Doc and his brain cramp

[Red2]

It's been a while since I got on Doc about coaching but last night he pulled a major brain freeze at the end of the game and in OT. Eddie and Leon were both having superb games- much better games than Perk and Baby yet Doc leaves both of those guys out there from 4:22 to go in regulation to the end of the game. The result was that only Pierce and Allen were on the floor to score and Ray was MIA and Paul was either turning it over or getting to the line and missing his free throws ( we wouldn't be having this conversation right now if Pierce makes his free throws down the stretch). Certainly there is a lot of blame to go around for last night's loss and in the end we lost to the best team in the western conference by 1 point in OT when we were missing our best inside player along with Scalabrine who has size and can guard odom. So I'm not devasted by the loss but I do think that Doc didn't give his team the best opportunity to win. What has Perkins done since he came back from injury? he is a complete offensive liability. I thought baby and Leon were much better than Perk and baby last night. And then there's eddie who was absolutely on fire. How the F do you sit him down. eddie played fishher well so I could make a pretty good case for playing eddie over rondo in OT even though rondo did hit an early layup. With eddie spreading the floor paul would have had a lot more room to operate. But with no offense from perk, rondo or baby the lakers coud help off of them on pierce and ray. doc played right into thier hands

[Bad-Thoma]

I was scratching my head too, but I'm sure even Aurbach had a strategy or 2 that didn't go as planned.

[sully00]

You do realize there are two sides to a basketball court. Who is Eddie House going to guard in half court set? Are you going to sit Rondo who scored one and assisted on the other 3 baskets of overtime?

Sure one maybe two too many shots for Big Baby but he was open, he also did a good job on Odom defensively, Perk got beat by Gasol, no shame the dude is a great scorer. Leon Powe had a nice game but he can't guard either of those two guys in the half court and he can't post them up.

People just need to be smarter about analyzing what happens on the court. If the Lakers go with Sasha than the Boston can counter with Eddie but you can't go with Eddie as your primary ball handler against Fisher and Bryant.

The only way you can find out if Baby can be that guy to pick up the slack is if you give him the chance he made a big bucket on a bad shooting night and got the next one blocked. Baby hits it and Doc is a genious.

[GreenDreamer]

There are a few problems with this line of thinking

1. Playing well against the SECOND UNITS of other teams doesn't necesarily translate into playing well against the first units. Doc has had to learn this one the hard way. He used to try and go with Eddie when he was hot, but it almost always backfired on him. Eddie's lack of defense, ball handling ability and the one dimensional nature of his offensive game made and makes it a low percentage move. Hell, Jordan Farmar was killing him out there at the beginning of the 4th.

The one time he tried to do it this season, vs the Nuggs, it turned into a fiasco. He had Rondo at the scorers table with the game deadlocked. Eddie hit a three, Doc sat Rondo back down.... and the Nuggs delivered a 10-0 run which decided the game.

In the case of Leon, having him out there was absolutely out of the uestion when KG fouled out. Baby shot like garbage, but with Perk in the game Leon would have only served to clog the lane. He can't guard Gasol, and forget about him staying with Odom.

2. Eddie scored zero points of almost 6 minutes of playing time in the fourth quarter. He was no longer "hot". The Lakers did a better job of defending him, and he disappeared.

3. Rondo either scored or assisted every basket we had in the OT. The question shouldn't be "Why was he out there?" It should be "Why did we stop going through him just because he missed one shot?" This team is prone to do that, by the way. Rondo could be a on a roll, and make 5 or 6 good things happen in a row. The first thing that goes wrong, and they go in a different direction and forget about him. Bottom line, he was the ONLY guy we had who could break that Laker defense down at the end of the game, off of teh dribble. Paul completely imploded, and Ray just doesn't have the quickness that he had when he was younger. Was Rajon great last night? Nope, he could have been better, but he did a lot more good than bad, especially down the stretch. I hate isolation basketball.

[wigglestrue]

The question shouldn't be "Why was he out there?" It should be "Why did we stop going through him just because he missed one shot?" This team is prone to do that, by the way. Rondo could be a on a roll, and make 5 or 6 good things happen in a row. The first thing that goes wrong, and they go in a different direction and forget about him. Bottom line, he was the ONLY guy we had who could break that Laker defense down at the end of the game, off of teh dribble. Paul completely imploded, and Ray just doesn't have the quickness that he had when he was younger. Was Rajon great last night? Nope, he could have been better, but he did a lot more good than bad, especially down the stretch. I hate isolation basketball.

QUOTED FOR TRUTH.

[MVP16]

No, I don't think those were mistakes. You had to have Perk out there to guard Gasol. Pau was having his way with Big Baby - Perk is the only one with length after KG fouled out. And although Eddie was hot, he was getting burned by Farmar in the 4th and Rondo played well in the 4th and overtime.

The only decision I was upset about was Doc subbing 3 bench players at once at the start of the 2nd quarter. That unit struggled to get going for the 1st few minutes primary because 3 out of 5 guys on the floor were cold just coming off the bench. In the 2nd half, the substitutions were more staggered (mostly because of foul trouble) and we didn't have that lull that we had with the bench unit in the 1st half.

[sunshinekids99]

The problem with going with Powe and House is the defense as just about everybody mentioned. The only matchup I'm not so sure about is Powe on Gasol, that just seems like a terrible idea. I wouldn't have been against just using Eddie House last night.

That would have left this matchup.

Gasol/Perkins
Odom/Pierce
Bryant/Allen
Vujacic/Rondo
Fisher/House

But with the way Pierce was playing D on Kobe, I don't think you want to be away from that either. I don't see what Doc did wrong, he tried to matchup with the Lakers. Just didn't work.