]

Mike Brown getting worked by the magic

[tsherkin]

2007 NBA finals, end of game 6 and all of game 7. Greg Popovich put Bruce Bowen on Chauncey Billups which ultimately lead to Billups getting blocked in the finals minutes and the Spurs closing out the championship. He knew the pulse of that Pistons team was Billups, and Mr Clutch had a long, strong, tough defender on him for the biggest game of the year. Ginobili guarded Prince and Parker chased around Hamilton. It was a bold and effective move by Pop. Gotta love it.

You're thinking of 2005. 2007 was SAS/CLE, and ended in 4 games, not 7.

[RoyceDa59]

Right you are Tyler, I meant 2005.

[tsherkin]

Right you are Tyler, I meant 2005.

Awesome series, though. Rooster loved it, grind-it-out, slow defensive ball. Made him cry thinking back to the Heat/Knicks matchups of the 90s...

[MagicMadness]

SVG playing Vince Carter in the 4th quarter and overtime of last night's game comes to mind. The move forced the Magic to play 4-on-5, to really EARN a hard fought victory on the road and extend the series despite Carter's best efforts.

[RoyceDa59]

Indeed it was a great series. I remember many complaints that it would be a defensive minded bore-fest, but it turned out to be an excellent series and it brought back memories of old school ball. After SA took a 2-0 series lead, everyone expected a blowout, but Detroit came back with a vengeance, and if it weren't for Duncan and Ginobili's heroics in OT of game 5, the entire landscape of great teams from this past decade may be entirely different.

There were plenty of memorable moments in that series. I remember in the first 5 minutes of game 1 when Detroit put the clamps on the Spurs defensively and it was a 17-8 (or something) lead. Pop called a time out and the camera zoomed in on his pitch: "Those are the defending champs out there! Opportunities like this don't come around very often and I'm not going to let you screw this up!" You could hear the fire in his voice. Spurs came back to win game 1 in a blowout fashion. Gotta love Pop.

I'll never forget in game 7 when the Spurs were down 9 with a few minutes left in the 3rd, biggest lead of the game, and Pop called a time out. Detroit non-chalantly walked off the court while the Spurs hustled over to the bench. I looked over to my brother and said "Detroit is going to relax ever so slightly and the Spurs are going to come back and win it." Pop put Bowen on Billups and the rest is, as they say, history.

One of the better finals series of the 2000's no doubt.

[tsherkin]

SVG playing Vince Carter in the 4th quarter and overtime of last night's game comes to mind. The move forced the Magic to play 4-on-5, to really EARN a hard fought victory on the road and extend the series despite Carter's best efforts.

Hey, he subbed him out at one point in the 4th when the announcers were saying he had a tough decision. He rode Redick while he could, which was a solid move...

I don't know that I'd rip on Stan for this fiasco of an ECF series, though. I mean, there are some things he might have done a little differently, but on the whole, the players are the issue.

Game 1: 41.6% FG, 22.7% 3P, 19/26 FT, 90.4 pace
Game 2: 39.4% FG, 38.9% 3P, 29/38 FT, 88.3 pace
Game 3: 36.9% FG, 26.7% 3P, 15/18 FT, 85.4 pace
Game 4: 44.6% FG, 35.7% 3P, 20/33 FT, 85.1 pace

What can a coach do to overcome that? They're being consistently held below their comfort zone in pace, they're inconsistent from downtown, and apart from Game 4, almost the entire team has been inconsistent from the floor. Carter's been consistently bad the entire playoffs as far as shooting. So have Barnes and Jason Williams.

What can SVG do about that?

[MagicMadness]

Oh no, don't get me wrong. I have very little problem with SVG this series. Besides Game 3, the Magic's other first two losses were by a combined 7 points, and I thought he did a fine, steady job. I was especially impressed last night that instead of throwing in the towel, he and the coaching staff actually came up with a plan to use Nelson much more effectively, which in turn led to him having a very good game as both a scorer and as a facilitator.

But Carter was absolutely atrocious last night. With Redick playing so consistently well this series, especially last night, I felt that there was no reason to keep Carter in the game at any point past the 3rd quarter. We were down 3-0 in the series. There's no more time for "What ifs?" like "What if Carter gets clutch at the end and goes into Closer mode?" You don't take chances at that point, you ride the horses that are working THAT night, and I completely disagree with having Carter in there late guarding Pierce and Allen (Magic were using a switch defense at that point) out on the perimeter.

[MaxRider]

on top of my head

T-Mac on Dirk (2005 Dallas-vs-Houston)
Pippen on Stockton (1998 Utah-vs-Chicago)
fronting Yao (2009 Portland-vs-Houston)

[BadNFluenz]

Stephen Jackson on Dirk (2007)

[tsherkin]

But Carter was absolutely atrocious last night. With Redick playing so consistently well this series, especially last night, I felt that there was no reason to keep Carter in the game at any point past the 3rd quarter.

True enough, I suppose. I guess they were hoping that he'd get rolling, which he does sometimes. Doesn't take much to flip that switch when it happens. I liked that drive he had where the refs wimped out and no-called it, the one where he went for the huge jam left-handed? But yeah, he was pretty terrible all game.

[LAKESHOW]

tyrone lue on AI

[snaquille oatmeal]

Tim Donaghy on Sacramento by David Stern

[MagicMadness]

True enough, I suppose. I guess they were hoping that he'd get rolling, which he does sometimes. Doesn't take much to flip that switch when it happens. I liked that drive he had where the refs wimped out and no-called it, the one where he went for the huge jam left-handed? But yeah, he was pretty terrible all game.

Yeah, I liked him taking it to the hoop on that play - he definitely should have received a foul call.

Also, like you said, Van Gundy was probably hoping that Carter would get rolling, which he does...sometimes. And that was what irritated me so much last night. There's no more "sometimes". This is it. We're down 3-0. Redick is playing great, has been playing great, yet we stick with a guy that is 1-9 on the offensive end, has committed 3 turnovers, and is letting his man blow by him on the defensive end.

Not only that, but we have him guarding on the perimeter in overtime against the likes of Pierce and Allen. We won in spite of Vince Carter last night. And I'm not a Carter hater. I want him to succeed, I like him a lot. But when he doesn't have it...more often than not these days he simply CANNOT flip that switch anymore.

I rarely disagree with SVG, because he's a damn good coach and I'm just some dude on a message board. But I was literally screaming at my TV down the stretch because Carter was screwing up everytime he was anywhere near the ball. He just didn't have it last night; cut your losses and get Redick in there.

[AntiSuperstar]

Pippen on Stockton (1998 Utah-vs-Chicago)

What I remember most was Jackson putting Pippen on Ostertag that series. Whenever Utah would try running a pick and roll or something Pippen would roam off Ostertag and harass Stockton. And when Stockton dribbled away from the pressure to get the angle for a pass to Ostertag, Pippen was already back on him. That adjustment completely shut down Utah's offense. Pippen was one of a kind. Best perimeter defender of all time and it's not even close.

[tsherkin]

Also, like you said, Van Gundy was probably hoping that Carter would get rolling, which he does...sometimes. And that was what irritated me so much last night. There's no more "sometimes". This is it. We're down 3-0. Redick is playing great, has been playing great, yet we stick with a guy that is 1-9 on the offensive end, has committed 3 turnovers, and is letting his man blow by him on the defensive end.

Agreed; subbing Vince was the right move and it should have happened earlier. But sometimes a coach sees something that we don't, you know? Or knows something about a player, or perhaps the plays he's having run in order to get the guy going, right? If Vince DOESN'T get going, however, this series is definitely over, because they're not going to win 3 straight the way they did Game 4. So maybe he was trying to see if Vince had the juice to help them do what no team has ever done before in basketball?

I don't know, maybe I'm affording SVG more foresight than he had and he was just hoping Vince would get it done for that one night. But yeah, watching Vince play these days is really not that great.