Re: Imagine

[Dan Forant <dforant1@nycap.rr.com>]

Not too deep into the season Pitino knew we were headed for the Lottery
again. He's just making sure. No coach can be as dumb as his substitution
patterns without something in mind.

At 06:53 PM 2/26/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>On 26 Feb 2000, Kestutis Kveraga wrote:
>
>> And we can only hope that Pitino adapts to NBA realities and learns to
>> maximize his players' potential. I think our players often look a lot
>> worse than they are precisely because they're misused, drowning in a
>> torrent of instructions emanating from the sidelines, yanked quickly due
>> to Pitino's arbitrary criteria for substitution, and generally treated
>> as interchangeable parts in a machine.
>
>So true.  So true.  Guys pick up fouls and like a machine Pitino gets
>someone off the bench to sub in.  It doesn't matter that he doesn't give
>Potapenko more than 30 minutes a game anyway.  It doesn't matter if the
>player was playing well and will go cold and get out of rhythm on the
>bench.  It doesn't matter if the person in "foul trouble" came off the
>bench in the first place and doesn't have a prayer of fouling out when
>playing his regular rotation.  Pitino sees that player X has Y fouls and
>the sooper-dooper basketball mind of his has calculated that that player
>simply must come out, no ifs, ands, or buts.
>
>
>> is not optimal. (BTW, is it my imagination, or does Walker get stripped
>> more often than a groupie  on his drives to the hoop?).
>
>It is not your imagination.  Even worse, Pierce is making a strong push to
>out-do 'Toine in this area.
>
>
>> I also second
>> Tommy in questioning why our players (other than Pot) refuse to run !
>> fast break unless they have the ball. Worse yet, why don't they get
>> back on D, and why do they give wide berth to anyone willing to drive
>> the lane and slam it home (e.g., Rice and Kobe numerous times last
>> night).
>
>I can't believe this team doesn't fast break more.  The Celtics of the
>70s were not a big team (Cowens, Silas, Havlicek up front, *none* over
>6'9") but won games by running the other team to death.  They beat
>Milwaukee in the Finals against an awesome Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew
>Alcindor) who towered over Cowens by at least six inches.  They played to
>their strengths.  This team is ignoring all its strengths and blaming all
>of its weaknesses on inexperience.  It doesn't matter how experienced they
>get -- if they don't start taking advantages of what they *can* do well,
>they'll never win consistently.
>
>
>> Talent aside, I thought we weren't supposed to have these
>> problems under Pitino. Didn't he himself say so during his coronation?
>> Forget winning, I just want to see some effort consistently. 
>
>Amen.  Watching them play like this under M.L. Carr was to be expected.
>Watch them play like this under our uber-coach Pitino is nauseating.
>
>Dan
>
>