Looked to me that the starters were either gassed or unfocused. Right before he took the starters out, here were their offensive possessions:
Yeah, agree. They were allowing tons of easy layups and lapses on the defensive end. I think Joe really did just decide that the $500K Crew would close it out better.
This was explained a bunch of times in here and on every sports site out there. Any fan that didn't know the ramifications of last nights games was no fault but their own.
Was a bit hard to follow for me.. but was KP in any of those clips? JB seemed to be in quite a few.
They should have thrown in a couple of clips of KP in his suit on the sidelines.
Phil Jackson walked into pretty good situations with both the Bulls and the Lakers. Recent is a relative term.
Joe walked into a talented team but a fucked up coaching scene, with no time to prepare and another coach's staff.
Jaylen's turnover numbers are dropping dramatically too. He's now at 2.4 per game, and his TOV% is at 10.7, which is lower than anyone in the top 6 (Horford included) besides KP.
Adrian Griffin walked into an arguably better situation. Let's see how he does.
"Better" is definitely subjective. From a pure title chance standpoint sure, Griffin's situation is better than Kerr's was (The Warriors were +2800 to win the title his first year, Bucks are +600 this year), but the flip side of that is that it might be easier for rookie coaches who join competitive teams that aren't quite title favorites. Griffin will get a good chunk of the blame if the Bucks flame out in the playoffs (again!), but he's not getting any credit if they win (compared with Kerr back in 2015). There's something to be said for being allowed to make mistakes without everyone thinking you're killing a team's title chances.
Kerr walked into a situation with the cores best years ahead of them. Griffin entered one with the best years behind them. He's destined to be the scapegoat here imo.
Looked like a younger ref made those calls? Probably needs some more experience to realize people don't come to the arena to see him make calls. Tatum also needs to cut it out and play.
That was such an egregious foul from Tatum, it's rare you get both the nut shot and the elbow to the chin in the same foul. It's so hard to tell if he deserved the T or not, because we don't know what he said. But he'd had a tough game with the turnovers and was obviously frustrated. Got to get to the point where that stuff doesn't get into your head, which he's generally been better at this year.
Ransom has been a full-time NBA ref for quite some time, 6-7 years? It was weird bc it didn't appear that he was involved in the conversation.
Isn't LeBron the guy who lost his damn mind in a Broadway caliber performance without any penalty when a call didn't go his way against the Celtics last year?
Yes, clearly he knows a thing or two about how not to cross the line.
I mean, that was basically the definition of crossing the line. My point is that the standard should basically be the standard, which it's clearly not in my opinion.
Right.. the reason is because it’s a completely different line. Tatum raises his arms and looks disgusted and it’s a T.. LeBron used to do that kind of ‘histrionics’ after every foul call against him or that he didn’t get.
Luka was fined post-game for a flop the other night. Don't know if it was called in game.
I'll preface this by saying it's on the players, and not Mazzulla, but...
No doubt, but I think Joe's point is that this happens regularly in the NBA, for the reasons you cited. The Bulls, in their first game since losing by 200 points to Boston, beat the Bucks despite playing without DeRozan and LaVine on Thursday night. I'm sure the Bucks, once they saw the injury report, figured all they had to do was show up.
I think our focus would have been fine without Embiid but when it was Embiid AND Maxey that was the lightning rod to the exhale resulting in losing your edge. Clippers did same against Denver without Jokic and Gordon on top of Murray, Bulls and Bucks....etc etc. This has been a staple of regular season NBA for many years.
I think thats exactly what he's saying. Youre reading too much into his use of the passive voice.
Yeah, I thought it was a “we played like shit” statement in the vein of “mistakes were made”.
How about Luke Walton, who went 39-4 filling in for an injured Kerr during the Warriors 73 win season?
I think the signs of that are already showing. Griffin tried to put in a new defensive system and had to scrap it after the first few weeks. During the Celtics game, Giannis showed him up.
It was inexcusable on both sides, though. Tatum saw that these refs called a bunch of weak technicals, including on him. It's on him to recognize that and adjust.
I agree. Tatum played the first 3 quarters while apparently suffering from a craniorectal inversion, but his ejection seemed to focus the team.
Absolutely. The guys who played well in this game were Horford (shouldn't the other players feel a little shame when they are lazily going through the motions while the 37-year old guy is busting his ass at both ends?), White (did Mazzulla lose track of White in this game? Somehow he played the fewest minutes of any starter but Tatum while leading the team in +/- in every quarter except the 4th), and Pritchard in the 4th (led the team with 10 points and +12).
that pool report is sort of interesting—the only way to defend the ejection is a “magic words” explanation and they didn’t make it. Pretty indefensible ejection otherwise.
Both of Queta's turnovers came off passes where he was filling a lane and a teammate put him in the position of having to catch and/or catch and dribble in motion. There may not be a worse player in the NBA to pass the ball to when moving. That's on the players failure to recognize his skillset and Horford immediately recognized his error in putting Queta in that position.
I remember the Horford play now - that was an uncharacteristic mistake by him.
Another example of a player being in a position that he's not accustomed to being in...as the middleman leading a 3-on-2 break. Unlike the pass to Queta however this occured organically. One could say that the Al-Queda fast break blew up in their faces.
Horford immediately acknowledged that he'd made a mistake by passing to Queta in transition.
