more blaming the coach

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

I think I knew the instant Carter threw in the buzzer-beater that Pitino
would take the blame for it in many people's minds. I mean, Carter 
gets forced into a turnaround fallaway three-pointer in a situation 
when two points would win. It's not like he got an easy look here.
People ask, why doesn't he get double-teamed? Well, do you want to
give up an open two pointer to someone else or a turnaround fallaway
three-pointer to Carter? Who else did they have on the floor, Dell
Curry, Doug Christie? These guys can shoot. You just know that if
Pitino double teamed Carter, someone would get an open 15 footer
and everyone would be screaming, "How could someone get that wide
open with the game on the line?" 

I guess that Pat Riley can't coach worth a damn either. I mean, what
is he doing allowing Walker to beat him with a three-point bank shot
at the buzzer? Doesn't he know that the Celtics are going to Walker
in that situation? And all those coaches that Bird burned with
ridiculous degree of difficulty buzzer beaters, they all can't
coach too!

You know, Carter misses that low-percentage shot and we could be
talking about how we own Toronto, how Carter shot 10-23 in another
subpar performance. We outrebounded the Raptors, outshot them,
got to the free throw line more, but we shot 58% from the free
throw line, and lost to a playoff bound team on a very tough shot.
Does everything have to be Pitino's fault? Can we just give credit
to Carter for hitting a tough shot, feel a bit bad about Potapenko
choking on all those free throws, and move on?

Alex