treachery wrote:The KnicksFix wrote:Barcs wrote:It doesn't matter who your coach is when your 2 best scorers are complete liabilities on defense and you are surrounded by low basketball IQ players. I used to be annoyed when Thibs didn't want to take time outs when down one possession at the end of a game, but now I'm realizing it's because the players are so mistake prone, they likely won't get the ball in, let alone get a good shot attempt. These guys can't even keep track of the shot clock and commit so many awful fouls.
The problem is the talent, they don't mesh well, especially down the stretch when basically whoever touches the ball first takes the shot. Meanwhile you see Indiana having every player touch the ball on almost every possession. I swear Towns just gets that look in his eye and there could be 4 pacers standing in front of the rim and he'll still go at them. They simply can't work together because of the way the team is assembled. It's a bunch of egos, not a bunch of team first guys.
Josh Hart - All hart, no brains
KAT - a chucker who doesn't play defense and rarely looks to pass, shouldn't be a center
Bridges - Streaky shooter, decent defender, but doesn't seem to fit in and makes many boneheaded mistakes
OG - Elite defender, but seriously needs to stop trying to dribble. Stick to 3 & D
Jalen Brunson - Tries to do too much, doesn't pass enough and can't play defense.
Mitch Robinson - elite defender and rebounder, but can't play offense or even make free throws. Can only be used situationally due to hack-a-mitch
Thibs has to coach around all these personnel issues and I think he's doing great considering what he has to work with, not to mention they still need a good bench scorer to complete the team and have been missing such a piece all season. I also think that Jalen Brunson bailing them out constantly in the clutch masked a lot of the actual problems with this team and make people forget that this teams is absolutely gassed during the last 2 minutes of every single game and it's noticeable with the mistakes they make.
Word? So with all these liabilities, we were up 9 with 50 seconds to go in game 1, but where was our defensive lineup ? What told Thibs to re insert Brunson when he had 5 fouls and 6 minutes to go with us up 16 at the end of that game?
What told Thibs to go into the fourth quarter down 6, call timeout down 12 and come back out of the timeout with the SAME LINEUP WHICH INCLUDED CAM PAYNE.
What told Thibs to not call timeout down 3 at the end of game 2 and we drew up no play other than Brunson chucking up a contested 3, where we had a timeout to use and settle a play.
What told Thibs to go back to play Josh hart 36 minutes when he had 5 turnovers, and mikal who kept bricking shot after shot, yet Delon was on the bench, and deuce who has the highest +/- in the series only played 15 minutes ?
What told Thibs to not develop a bench all year, kolek pac and huk can’t see the light of the court and can’t even make a mistake once because they’re benched for another month.
What are you talking about ?
People sneer- but if you developed Kolek as the 'beautiful basketball' backup, it would be such a refreshing change of pace that we could be employing right now.
Someone who gets shooters shots in rythmn, runs a silky pick and roll, is totally unselfish.
When these guys start flowing, everything unlocks- I think Kolek could have been key to that.
But, no- we get this senile old bum completely fumbling our first chance at the Finals since a friggin' different century.
Blew it.
Yes Thibs gets us to tear our hair out so we look like him! BUT we are in the ECF. This might be his ceiling; I'll go with Leon's take. But he does deserve some props for us even being here after the previous 30 F*Ck*ng years. Gold watch him; kick him upstairs or get him better players and an "offensive co-ordinator" but can't just sh*t on him.
RIP mags