Post#440 » by tfmiii » Thu Apr 25, 2024 4:47 pm
My concern is not that they lost, but how they lost.
Several things, most touched on already:
Joe's seeming inability to react in real time:
We're facing a scrappy, dirty opponent - so why not find time for our scrappiest players? Oshae would help level the intensity/physicality deficit. Xavier, Springer, even Queta for limited minutes. But we'll live and die with 8.
Joe's inability to react extends to off/defense schemes. Others have spoken to this.
Joe not putting his players in a position to succeed - with respect to the schemes above, if players loses confidence in them and there are no adjustments then their intensity will flag. It's human nature when you feel like you're just shoveling sand against the tide.
Last thing I'll touch on is the weird passivity towards Miami dirty play, all 'stiff upper lip' ****. Why shouldn't Joe make a media discussion/storm out of Miami's questionable play? Put them and the league under the spotlight. If I were Joe I'd have catapulted on to the court when Bam wiped out DWhite on yet ANOTHER moving screen in game one, nevermind Martin's hipcheck.
The star players can be stoic, but the coach should be highlighting the illegal screens every chance he gets, for the press, the fans, the refs and the league - in part to have his players's back. I'll date myself but I remember Phil Jax claiming (falsely) that Dikembe deliberately put his face into Shaq's elbows to draw fouls - 'Deke leads with his beak.' Make Bam an issue, the podcasters will love chewing it over and it will trickle into the framing of the games. Highlighting Bam's moving screens has the additional virtue of being true.