Thanks doc

[steve knight]

great points, ryan. can't argue with any of them. 

honestly, i can't figure why doc would change his rotation so drastically from the one that won him 66 games this year. in a game that cried out for powe, he gets 6 minutes. he stayed with sam way too long, messing with rondo's confidence in the process. and please, can we find a few minutes for tony. scheesch. 

and please find fewer minutes for ray. or get someone to set a freaking screen for him. he's not effective creating his own shot, a la pierce. he needs space only a pick or two will provide. it's not brain surgery, doc. 







Message: 11
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 12:24:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ryan W <ubiquitous_am_i at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Thanks Doc!
To: celtics at igtc.com
Message-ID: <924554.62781.qm at web65613.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I found it strange that Big Baby got dusted off in the
fourth quarter of fourth game of the series.  Yes, he
should be playing, but bringing him in at that
juncture was just asking him to fail.  And he did.  1
turnover, 1 missed shot, 1 foul and no rebounds in 4
minutes.  Nice hunch Doc.  

My biggest complaint against Doc since he's been here
is that he doesn't put players in a position to
succeed, and instead asks players to succeed on his
terms, no matter what limitations or handicaps a
certain player may have.  Big Baby's minutes are an
example of this, as is the continual jerking around of
Rajon Rondo.  

The simple fact is, and even an idiot like Doug
Collins knows it, is that it's a coach's job to get
his top 3 scorers to reach their point-per-game
averages in the playoffs.  And we haven't done that
all post-season.  Yes, it's about making the extra
pass and trusting and all that bullshit, but it's also
about the specifics--specifics that I don't think
we've actually specified to our guys.  Here are some:
riding the hot hand; establishing KG in the post early
in the shot clock; getting Pierce in the post against
Pavlovic or Wally; taking the ball to the basket when
we're in the penalty early in the quarter; not
settling for jumpshots in the 4th quarter.  The crazy
part is, we've done these things throughout the
playoffs, just not consistently and almost never on
the road. 

On a more wide-ranging level, I think it's obvious to
anyone who's watched this team that we're at our best,
our absolute best, when the ball's in Rondo's hands
and we're letting him breakdown the defense and
create.  Yet, we go through periods were he does
nothing and we let the other team cheat off him
because we're wasting him on offense.  Even Doug
Collins can figure it out: if the ball's always in
Rondo's hands, they can't cheat off him and his poor
shooting becomes less of an issue.  Yet we go games
without letting Rondo create.  Is it any wonder that
our two most productive and freeflowing offensive
'explosions' in this series have been when Rondo has
been penetrating and getting easy buckets?  With Tony
MIA, Rondo is about our only player who can get layups
consistently, yet we continually go away from what is
our over-riding advantage in this series (and in all
series).  We need his easy buckets, and we need him to
keep driving even if he's not making his runners and
layups because it makes Cleveland have to defend us
honestly and not body KG out of the post, or body
Pierce off his drives.  When Rondo drives, everything
else opens up and everyone else is free to operate and
get buckets.  It's that simple Doc.  

Sam has really messed things up and it's not because
he's some malevolent force.  It's just that he plays a
completely different game than Rondo and changing
between two radically different point guards often
messes up the overall flow our what we're doing (I
sound like Tommy now).  We get away with it when Sam's
making shots, but when he's not we're toast.  Doc must
see this: everybody else can.  But forget about House:
he hasn't played in over a month.  We've made our bed
with Sam, he just has to make some shots on the road. 
If he's not, Doc, then ride Rondo for 40+ minutes.

Of course Doc won't change anything because he doesn't
change anything.  He hasn't made an 'adjustment' all
post-season and he's not about to right now.  All he's
going to do is tell them to play better and that'll
probably work.  Cleveland's scrubs will not play as
well as they did in Cleveland.  They will not
continually score with less than 4 seconds in the shot
clock (they had at least 20 points last night after
the shot clock was at 4 or less).  Our
reserves--including Cassell--will make buckets they've
been missing on the road.  Our big three will make the
buckets they've been missing on the road (they missed
alot of easy ones last night).  We'll probably win and
think, hey, we just need to play better and everything
will be alright.  Of course, we're just masking our
deficiencies right now.  Doc has never and I mean
never been a proactive, forward thinking coach.  He's
too conservative.  And it will be our downfall if not
corrected.  Bottom line: our offense should run
through Rondo for the rest of the post-season.  Sink
or swim, that's our most effective offensive
philosophy.  

Ryan