WCQF: P2 | (4) LA Clippers vs Utah Jazz (5) | UTA 4-3

[Cyrusman122000]

Here's a question. Who's a better coach Doc Rivers or Quin Snyder?

[OkcSinceSGA]

Here's a question. Who's a better coach Doc Rivers or Quin Snyder?

Snyder for sure. Way better rotations. Knows how to feed hot hand. Also seems real good at 2nd and 3rd option plays like the Spurs. Take away option one and they have something else.

[BarneyGumble]

Here's a question. Who's a better coach Doc Rivers or Quin Snyder?

Easily Snyder. Rivers is lucky he was part of Ainge's heist to get the Big 3 in Boston. That made his career. He's actually a very poor coach IMO.

[MartinToVaught]

Here's a question. Who's a better coach Doc Rivers or Quin Snyder?

How is this even a debate? Doc is the worst coach in the NBA.

[Catchall]

Doc is a good coach. He's a terrible GM.

[Catchall]

Doc's done nothing to improve that team except play cards with DeAndre. The bench is weak, and the guys that sign there are guys who want to hang out in LA.

[Catchall]

Look at how the Jazz made a trade for George Hill, how they signed Joe Johnson and picked up Diaw. Look how they drafted and developed Gobert, Hood and even Neto. Look at how they've helped Hayward develop from year to year. Quin is a great coach, but the Jazz's front office deserves a ton of credit in this series.

There's more to competing than winning the lottery and picking Griffin or waiting for the next disgruntled player to want to play in LA.

[MartinToVaught]

Doc is a good coach.

No he's not. Good coaches are capable of making adjustments during playoff series and putting opponents away when they have advantages in their favor (talent, home court, experience, etc.) - Doc can't do that.

[JXL]

I feel for Chris Paul. He is amazing in these playoffs, yet has virtually 0 contributions from his teammates:

-Blake's hurt again
-DeAndre is virtually an alley-oop dunker and can't guard beyond the foul line
-Reddick hasn't been efficient this series outside of game 5
-The bench is terrible, and Jamal Crawford has been on and off
-Their only hope is Austin Rivers

It must be agony to know that as great of a PG as CP3 is, he's going to be out in the 1st round again, and it's not on him. Doc should be ashamed of putting this misfit roster together.

[Catchall]

Doc is a good coach.

No he's not. Good coaches are capable of making adjustments during playoff series and putting opponents away when they have advantages in their favor (talent, home court, experience, etc.) - Doc can't do that.

Doc made a bunch of adjustments in how they defended. They decided to guard the paint and make the Jazz's outside shooters beat them. They did a better job on Joe Johnson. The problem is that they don't have the personnel to play both sides of the ball at the same time.

Offensively, the problem is that CP gets trapped and someone else has to handle the ball and make a play. That's Blake's job, but with him out the Clips need to play Rivers or Felton as a secondary ball handler. These are offensively limited players. They still were able to get Redick some looks, which was a big achievement. Crawford is streaky and he didn't have it last night. Otherwise the Clips might have pulled out a win.

Defensively, the Clips are at a size disadvantage. Moute's the best defender out on the floor, but he can't guard both Johnson and Hayward. So one of them has an advantage and it results in Jazz shooters getting open looks. It's been the same story in both of the last two games. If guys like Hood and Ingles hit a decent number of their looks, the Clips are in trouble.

The other big story is that the Jazz have been winning the rebound battle since Gobert returned and Blake went out. The Jazz were +9 on the boards and got 12 more FG attempts than the Clips last night. In a close game, that's huge.

Doc is looking at his bench for 2-way players who aren't a complete write-off on offense, and who also defend and rebound. He tried Speights, Bass and Wesley Johnson and none of them were worth keeping on the floor.

Doc is trying to do the right things, but the Clips' roster doesn't have the personnel. That's a GM problem. They can't put together a line-up that can score, defend and rebound, and they don't have enough depth to play a compete team for 48 minutes. When CP takes a rest, the Jazz go on a run.

[tundraknight]

I still can't believe Doc refused to trade his son Austin in a package for Carmelo

[PierceFan4ever]

Paul Pierce going to play his final game on Friday

[Catchall]

The situation with the Clips stars getting injured and shuttered in the POs is reminiscent of the Rockets with TMac and Yao.

[Matt007b]

just thinking out loud but.. wonder if the Jazz in the off season can sign Griffin and ship Favors out... I think the Jazz win and contend to win it..

(course the cap kills this idea.. but still that would be an amazing roster.)

[Hello Brooklyn]

I think the Jazz are clearly a better team than then Clippers when Griffin is injured and the Jazz are healthy. If you watched game 5 you 'd have seen that with your own eyes. Teh Jazz were clearly the better team, even if they were bricking tons of open looks. But, the deal is that they got TONS of open looks to brick. And they still won the game even though the Clippers had a huge advantage in free throw attempts.

When both teams are healthy I think it's pretty even. Clippers a little stronger starting 5, Jazz a stronger bench. But, with Griffin sitting, it's clearly advantage Jazz.

If that's really the case then that's pretty sad for a team lead by two players who were both considered top 10 and another all-star along with an "elite coach."

The Jazz are a young up and coming team. But Gobert just came on to the scene as a premiere player and Hayward just became an all-star for the first time.

There is no way you can justify the Clippers breaking even with them. It has to be seen as a massive failure.

[MartinToVaught]

Doc made a bunch of adjustments in how they defended. They decided to guard the paint and make the Jazz's outside shooters beat them.

Giving the Jazz wide open shots wasn't some genius adjustment by Doc, it was our broken defensive scheme on display.

[millslapper]

Seems fair. This is the result of the Clippers declining over the last couple years as a team+Jazz growing rapidly. The Clippers on PAPER have a potential super team and should be 10-15 wins better. But the injuries, lack of heart, poor coaching and constant underachieving change things.

by the way. i want to give you some compliments. i read nearly everything in this series thread and you seem like a really cool guy, always fair even in times of defeat. thats not to be a given.

back to topic: another thing which is really obvious. Clips don't have a real home advantage. fans are like in the regular season (or have they given up on this team). as if they are watching by the way.

[MartinToVaught]

back to topic: another thing which is really obvious. Clips don't have a real home advantage. fans are like in the regular season (or have they given up on this team). as if they are watching by the way.

Staples used to get loud for Clipper games. I remember LeBron saying once back in his Miami days that they had to pump crowd noise into their practices before road games against the Clippers to prepare for how loud the crowd could get.

Years of boring regular seasons, embarrassing postseasons and stagnation have put a damper on the atmosphere at games.

[mudsak]

Here's a question. Who's a better coach Doc Rivers or Quin Snyder?

I think Quin Snyder is an extremely underrated coach. He should be a top candidate for coach of the year considering what he's accomplished with this team this season. The Jazz's main starting line up only logged 152 minutes together through the regular season... for comparison...the Clippers starting unit logged over 800 minutes of playing time together in the regular season. That gives you a grasp of what the injuries did to the Jazz this season. It was never ending...but they kept it together.

There are still some things I question about his process, but overall I think he's got a vision for the team that's more long term than what I'm looking at as a fan. I think the Jazz are damn lucky to have this guy at the helm. Plus... he looks like an 80's movie villain, or ax murderer...I like that too.

As for Doc... I don't know. I think people have their pitchforks out, but maybe he's not as bad at coaching as people think. How many 50 win seasons do the Clips have under Doc???? They've had some tough breaks in the playoffs no doubt, but I think they have an odd roster that makes coaching decisions especially difficult now that Blake is out. I'd say he's probably a better coach than GM, but people want to just blame Doc for loosing games vs a Jazz team that's just better than people realized, or want to give credit for. This Jazz team is built to cause matchup problems for just about anyone...they have tons of depth, (and their depth has a lot of time on the floor due to the ridiculous amount of injuries this season), ISO Joe, Hayward, Ingles is a top 3 shooter in the league,... They're super long at every position, and they are a top 3 defensive team anchored by a complete freak of a player in Gobert. They're a nightmare team for anyone to play in a playoff series. Rick Carlisle made a comment about the Jazz earlier this year... He said "playing against this team is like a 3 hour long dentist appointment".

Clips are a great team. Maybe they take series if Blake was healthy...maybe not. Pretty damn even series either way you look at it. The fact is that the West is stacked. Spurs, Houston, GSW, Grizz, Jazz, Clips... It's a gauntlet for any team to make it to the finals.

If I'm the owner of this team, I'm hesitant to just clean house. They clean house right now, and they're going to be back at the bottom for 4 years minimum.

[mischievous]

I still can't believe Doc refused to trade his son Austin in a package for Carmelo

When was that ever proposed?