RE: Pitino gets the loss

["Thomas Murphy" <tfmiii@worldnet.att.net>]

Dan:

Unfortunately, I think you're on the money regarding Pitino. Heinsohn - of
ALL people (boy, has he really stepped up as commentator this year!) -
pointedly identified Pitino's management of his personnel and in particular
his substitution patterns as THE key source of difficulty in the loss to
Atlanta.

That's three losses (Chicago, Milwaukee and now Atlanta) that I would
directly attribute to Pitino's poor in-game coaching. Man, it's got to be
tough on the starters to watch less gifted players fumble away hard-won
leads and then have to try and quickly pull all the pieces back together:
- on the fly 
- against an in-sync, suddenly hungry and consequently much more aggressive
opponent 
- after sitting out many minutes 
AND THEN have the coach question your mental toughness after yet another
bitter loss. How many times does he want the first team to have to win the
game? Once is not enough it seems. 

Some people like to complain about the big egos involved in sports nowadays
but when they do so they tend focus on the young players. I'd say that on
the evidence the one Celtic who has the most difficulty sublimating his
healthy-sized ego for the better good of the team is Pitino (not 'Toine).
Talk about ego-centric - Pitino's use of the big men, the press, and the
bench all revolve around his desire to prove that his "boy-genius" system
will work in the big-leagues. How many more regrettable losses must we
suffer before he acknowledges that the pro-game is different from college? 

I ask you, is there a better way of reviving an opposing team putting in
the scrubs and demanding that they employ the "vaunted press"? Why force
the pace when you're 14-21 points ahead? I'm not advocating Knick-like
sludgeball, but to ratchet the pace up from fast-break to manic just gives
the other team that many more shot opportunities to catch up. And what
better way to jump-start the opponent's errant shooting touch than to put
them through the lay-up drill known as the press? After the novelty wore
off late in 1998 it seems that the press makes us one of the easiest teams
to prepare against.

Sorry to unload, I'm just frustrated like I'm sure most of us are. I
*really* like this team that Pitino has assembled (credit where credit is
due) and hate watching a team with such youthful promise being broken down
mentally and sapped of their energy by these tough losses. I'd also hate to
see this young team broken up by trades simply because they cannot achieve
what seems to me to be the nearly impossible. I think it is all the more
frustrating because Pitino is obviously an intelligent coach. He reminds me
of another extremely successful college coach who also happens to be a
Wildcat: Lute Olsen at the U. of Arizona (in Tucson, I got my M.A. there). 

Like Pitino, Olsen is great at recruiting and preparation - a fabulous
details man. But the two also share a common failing: at times their
comprehension of the game seems SO intellectualized that it actually
obscures their understanding of the flow and rhythms of the in-game
dynamics, particularly the psychology of the players. That is why Olsen has
had such varied success in the NCAA tourneys (being bounced several times
in the first round by low-seeded opponents), because his strength as a
coach - preparation - is minimized when he is matched up with little time
to prepare against little known teams from across the country. Instead
Olsen's weakness as a coach - managing the in-game dynamics in a variety of
circumstances - gets exposed in a way that rarely occurs during the regular
season when he and his players are well prepared and already know pretty
much what to expect against any given opponent. Even during the U of A's
championship run Olsen's team blew a large lead and nearly lost their first
game against Coach Musselman and his team of nobodies from the University
of Southern Alabama (you are right to say "who?"). The same U of A team
went on to defeat three number one seeds in winning the tourney - but not
before almost losing another game (OT) to the Providence Friars, again due
in large part to poor in-game coaching.

Our current Celtics remind me of those U of A Wildcats: a young team that
is capable of amazing things - if properly prepared and then allowed to
win. Our Cs need direction but they also need confidence, as Joe H. so
rightly pointed out. Three years into his tenure is not the time for Pitino
to continue conducting ideologically motivated experiments with the bench
and the press to prove a meaningless point (that his system can "work" in
the NBA) - it's time to lay the winning foundations for another dynasty.
It's time for Pitino to lead by example and demonstrate the mental
toughness that he demands from his players: admit to his share of the blame
and move on to proven winning in-game coaching techniques (regarding
minutes, substitutions, match-ups, trapping, the press, time-outs) that
take into account the varied circumstances of any given game. 

What kills me is that I KNOW that Pitino is smart enough. The question is:
"is he 'big' enough?" Would he "eat crow" for the good of the team?

Sure, Pitino can always get away by blaming such losses on the players (too
immature, selfish, tired, etc.) but how long can these young players endure
such demoralizing losses before they just mentally quit? The "wait for
Fortson" strategy (i.e., his return will "bolster the 2nd team") may simply
represent "too little too late".

Alternatingly hopeful and fearful,

-Tom Murphy

> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 21:43:30 -0500
> From: Dan Forant <dforant1@nycap.rr.com>
> Subject: Pitino Get's Loss
> 
> What an incompetent. He screws around with Dana again, 10 awkward minutes
> no points, for whatever minutes he had he's useless. Overton did a nice
> job. Last time I looked he had 5 assists in 22 minutes. Then he ices the
> starters till 8 minutes to go in the 4th and expects them to turn it on
> again. He let the Bucks have a good run prior to that also before making
a
> move. Anderson played only 16 minutes. He only had 4 fouls. This loss is
> worse than any I can remember because Rickie didn't tell Anderson to
handle
> the ball and let Pierce self destruct time after time in the 4th. You
could
> tell Pierce's timing was way off sitting for so long. These guy's
deserved
> better than this, sure they buckled some in the 4th but our brain stem
> collapsed when guidance was needed.
> 
> I figured we'd go 8-6 this month, I really doubt now we'll beat Atlanta,
> morale will be very low after this effort. You know what? Pitino doesn't
> know what talent he has nor how to use it.