[Grange] As Raptors continue to stumble, some mistakes inevitably fall on coaching

[___Rand___]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/as-raptors-continue-to-stumble-some-mistakes-inevitably-fall-on-coaching/

Grange is finally acknowledging Darko's short-comings.

the Raptors' loss Saturday against the Clippers was a different category, as the Raptors, trailing by three with six seconds left, ended up running the same inbounds play twice, even with it likely being the wrong choice each time.

The play was to get the ball to Poeltl, who would simultaneously set a screen and make a handoff to one of the Raptors' shooters on the floor to set up a game-tying three-point play. The problem is that the Clippers fouled Poeltl on the catch twice, which was predictable. The first was to burn the foul they had to give before putting the Raptors in bonus, and the second was to put the Raptors — Poeltl in this case — on the free throw line, reasoning that it would be better to have Toronto make two free throws rather than have a chance at a game-tying three-pointer.

The problem was that the Raptors were out of timeouts and couldn’t change the play once the first one got spoiled by the Clippers' first foul. The Raptors ran it again, and the Clippers didn’t even have a moment to be confused. They simply fouled Poeltl and put him on the line, which is what they wanted to do in the first place.

By the time the Lakers game was set to tip-off, he acknowledged that he wished he could have handled the end-of-game situation on Saturday differently.

“In those situations, I need to use Jak more as a screener, not a guy that was supposed to catch the ball and then screen,” said Rajakovic. “So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job … We did not have the second timeout to [use] to draw a different play there. So it was a perfect storm coming our way.”

There have been other examples: On Oct. 28th, Rajakovic’s decision to let Barrett attack in transition on the final play of overtime rather than call a timeout didn’t work out well as Barrett missed a tough shot, and the Raptors ended up losing a game they were leading by 10 with 2:17 to play.

It would be nice if Grange pointed out to the failure of Darko to stem the rising momentum Lakers had towards the end of 3rd by calling time out and settling a flustered young team, but alas he chose not to.

[___Rand___]

None of which should take away from the big picture: the Raptors are playing hard and unselfishly and above expectations.

This sounds so much like the 1st half of Casey years. A coach who gets team to play hard, a coach who excels in player development, but with serious short-comings in in-game management such as timely time outs, player rotations, inbound plays, effective plays coming out of time outs, finishing halfs and quarters well, etc.

Heck Darko is Casey II. Let's hope Masai doesn't take too long to give him the hook when the time comes!

[Basketball_Jones]

Oh my god that was literally college level ABC strategy. Run one play as a decoy then run the real play on the second inbound. Why did this seem new to Darko

[raps14]

None of which should take away from the big picture: the Raptors are playing hard and unselfishly and above expectations.

This sounds so much like the 1st half of Casey years. A coach who gets team to play hard, a coach who excels in player development, but with serious short-comings in in-game management such as timely time outs, player rotations, inbound plays, effective plays coming out of time outs, finishing halfs and quarters well, etc.

Heck Darko is Casey II. Let's hope Masai doesn't take too long to give him the hook when the time comes!

Masai hired a whole new coaching staff for Casey before firing him to see if that would improve things, he will probably do the same this time round. I can't see Jama getting fired but the rest are all expendable. A rookie coach needs someone on the staff with head coaching experience. Darko's staff has virtually no experience at all

[Tacoma]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/as-raptors-continue-to-stumble-some-mistakes-inevitably-fall-on-coaching/

Grange is finally acknowledging Darko's short-comings.

the Raptors' loss Saturday against the Clippers was a different category, as the Raptors, trailing by three with six seconds left, ended up running the same inbounds play twice, even with it likely being the wrong choice each time.

The play was to get the ball to Poeltl, who would simultaneously set a screen and make a handoff to one of the Raptors' shooters on the floor to set up a game-tying three-point play. The problem is that the Clippers fouled Poeltl on the catch twice, which was predictable. The first was to burn the foul they had to give before putting the Raptors in bonus, and the second was to put the Raptors — Poeltl in this case — on the free throw line, reasoning that it would be better to have Toronto make two free throws rather than have a chance at a game-tying three-pointer.

The problem was that the Raptors were out of timeouts and couldn’t change the play once the first one got spoiled by the Clippers' first foul. The Raptors ran it again, and the Clippers didn’t even have a moment to be confused. They simply fouled Poeltl and put him on the line, which is what they wanted to do in the first place.

By the time the Lakers game was set to tip-off, he acknowledged that he wished he could have handled the end-of-game situation on Saturday differently.

“In those situations, I need to use Jak more as a screener, not a guy that was supposed to catch the ball and then screen,” said Rajakovic. “So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job … We did not have the second timeout to [use] to draw a different play there. So it was a perfect storm coming our way.”
...

It would be nice if Grange pointed out to the failure of Darko to stem the rising momentum Lakers had towards the end of 3rd by calling time out and settling a flustered young team, but alas he chose not to.

Any NBA coach that didn't expect LAC to foul Poeltl immediately on that play is incompetent. Since they were out of time outs, any coach, knowing LAC would foul immediately on the first play, would in that last timeout, have 2nd play ready, instead of re-running the flawed first play is doubly incompetent.

There was talk after that game that inbounding to Jak twice were blatant tank moves trying to lose the game on purpose, but Darko admitting that "“So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job" squashes that take. The issue is not that he has to do a better job. Rather, he just needs to do his job.

[anotherhomer]

not this yeaer...they need the ping-pong balls but next year, they may change the staff

[PushDaRock]

At least he acknowledged the coaching blunder calling that inbounds play to Jak, it would be very concerning if he didn't recognize the mistake.

[WaltFrazier]

None of which should take away from the big picture: the Raptors are playing hard and unselfishly and above expectations.

This sounds so much like the 1st half of Casey years. A coach who gets team to play hard, a coach who excels in player development, but with serious short-comings in in-game management such as timely time outs, player rotations, inbound plays, effective plays coming out of time outs, finishing halfs and quarters well, etc.

Heck Darko is Casey II. Let's hope Masai doesn't take too long to give him the hook when the time comes!

Masai hired a whole new coaching staff for Casey before firing him to see if that would improve things, he will probably do the same this time round. I can't see Jama getting fired but the rest are all expendable. A rookie coach needs someone on the staff with head coaching experience. Darko's staff has virtually no experience at all

So many teams have experienced former head coaches to help the HC. Raptors assistants seem like nobodies by comparison, uninspiring. Maybe that's not fair because of course I can't see the practices. But that's the impression it gives.

[PushDaRock]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/as-raptors-continue-to-stumble-some-mistakes-inevitably-fall-on-coaching/

Grange is finally acknowledging Darko's short-comings.

the Raptors' loss Saturday against the Clippers was a different category, as the Raptors, trailing by three with six seconds left, ended up running the same inbounds play twice, even with it likely being the wrong choice each time.

The play was to get the ball to Poeltl, who would simultaneously set a screen and make a handoff to one of the Raptors' shooters on the floor to set up a game-tying three-point play. The problem is that the Clippers fouled Poeltl on the catch twice, which was predictable. The first was to burn the foul they had to give before putting the Raptors in bonus, and the second was to put the Raptors — Poeltl in this case — on the free throw line, reasoning that it would be better to have Toronto make two free throws rather than have a chance at a game-tying three-pointer.

The problem was that the Raptors were out of timeouts and couldn’t change the play once the first one got spoiled by the Clippers' first foul. The Raptors ran it again, and the Clippers didn’t even have a moment to be confused. They simply fouled Poeltl and put him on the line, which is what they wanted to do in the first place.

By the time the Lakers game was set to tip-off, he acknowledged that he wished he could have handled the end-of-game situation on Saturday differently.

“In those situations, I need to use Jak more as a screener, not a guy that was supposed to catch the ball and then screen,” said Rajakovic. “So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job … We did not have the second timeout to [use] to draw a different play there. So it was a perfect storm coming our way.”
...

It would be nice if Grange pointed out to the failure of Darko to stem the rising momentum Lakers had towards the end of 3rd by calling time out and settling a flustered young team, but alas he chose not to.

Any NBA coach that didn't expect LAC to foul Poeltl immediately on that play is incompetent. Since they were out of time outs, any coach, knowing LAC would foul immediately on the first play, would in that last timeout, have 2nd play ready, instead of re-running the flawed first play is doubly incompetent.

There was talk after that game that inbounding to Jak twice were blatant tank moves trying to lose the game on purpose, but Darko admitting that "“So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job" squashes that take. The issue is not that he has to do a better job. Rather, he just needs to do his job.

Yeah, that was really bad situational awareness not having 2 inbounds plays ready.

The earlier game in the season against the Nuggets where we were up 2 with possession and shot clock turned off, he also had Jak in there as well instead of our best FT shooters.

It's good he at least admits the mistake but this is an area he needs a tremendous amount of improvement in.

[manjusaka]

lol, Darko is doing a hell of job “developing” the team. Winning isn’t the goal this year.

[MiamiSPX]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/as-raptors-continue-to-stumble-some-mistakes-inevitably-fall-on-coaching/

Grange is finally acknowledging Darko's short-comings.

the Raptors' loss Saturday against the Clippers was a different category, as the Raptors, trailing by three with six seconds left, ended up running the same inbounds play twice, even with it likely being the wrong choice each time.

The play was to get the ball to Poeltl, who would simultaneously set a screen and make a handoff to one of the Raptors' shooters on the floor to set up a game-tying three-point play. The problem is that the Clippers fouled Poeltl on the catch twice, which was predictable. The first was to burn the foul they had to give before putting the Raptors in bonus, and the second was to put the Raptors — Poeltl in this case — on the free throw line, reasoning that it would be better to have Toronto make two free throws rather than have a chance at a game-tying three-pointer.

The problem was that the Raptors were out of timeouts and couldn’t change the play once the first one got spoiled by the Clippers' first foul. The Raptors ran it again, and the Clippers didn’t even have a moment to be confused. They simply fouled Poeltl and put him on the line, which is what they wanted to do in the first place.

By the time the Lakers game was set to tip-off, he acknowledged that he wished he could have handled the end-of-game situation on Saturday differently.

“In those situations, I need to use Jak more as a screener, not a guy that was supposed to catch the ball and then screen,” said Rajakovic. “So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job … We did not have the second timeout to [use] to draw a different play there. So it was a perfect storm coming our way.”
...

It would be nice if Grange pointed out to the failure of Darko to stem the rising momentum Lakers had towards the end of 3rd by calling time out and settling a flustered young team, but alas he chose not to.

Any NBA coach that didn't expect LAC to foul Poeltl immediately on that play is incompetent. Since they were out of time outs, any coach, knowing LAC would foul immediately on the first play, would in that last timeout, have 2nd play ready, instead of re-running the flawed first play is doubly incompetent.

There was talk after that game that inbounding to Jak twice were blatant tank moves trying to lose the game on purpose, but Darko admitting that "“So that one last night goes on me, and I need to do a better job" squashes that take. The issue is not that he has to do a better job. Rather, he just needs to do his job.

Convincing myself he did it intentionally is better than the (scary) alternative.

[dagger]

I think Masai must be thrilled with what is happening because development was prized over wins, for this season and with the improvements of Ochai and Gradey in particular, Barrett to a certain extent, this is right on plan. I don't care about Darko's late game play calling, and doubt Masai does either - not this season. When Walter gets healthy, and if he looks like a future rotation player on a good team, then it's all flowers and puppies for Darko.

[Tor_Raps]

Damn... raptors are playing above expectations and are 2-9. What happens when we play to expectations lol.

[ontnut]

Darko hasn't been perfect, no. But he was hired as a developmental coach, so what he does in practice is probably more important than what he does in the game, insofar as timeout and crunch time play. I think the rotations being wonky is by design - the org wants to see different guys in different positions so we can "evaluate".

I have no doubt that if and when the time comes to go on a deep playoff run, Darko won't be the guy leading this team there.

[HangTime]

We are 3.5 games out of 3rd place, with 71 games to go.

[bape_lovers]

thats not true, our ato has been great at times

None of which should take away from the big picture: the Raptors are playing hard and unselfishly and above expectations.

This sounds so much like the 1st half of Casey years. A coach who gets team to play hard, a coach who excels in player development, but with serious short-comings in in-game management such as timely time outs, player rotations, inbound plays, effective plays coming out of time outs, finishing halfs and quarters well, etc.

Heck Darko is Casey II. Let's hope Masai doesn't take too long to give him the hook when the time comes!

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

We are 3.5 games out of 3rd place, with 71 games to go.

We have a .182 win percentage. It's not going to happen.

[rarefind]

Not that it particularly matters this year as winning won't define success by itself.

I am a little surprised that we couldn't go out and get a seasoned former HC or lead assistant with real chops behind Darko. As Darko develops our guys we seemed to have lost touch with the fact that Darko needs to develop, himself.

[DG88]

Again what is the teams objective this year. It's not to win as many games as possible. It's development of our young players. So far Darko gets an A for that.

[dTox]

He's developing our players, I'm happy, the rest is just noise......for now