letsgosuns wrote:Nash was successful before D'antoni, with D'antoni, and after D'antoni.
He was very successful, but certainly not to the same extent—except for when D'Antoni's former head honcho, Alvin Gentry, took over as Phoenix's head coach and more or less brought back D'Antoni's system.
letsgosuns wrote:D'antoni has never been successful without a Nash led Suns team. If you look at his coaching career besides coaching the Suns, it is atrocious. And it is not like he never had any good players.
He coached two other franchises to the playoffs, at least, and he inherited awful or problematic situations everywhere outside of Phoenix (to some extent even in Phoenix). See my penultimate post in this thread before this one (two posts before this one), where I discuss what D'Antoni was taking over in each spot.
letsgosuns wrote:He could not even do anything with a Lakers team that had Kobe, Gasol, Nash, Howard, and Metta World Peace when he could still play. Even when that team was healthy they did not play well. And with all those great defenders they were still a bad defensive team.
They went 40-32 (.556); how is that bad? Moreover, Bryant was thirty-four, Artest was thirty-three, Gasol was thirty-two, Howard was coming off back surgery and not as explosive as he had been in Orlando, and Nash turned thirty-nine in the middle of that season and was coming off a fractured leg.
First, most teams with that kind of age do not fare well defensively, for while aging players can fall back on skill and trickery offensively, their loss of lateral quickness and reaction time is difficult to overcome on defense. (In general, inexperienced young players and older players struggle the most on defense.) The Bulls during their second three-peat in the 1990s represented an exception to the rule. Artest and Howard, in particular, were not nearly the dominant defenders that they had once been.
Second, since a thirty-nine-year old Nash was not well-suited to chasing around quick point guards such as Russell Westbrook, Tony Parker, and Chris Paul, a thirty-four-year old Bryant—in his seventeenth NBA season—often needed to guard them, which was not an optimal situation, either. And with Howard coming off back surgery, he could not ably compensate for the penetration the Lakers allowed.
letsgosuns wrote:Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire were awesome before D'antoni was the coach. In fact, the Suns are lucky D'antoni was not the coach when Amare was a rookie because Amare probably never would have played since he could not hit a jump shot his rookie year.
A) Stoudemire did not shoot that many jump-shots in '03-'04, when D'Antoni took over, or '04-'05, either. Not until the '06-'07 season did he fully develop that jumper.
B) Marion and Stoudemire became much more efficient under D'Antoni. That leap in efficiency primarily occurred because of Nash, but also because of D'Antoni's system and what it did for Nash and how it spaced the floor and situated all these players to be as efficient as possible.
letsgosuns wrote:There are also two in-game coaching moves I will never understand what D'antoni did them for.
The first is taking out Kurt Thomas at the end of game five in 2007 against the Spurs when Amare and Diaw were suspended. It left the Suns scrambling on possessions and Bowen ended up getting a wide open three near the very end that won the game. He said he did it because he wanted more offense on the floor with James Jones who did nothing. Perfect example of D'antoni. Takes out his best frontcourt defender when he needs him most to put another three point shooter out there. Brilliant move right?
Without going back and studying the game film, I will not comment specifically on the substitution except to say that I do remember Thomas struggling offensively down the stretch, as was Nash. Inserting James Jones would have been as much about helping Nash, who misfired time and again in the fourth quarter of that game (probably because he was fatigued) as much as anything else. Perhaps you are correct in your criticism, but the Suns were really faltering offensively. The situation was not about D'Antoni wanting "more offense" so much as "some offense."
As for Bowen's open three, one can blame the small lineup, but one could also argue that Nash over-helped. In that situation, the Suns could have lived with the Spurs scoring a deuce, but a three was tough to come back from, and Nash left a notorious corner three-ball shooter open.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjmbJm7idkI[/youtube]
The play by Nash was not a bad one so much as it was not an ideal one. A better bet would have been to make Parker hit the floater against a challenge by Shawn Marion (or else make Parker pass the ball back to Duncan and give yourself a chance for a steal, deflection, or fumble) and live with the two-pointer even if you give it up.
letsgosuns wrote:The second is his choice to not foul in game one of the 2008 playoffs against the Spurs when the Suns were up by three at the end of regulation AND overtime. What happens? Finley hits a three and ties the game in regulation and Duncan hits a three and ties the game in overtime. Should have fouled them and not given them a chance to tie. Make the game a free throw contest. You have Nash. He is one of the greatest free throw shooters of all time. But D'antoni would not do it.
Regarding the Finley three, the Spurs inbounded the ball with 20.5 seconds remaining. To start sending a Spur to the foul line with that much time on the clock would have constituted a dubious strategy—there was too much time remaining, and you are not always going to be able to inbound the ball to Nash. Had there been ten less seconds on the clock, I would agree with you, but with 20.5 seconds left, the Suns might have needed to foul the Spurs six more times or something, which would have meant that San Antonio would have needed to commit about six more fouls, and Nash would not always have been the one going to the line. At some point, you have to play defense; you cannot just start fouling with that much time on the clock.
The Finley three occurred because Amar'e Stoudemire suffered characteristic defensive lapses, both physical and mental. He got out of position with his body so that he could not properly track what was happening along the baseline, and then he seemed to play Finley for a cut into the lane instead of a three (even though the Suns were up by three and could afford to allow a deuce). Thus he failed to switch onto Finley as the San Antonio swingman curled off the baseline down-screen from the right corner. Perhaps by now I should again mention the reality that Stoudemire and Nash ranked among the least effective defenders in the game. One could understand Nash's decision the previous year on the Bowen three, but Stoudemire just blew it. When you are up by three, you can obviously afford to give up the two, so as a big man, you have to anticipate the three and and be in position to switch out on the three-point shooter. Stoudemire was just a terrible defender.
As for the Duncan three-pointer, you really do not expect Tim Duncan to shoot and hit a three, but viewing the film again, I have to question how Nash handled the play. Shaquille O'Neal made the correct decision to step out high and prevent Manu Ginobili from shooting the three, even if he allowed Ginobili to turn the corner as a result (which he did). With the Suns up by three, they could afford to allow Ginobili to score at the rim, especially since there would have only been six seconds or less on the clock afterwards, and, yes, Phoenix did have Nash to shoot free throws. (But, again, regarding the earlier situation, Nash would not necessarily have drawn the foul about six times in a row.)
So if O'Neal showed high on Ginobili, which was not easy for him to do or what he liked to do, but something that he indeed executed on this occasion, Nash should have quickly run back to Duncan. The San Antonio big man might have been able to hit a wide-open three, but he probably would not even have attempted the shot, and he almost certainly would not have hit it, with a player—even a short one—right up under his nose. And Nash might have also been able to apply the foul before Duncan went into his shooting motion.
Instead, Nash inexplicably trailed Ginobili down into the paint—almost into the lower semi-circle—to try and take away the layup or dunk, even though the Suns were leading by three points and could afford to allow the two with just a few seconds remaining. Nash just committed an inept play. He did a nice job of moving his feet, but he made the wrong decision, and that decision should have been an obvious one.
You can view both plays here:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEc8qJlYMzM[/youtube]
Nash should have pivoted back to Duncan with 7.5 seconds remaining at the very latest—by that point, Ginobili clearly was not going to get the three off against O'Neal, so Nash no longer needed to stay with Ginobili. Instead, he trailed Ginobili for another second and took himself out of the picture.
So whereas you fault D'Antoni left and right, I see two players in Nash and Stoudemire who committed blunder after blunder defensively. Now, did this result stem from D'Antoni not emphasizing defense enough? Perhaps, but Nash was obviously an intelligent player who was thirty-four and in his twelfth NBA season. Did he really need greater defensive preaching from D'Antoni to understand these sorts of time-and-score situations? Should Nash not have known that if O'Neal took away the three from Ginobili, he had to pivot back to Duncan in order to take away T.D.'s three and possibly foul? In Game Five in 2007, should Nash have really needed D'Antoni to understand that with close to forty seconds remaining in a tie-game, the Suns could afford to go down by two points, but going down by three would be perilous; that his assignment—Bruce Bowen—notoriously thrived on the corner three and should not be left open from there; and that if push came to shove, he should take his chances on the Spurs scoring a deuce and not stray too far away from Bowen?
Here is what I wrote to a friend on Wednesday, June 8, 2005, about a week after the 2005 Western Conference Finals had ended:
Part of the Suns' problem is that neither of their superstars, Stoudemire and Nash, are strong defensive players (in fact, they're both very weak, although Amare carries the potential to improve). Compare their situation with that of the nineties Bulls, who featured two superstars (Jordan and Pippen, obviously) who dominated on defense as well as offense.
Sadly, by 2008—or 2010, for that matter—that statement remained every bit as accurate and relevant.
Frankly, if one examines Suns' history, many of their offensive centerpieces—Tom Chambers, Charles Barkley, Steve Nash, Amar'e Stoudemire—were ineffective or unreliable defenders. (Chambers was the best defender of that lot, which is not a good sign.) Kevin Johnson and Jason Kidd played both ends effectively (although Kidd was not good enough as a scorer or a half-court player to be the best offensive player on a championship-winning team), but those other guys did not play both ends sufficiently well enough. People regarded Paul Westphal as a defensive liability, too, which partly accounts for why the Suns dealt him to Seattle in 1980 for gritty defensive guard Dennis Johnson. So when one considers why the Suns have never won a championship ... you have a large part of your answer right there.
By the way, the Suns' rankings in Defensive Rating (points allowed per possession) became much worse after D'Antoni departed.
Mike hasn't won much as a head coach without Nash. He also has yet to win a playoff game without Nash.