Erick Spoeltra, average coach in-game, elite off-game coach

Tien · Post #1 » by **Tien** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:37 am

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/miamih ... bron-james

I've always thought for last few years that Spoelstra is an elite coach, when he's not on the basketball court.

Spoeltra has made a lot of blunders and gaffes in game that leaves many with their hands in the air.

There are many to list, but putting Jon Jones (with no elevations) on KG, leaving Bosh out entire 2nd half of game 5, not telling Bosh to foul Dirk with 1 more foul to give.

The list goes on and on.

But what I can't take away from Spo is that he makes very good adjustments between games in series as well as not being scared to execute. Making Miami go small vs Indiana. Making Bosh learn to shoot 3s, thereby pulling centers out, having a great game plan vs Carmelo and Co which enabled Miami to simply smash NYK into the ground.

Now he is taking a page right out of the Boston / OKC series and implementing a brand of basketball that is very unique to the league, he's making his players adjust in positions that will allow the team to maximize their advantages and make it a "nightmare" for teams to guard against.

His off game adjustments and preparations are in my opinion, at an elite level. However since he talks every single day with Pat Riley, I have no idea how much global strategy Riley is responsible for, I know assistant coaches still go up to Riley in practices for advice on plays / strategy.

I believe the last 2 years are nothing compared to what is to come. I'm not even sure anybody here can fully grasp what 2012-13 will bring. Scary.

SmushedPennies · Post #2 » by **SmushedPennies** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:47 am

Jon "Bones" Jones guarded KG? I don't really even remember James Jones guarding KG.

When you say "with no elevations," do you mean lifts?

And Bosh played in that 2nd half, he just didn't play down the stretch.

But yeah, Spo has always been a much better preparer than a motivator or in-game adjustor. His diagrams are good, though, and he's getting better at all the in-game stuff. Remember how green behind the ears he is. He's just getting some gray in his goatee now, when he looks like Popovich he'll be the best in the league.

shanedude · Post #3 » by **shanedude** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:58 am

I will never forget the '10-11 season. Some of the worst coaching i've ever seen and cost us a championship.

TheDon008 · Post #4 » by **TheDon008** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:36 am

shanedude wrote:I will never forget the '10-11 season. Some of the worst coaching i've ever seen and cost us a championship.

Such an asinine comment.

Lebron crapping himself in the Finals cost us a Championship.

SmushedPennies · Post #5 » by **SmushedPennies** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:56 am

Yeah I hate to say it, but LeBron was the one outstanding variable that could've been blamed for losing that year. If he had played to his averages, not even the transcendent degree we saw in the prior series, we would've won in 5.

Bibby was awful, and should've been subbed out of the rotation for Rio starting and House off the bench, which happened too late, but its hard to put that series on what would appear to be a trivial adjustment. I think we all thought we had the series on lock up 15 with 7 minutes left, and then again when we won game 3.

Regarding Spo, I was surprised he never really put LeBron on Dirk, like everyone thought after James shut down Rose. Even if we did lose that series because of Spo (the national narrative bounced back and forth between Spo and LeBron being to blame), that's in the past, and we've seen him make gutsy decisions that paid dividends in the end since.

krikor · Post #6 » by **krikor** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:46 pm

He is NBA champion whether you like it or not.
Even if you talk about him having supertalent, there is still the fact that he is able to manage them all in great manner on and off the court.

SweetTouch · Post #7 » by **SweetTouch** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:16 pm

Lol it's not that hard to gameplan against a MELO led team when you see his playoff record

SPO had mike bibby start games in the finals

I still believe we were missing another 6'5 + perimeter defender in the Dallas series.
IMO if we had BATTIER, we would of won

MisterWestside · Post #8 » by **MisterWestside** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 3:41 pm

TheDon008 wrote:Such an asinine comment.

Lebron crapping himself in the Finals cost us a Championship.

Actually both comments are a bit silly, because no single player/coach is responsible for a team win/loss.

You also forget that you don't win a title in one series. You've got to win 12 games to even get there in the first place, and the Finals aren't any more important than the other rounds once you adjust for strength of opponent.

Yeah I hate to say it, but LeBron was the one outstanding variable that could've been blamed for losing that year. If he had played to his averages, not even the transcendent degree we saw in the prior series, we would've won in 5.

This is a more reasonable thing to say, but it still assigns credit/blame to one individual in a team sport, and you shouldn't do that. We forget that Wade turned in an even crappier round performance than James against the Bulls (using defense-adjusted usgs/ortgs), and James/Heat defense made up for it. The Heat win...and we don't recall Wade's subpar series.

Heat fans should not get caught up in media's stupid obsession over the "LeBron narrative". Teams win titles and not single players, you win a title over the entire playoffs and not in just one round; and while James didn't play to his standard in that particular round, it was hardly the crappiest performance by a household name in that playoffs (see Wade's ECF and Kobe Bryant vs. the Mavs). Good to see the team win it all in '12.

Zasterror · Post #9 » by **Zasterror** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:00 pm

The reason why Wade was not crucified for his poor performance in the ECF last season as much as LeBron was for his performance in the Finals that year is because Wade actually made a good number of clutch plays and help his team propel to beating the Bulls in Game 5. LeBron disappeared way too many times in the Finals, more notably in the 4th quarter. That is just fact.

MisterWestside · Post #10 » by **MisterWestside** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:12 pm

Zasterror wrote:The reason why Wade was not crucified for his poor performance in the ECF last season as much as LeBron was for his performance in the Finals that year is because Wade actually made a good number of clutch plays and help his team propel to beating the Bulls in Game 5. LeBron disappeared way too many times in the Finals, more notably in the 4th quarter. That is just fact.

The whole game counts, not just the 4th quarter. And equally as well.

The "closer" continues to be one of the prevailing myths in basketball.

Vertical Limit · Post #11 » by **Vertical Limit** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:40 pm

http://firespo.com/

Zasterror · Post #12 » by **Zasterror** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 4:54 pm

MisterWestside wrote:
Zasterror wrote:The reason why Wade was not crucified for his poor performance in the ECF last season as much as LeBron was for his performance in the Finals that year is because Wade actually made a good number of clutch plays and help his team propel to beating the Bulls in Game 5. LeBron disappeared way too many times in the Finals, more notably in the 4th quarter. That is just fact.

The whole game counts, not just the 4th quarter. And equally as well.

The "closer" continues to be one of the prevailing myths in basketball.

Impact is the overall theme and LeBron didn't provide enough. LeBron said it himself that he didn't make enough game-changing plays. And I never said anything about either of them being a "closer".

MisterWestside · Post #13 » by **MisterWestside** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 5:23 pm

Zasterror wrote:Impact is the overall theme and LeBron didn't provide enough. LeBron said it himself that he didn't make enough game-changing plays. And I never said anything about either of them being a "closer".

Closer or not, you reference to "game-changing plays" as if some plays are more important than others (i.e., the 4th Q), and the fact is that you change the game as soon as the ball is tossed into the air to start the game. Everything you do after that has an equal effect on the final score. Going 3-21 while hitting the go-ahead shot to "win" the game doesn't mean you should be acclaimed as a great "impact" player; it means that you stunk up the place and the rest of your team around you had to work extra hard to cover up your stink. (Don't laugh -- this actually happened http://www.basketball-reference.com/box ... 10LAL.html). Two points is two points in every segment of the game.

I agree that LeBron didn't play well in that series. He also played better in his respective series than Wade vs. the Bulls. We just like to remember the team wins/losses, and rashly assign credit/blame to one player.

HeatDaChamps · Post #14 » by **HeatDaChamps** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:37 pm

Really? you guys are talking about this NOW? after just winning a title, about to start our title defense and you're criticizing Spo for what happened more than a year ago? We all saw that this team wasnt ready to beat the mavs. Whether it was Spo's fault or lebron's fault, who cares. We win and lose as a team, and we lost. I could argue that w/o that experience of losing, we wouldnt have overcame the adversity this year and won. Jesus christ people, just enjoy heat basketball.

Pimpwerx · Post #15 » by **Pimpwerx** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:27 am

Spo was to blame for the poor zone offense, but that's about it. Bron disappeared, and the bench was putrid. There's not much he was gonna do about that. PEACE.

Tien · Post #16 » by **Tien** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 7:54 pm

Ain't no criticizing.

Just simply saying Spo has morphed into an elite off game coach.

He was forced to learn in 1 year how to manage and coach 3 superstars. I believe he has reached a point where he understands how to maximize their advantages, and hide the disadvantages.

Heck he may even win coach of the year award THIS year.

Post #17 » by **Heat11114** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 7:28 pm

At some point you have to blame it on the players. Consider we had the lead going into the 4th in the first four games of the 2011 finals. We had a 15 point lead in the 4th of game 2. A coaches job is to put players in a position to win, the 2011 finals were ours for the taking and we let Dallas take it from us.

+/- After the end of 3 in the 2011 Finals...
Game 1 +4
Game 2 +4 (L, the lead was 15 in the 4th)
Game 3 +3
Game 4 +4 (L, the lead was 9 in the 4th)
Game 5 -5
Game 6 -11

I've said it before, but you don't fire Spo because he cost us games, because he didn't. You fire him because we need to set the expectation that the Miami Heat is a championship or bust organization.

I look at baseball as the perfect example. You don't win in New York or Boston you're gone. Meanwhile a team like the Angels who is spending just as much money now has kept Scoscia around when he hasn't been to a World Series let alone won one since 2002. We need to be the Yankees or Red Sox not the Angels.

insfo · Post #18 » by **insfo** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 10:14 pm

Heat11114 wrote:At some point you have to blame it on the players. Consider we had the lead going into the 4th in the first four games of the 2011 finals. We had a 15 point lead in the 4th of game 2. A coaches job is to put players in a position to win, the 2011 finals were ours for the taking and we let Dallas take it from us.

+/- After the end of 3 in the 2011 Finals...
Game 1 +4
Game 2 +4 (L, the lead was 15 in the 4th)
Game 3 +3
Game 4 +4 (L, the lead was 9 in the 4th)
Game 5 -5
Game 6 -11

I've said it before, but you don't fire Spo because he cost us games, because he didn't. You fire him because we need to set the expectation that the Miami Heat is a championship or bust organization.

I look at baseball as the perfect example. You don't win in New York or Boston you're gone. Meanwhile a team like the Angels who is spending just as much money now has kept Scoscia around when he hasn't been to a World Series let alone won one since 2002. We need to be the Yankees or Red Sox not the Angels.

So unless we win the next 10 championships, by this criteria we'll be running through quite a few coaches! Seriously though, do you really think we should have fired our HC just because we lost in the NBA finals? And why are we even talking about 2011 ... shouldn't that be forgotten now that 2012 happened? I mean, I'm all for dissecting why we lost, but IMO we are way past the stage to do that .. especially as we start the season in a couple of days as the defending champs!