Coaching - Game 3

[Prokorov]

Didnt want to beat a dead horse in the game thread and want to move the conversation from blame to one of just strictly look at what was/wasnt done. I've watching this game like 2 times in its entirety plus the last 5 mintues a ton. A few coaching nuances stand out:

1) Challenging the blake griffin foul
I'm a huge supporter of not holding on to the challenge and using it early if it makes sense. And there are clear situations you must use it. the most common is: Foul on key player + FTs for the opponent. This was blakes third and FTs for Giannis. On the surface a worthy situation. The issue is, from the very first replay, it was clear as day he got Giannis on the wrist. and you need clear evidence otherwise to overturn. So you have a call extremely likely to stand, with a FT shooter who is shooting airballs and getting whistled for 10 seconds going to the line.

You cant challenge there. and it turned out a few calls in the second half, would have been overturned had we had our challenge

2) No Timeout on the second to last inbound playy
(The one where brown missed the layup over brook lopez). Nets had a timeout. This was very likely their last possesion, down 1 with 10-12 seconds left. We nearly turn over the ball and kyrie saves it with a defender tight and 9-10 seconds left. Nets choose not to call a timeout. There is an argument to be made saving it gives you a chance to foul and get a last second prayer if you miss. we had a foul to give, so you need to miss, foul, then foul again with enough time to get a shot. we did just that and got a durant prayer.

There is an argument to be had either way. keep the timeout at all costs to guarantee a prayer at the end, or use the timeout to ensure you get kyrie or KD the ball for the final possesion/shot.

Some nuance as well, and maybe this was said... but coming out of that timeout, you need to prep your team. "if its not there, we have a timeout". "if they give us this look, call a timeout" We seemed kind of lost. Nash said they were running a play "they worked on all week in practice". so they all knew they were going to this if the situaiton arose. gotta have the team ready for plan B if it goes awry, which it did

3) Offense for Defense subs late
Here is the sequence at the end:
-Durant 3 (83-80 Nets)
-Bucks Timeout
-Nets make 0 subs.
-Middleton 2 (83-82 Nets)
-Harris miss
-Middleton miss/lopez miss
-Brown miss
-Holiday Layup (84-83 Bucks)
-Timeout Nets
-Nets make 0 subs
-Brown miss
GAME OVER

Three point lead, 80 seconds left. Bucks timeout. Bucks possesion. Why is Joe Harris on the floor? Why is Nic Claxton on the bench? You need stops and you need rebounds. Strong arguments not to bring in Tyler Johnson or Alize Johnson... they hadnt played. dont bring them in cold. Claxton is one of if not our best defenders, gives us size to rebound, another shot blocker, and switchability.

The bucks end up socring to cut it to 1. the next possesion we did get a stop, but only after a brook lopez offensive rebound. Claxton may not have prevented that, but with him and blake, you've got more size. Being up 3 points, even if we force a miss and they foul claxton immedietly (a bad free throw shooter) even if he misses both your up 3 and worst case is overtime.

Then down 84-83. Nets timeout. Nets posseison. Why is bruce brown on the floor? Why is shamet not on the floor. With Brown on the floor there are 2 options. You stick brown in the corner and his defender is packing the paint and heloing off him. You put him in the screen and roll and they will double and force him to take a floater. IF Shamet is on the floor, they arent leaving him to help as much. and if you need a screen, you have blake on the floor still.

For a team that ran 5 offensive guys out for the last possession of every quarter all season not go situaiton subs in a 1 possesion game in the playoffs, is really puzzling.

To me, those were 3 really obvious things the coaching staff did/didnt do that really influenced the outcome of the game. As a staff, they need to be better. maybe they didnt cost us the game, but it makes you wonder if we had a top coach, who was aware of those 3 things and made the smart choice, would we have lost?

[MrDollarBills]

Didnt want to beat a dead horse in the game thread and want to move the conversation from blame to one of just strictly look at what was/wasnt done. I've watching this game like 2 times in its entirety plus the last 5 mintues a ton. A few coaching nuances stand out:

1) Challenging the blake griffin foul
I'm a huge supporter of not holding on to the challenge and using it early if it makes sense. And there are clear situations you must use it. the most common is: Foul on key player + FTs for the opponent. This was blakes third and FTs for Giannis. On the surface a worthy situation. The issue is, from the very first replay, it was clear as day he got Giannis on the wrist. and you need clear evidence otherwise to overturn. So you have a call extremely likely to stand, with a FT shooter who is shooting airballs and getting whistled for 10 seconds going to the line.

You cant challenge there. and it turned out a few calls in the second half, would have been overturned had we had our challenge

2) No Timeout on the second to last inbound playy
(The one where brown missed the layup over brook lopez). Nets had a timeout. This was very likely their last possesion, down 1 with 10-12 seconds left. We nearly turn over the ball and kyrie saves it with a defender tight and 9-10 seconds left. Nets choose not to call a timeout. There is an argument to be made saving it gives you a chance to foul and get a last second prayer if you miss. we had a foul to give, so you need to miss, foul, then foul again with enough time to get a shot. we did just that and got a durant prayer.

There is an argument to be had either way. keep the timeout at all costs to guarantee a prayer at the end, or use the timeout to ensure you get kyrie or KD the ball for the final possesion/shot.

Some nuance as well, and maybe this was said... but coming out of that timeout, you need to prep your team. "if its not there, we have a timeout". "if they give us this look, call a timeout" We seemed kind of lost. Nash said they were running a play "they worked on all week in practice". so they all knew they were going to this if the situaiton arose. gotta have the team ready for plan B if it goes awry, which it did

3) Offense for Defense subs late
Here is the sequence at the end:
-Durant 3 (83-80 Nets)
-Bucks Timeout
-Nets make 0 subs.
-Middleton 2 (83-82 Nets)
-Harris miss
-Middleton miss/lopez miss
-Brown miss
-Holiday Layup (84-83 Bucks)
-Timeout Nets
-Nets make 0 subs
-Brown miss
GAME OVER

Three point lead, 80 seconds left. Bucks timeout. Bucks possesion. Why is Joe Harris on the floor? Why is Nic Claxton on the bench? You need stops and you need rebounds. Strong arguments not to bring in Tyler Johnson or Alize Johnson... they hadnt played. dont bring them in cold. Claxton is one of if not our best defenders, gives us size to rebound, another shot blocker, and switchability.

The bucks end up socring to cut it to 1. the next possesion we did get a stop, but only after a brook lopez offensive rebound. Claxton may not have prevented that, but with him and blake, you've got more size. Being up 3 points, even if we force a miss and they foul claxton immedietly (a bad free throw shooter) even if he misses both your up 3 and worst case is overtime.

Then down 84-83. Nets timeout. Nets posseison. Why is bruce brown on the floor? Why is shamet not on the floor. With Brown on the floor there are 2 options. You stick brown in the corner and his defender is packing the paint and heloing off him. You put him in the screen and roll and they will double and force him to take a floater. IF Shamet is on the floor, they arent leaving him to help as much. and if you need a screen, you have blake on the floor still.

For a team that ran 5 offensive guys out for the last possession of every quarter all season not go situaiton subs in a 1 possesion game in the playoffs, is really puzzling.

To me, those were 3 really obvious things the coaching staff did/didnt do that really influenced the outcome of the game. As a staff, they need to be better. maybe they didnt cost us the game, but it makes you wonder if we had a top coach, who was aware of those 3 things and made the smart choice, would we have lost?

Valid criticism imo.

I'm not even mad that Brown was on the floor at the end, but the way that last possession spiraled out of control, Nash should have had Blake call time out if the inbounds pass wasn't there.

I think Brown how earned trust during the game because he was making a ton of right plays on both ends of the floor. But those last what, 4 minutes? We were deadlocked at 76 all and Brown missed 4 shots, one of them blocked from then on. Once Durant went on that outburst where he scored 7 points in under a minute, you've got to get the ball to your star. It's like he went braindead and tried to be a hero. I hope Nash took him aside last night and talked him up because we can't afford to have those kinds of errors late in games now.

[Shark]

Not sure the timeout would have mattered. It feels like we can never draw up a good inbounds play at the end of the game. There's never enough purposeful movement when we're inbounding the ball especially at the end of games where the opposing coach is going to make it as hard as possible for the ball to end up in KD or Kyrie's hands.

[Born_Ready]

The thing that stood out to me was they let Khris Middleton shoot 48% from the floor. He only had 13 and 17 points the last two games. He had 35 last night. Nets win last night easily if they keep him under 20 points in my opinion. Gotta be better defensively; even with keeping them under 100 points lol

[Prokorov]

Not sure the timeout would have mattered. It feels like we can never draw up a good inbounds play at the end of the game. There's never enough purposeful movement when we're inbounding the ball especially at the end of games where the opposing coach is going to make it as hard as possible for the ball to end up in KD or Kyrie's hands.

it is impossible to know. but its about putting your players in the best possible position to succeed when it comes to coaching.

And a timeout there probably does that. mayeb the second inbound attempt is just as bad... as you said, we have sucked at that

[Prokorov]

The thing that stood out to me was they let Khris Middleton shoot 48% from the floor. He only had 13 and 17 points the last two games. He had 35 last night. Nets win last night easily if they keep him under 20 points in my opinion. Gotta be better defensively; even with keeping them under 100 points lol

Wait... better defensively?

We held them to 86 points on 37/19/63 shooting with a 47.7 TS%.

We missed our last 4 shots and couldnt get the ball to KD. We scored 83 points for the GAME. The offense failed us and the coaching did not do us favors. Defense was fantastic.

[Born_Ready]

The thing that stood out to me was they let Khris Middleton shoot 48% from the floor. He only had 13 and 17 points the last two games. He had 35 last night. Nets win last night easily if they keep him under 20 points in my opinion. Gotta be better defensively; even with keeping them under 100 points lol

Wait... better defensively?

We held them to 86 points on 37/19/63 shooting with a 47.7 TS%.

We missed our last 4 shots and couldnt get the ball to KD. We scored 83 points for the GAME. The offense failed us and the coaching did not do us favors. Defense was fantastic.

Yeah, I was singling out Khris Middleton mainly. I would like to see him not get hot going forward. Overall, yes, hellva defensive performance.

[MrDollarBills]

The thing that stood out to me was they let Khris Middleton shoot 48% from the floor. He only had 13 and 17 points the last two games. He had 35 last night. Nets win last night easily if they keep him under 20 points in my opinion. Gotta be better defensively; even with keeping them under 100 points lol

Middleton is shooting 36% from the field, 29% from three in this series. It was a foregone conclusion that he was going to break out eventually. However, on Sunday we need to limit his touches and pressure him into contested shots.

[ecuhus1981]

All fair points, and I'm glad you acknowledged that, as with the Blake non-challenge, sometimes doing nothing is the right move.

The problem is, nothing is Nash's go-to move. I'm not gonna rant on the man, I think I've specifically stated numerous times that he is a great administrator and galvanizer for this star-studded, quirky bunch. He would do well to insert himself into a few more situations, especially late game. I actually have no problem with Bruce Brown's last two shots. He made sensible reads in both possessions, and we would have a different tone of either of those floaters found the bottom of the net. The only real problem is that he was even IN the game for that offensive play. I get it: Joe was ice cold, and Landry wasn't lighting the world on fire either. Bruce had the cojones to make a big game play, when so many other roleplayers shrunk in the moment. Nash may not have had many better options, but he put Bruce and us in that tough spot by having him on the floor.

[Claud]

Joe Harris 1/11 + terrible defense was the killer IMO.

Bad game for the team, but we had a chance to steal game 3 since KD was clutching in the 4th.

Harris and Brown really let us down late in the 4th. WTF was brown thinking at end? Brainfarts after brainfarts

At least Brown was the main catalyst for the comeback in order to make it a more manageble score going into the half, but Joe was awful the entire game. I think it's his worst game as a Net.

The challenge on Blake's foul was beyond stupid. Don't know why they did that so early in the game

I think as a team we need to forget about game 3 and just focus on winning next game to complete the gentleman's sweep in BK.

[Prokorov]

Joe Harris 1/11 + terrible defense was the killer IMO.

Bad game for the team, but we had a chance to steal game 3 since KD was clutching in the 4th.

Harris and Brown really let us down late in the 4th. WTF was brown thinking at end? Brainfarts after brainfarts

At least Brown was the main catalyst for the comeback in order to make it a more manageble score going into the half, but Joe was awful the entire game. I think it's his worst game as a Net.

The challenge on Blake's foul was beyond stupid. Don't know why they did that so early in the game

I think as a team we need to forget about game 3 and just focus on winning next game to complete the gentleman's sweep in BK.

I dont see a single brain fart from Brown. the last 2 shots he took he 100% should have taken.

[MGrand15]

Joe Harris 1/11 + terrible defense was the killer IMO.

Bad game for the team, but we had a chance to steal game 3 since KD was clutching in the 4th.

Harris and Brown really let us down late in the 4th. WTF was brown thinking at end? Brainfarts after brainfarts

At least Brown was the main catalyst for the comeback in order to make it a more manageble score going into the half, but Joe was awful the entire game. I think it's his worst game as a Net.

The challenge on Blake's foul was beyond stupid. Don't know why they did that so early in the game

I think as a team we need to forget about game 3 and just focus on winning next game to complete the gentleman's sweep in BK.

I dont see a single brain fart from Brown. the last 2 shots he took he 100% should have taken.

Those were bad shots at any point in the game. You got to rewatch them. Brook was all over him on both. And the 1st one was further out than his normal floater range. The second one he had Harris wide open in the corner. To make it worse, the 1st one was so early in the clock it gave Milwaukee 20 seconds to take the lead instead of 10 seconds. There was no need to rush that shot.

We all trust Brown - especially off of traps - but he made some bad decisions in crunch time.

I can't even be too mad at him cause we win this game going away if we score at anything near our normal rate. 41 points in the 2nd half is not going to give you a chance to win. Our offense was out of rhythm all game.

You can talk about coaching all day but when you hold a team to 86 points, that tells me the coaching staff did their job.

[Stone]

You'll get no argument from me. Pretty much what Prok wrote I had the same conversation with my son as we were watching the game, almost word for word.

A few things I would add is that we had a pretty quiet game from Kyrie. I know he had Jrue on him a lot but I expect more from him in game four.

One thing we really need to work on is our inbounding. It has been a problem for a long time now.

[Prokorov]

Joe Harris 1/11 + terrible defense was the killer IMO.

Bad game for the team, but we had a chance to steal game 3 since KD was clutching in the 4th.

Harris and Brown really let us down late in the 4th. WTF was brown thinking at end? Brainfarts after brainfarts

At least Brown was the main catalyst for the comeback in order to make it a more manageble score going into the half, but Joe was awful the entire game. I think it's his worst game as a Net.

The challenge on Blake's foul was beyond stupid. Don't know why they did that so early in the game

I think as a team we need to forget about game 3 and just focus on winning next game to complete the gentleman's sweep in BK.

I dont see a single brain fart from Brown. the last 2 shots he took he 100% should have taken.

Those were bad shots at any point in the game. You got to rewatch them. Brook was all over him on both. And the 1st one was further out than his normal floater range. The second one he had Harris wide open in the corner. To make it worse, the 1st one was so early in the clock it gave Milwaukee 20 seconds to take the lead instead of 10 seconds. There was no need to rush that shot.

We all trust Brown - especially off of traps - but he made some bad decisions in crunch time.

I can't even be too mad at him cause we win this game going away if we score at anything near our normal rate. 41 points in the 2nd half is not going to give you a chance to win. Our offense was out of rhythm all game.

You can talk about coaching all day but when you hold a team to 86 points, that tells me the coaching staff did their job.

both shots were less then 10 seconds on the shot/game clock. second one was a broken play. I dont see an open Harris in the corner on the second one. but maybe im not watching the right angle?

Those are the shots you want brown taking. if you dont want him taking those, because its close and late, dont have him on the floor setting screens on ball where a trap is a forgone conclusion

[Prokorov]

You'll get no argument from me. Pretty much what Prok wrote I had the same conversation with my son as we were watching the game, almost word for word.

A few things I would add is that we had a pretty quiet game from Kyrie. I know he had Jrue on him a lot but I expect more from him in game four.

One thing we really need to work on is our inbounding. It has been a problem for a long time now.

Our inbounding constantly plagues us. with a 7 foot durant and lightening quick Kyrie you would think we'd be able to get it in bound clean.

Agree that we can get alot more out of Kyrie. It looked like he was about to catch fire (Deep three, next possestion turnaround jumper, then a dime assist...) with KD on the bench. but then KD came in and caught fire himself.

It is a shame... those two were 5-5 for 12 points down the stretch and neither got a chance to shoot the last few possesions.

It todays league, especially with our roster... going 5 out with the ball in your scorers hands is pretty easy to accomplish but somehow we failed to do it with 2 red-hot stars, in 3 straight possesions.

Alot of focus on Browns pair of shots, but prior to that Harris took a shot he could have pulled out and gotten to a star

[Sharcm1]

For me the lack of ability for the nets to get the ball inbounds and get a good play for last second shots is a major problem. We have three clutch players and I can’t remember one last second shot all season to win a game. I know they haven’t had to do many. But there have been some games and I feel like they either turned the ball over or took a really bad shot