Rate D'Antoni's Coaching Last Night on a scale of 9/10

Last night was the first time I have ever watched him coach.

It was bizzare.

The man was actually calling timeouts as soon as the Jazz made mini runs.

 

MDA has proven he can coach when he is forced to.

 

"Alright I finally have a roster that will let me coach. I'll show you ****ers on the internetz how this is done"

 

so many people were worried about charmin gobert and he was made into the worse player on the floor. you love to see it

 

LOL... op read as a @Carl Herrera post.

It is interesting... he coached more/better when he knew he had to, or when given the leash to? Perhaps he just is more figurehead when Harden is out there, Harden and Russ. Still, even with them out there, even with him more as a figure head, dude should be able to call timeouts effectively.

All that aside... some teams have other teams numbers. See GSW against Rockets, lol. Rockets have the Jazz number in the Harden era, seemingly. Gobert can't get in the right head-space against our small ball. Ingles doesn't want to be constantly stuck on either dribble drive, or iso 3 guards either. Ingles has been generally better and key to their run - last night was his worst game (by gamescore, too) since Dec. 4th.

No comment on Frazier... just hope he doesn't have one more good game and then get rewarded with a deal by DM ala Gary Clark... cause he's not really good, lol.

So, yeah, GREAT coaching!!!

In all seriousness... the Rockets ran for the most part the same offensive style, with Gordon as their Harden. Except even with the ISO's there was more ball movement and overall movement. And generally speaking that is all people have asked of Harden when he's out there. Last night was actually "pleasing" to the eye.

They still weren't good defensively. In fact I think they were bad - Jazz just missed open, solid looks in the first half.

 

Totally agree that it seems to really go hand in hand with being without his alpha guys and felt he needed to coach. His time-outs were timely, he got on guys, made some good decisions. It was solid, 7.5/10 but nothing genius. We're just not used to having a coach so bar is set really low with him and McHale being lame ducks.

I wonder what it means though? Does he trust his main guys too much to make the right decisions, stop the run by themselves and such? Is he complacent / lazy? Is he just set in his ways and what we value from a coach is something he doesn't?

 

Every play he called created a shot. It was a beautiful display of basketball.

 

I particularly liked the timings of most of the time-outs last night.

 

Dumbtoni huh?

10.

 

This. I noticed it immediately and was in shock. MDA properly using timeouts? Amazing.

 

Technical wise, I think MDA knows as good as anybody. But head coaching in NBA is a complicated job, they have to manage player psyche, superstar egos, management pressures etc... I would put him right behind elites like Pop and Kerr, but those guys are firmly backed up by their organizations and has authority on and off the court.

 

1) Small ball only worked because the "Stifle Tower" has very little to no offensive game. I hope MDA realizes that.

2) MDA nearly lost the game by keeping no handles PJ in the game when all we needed was ball handlers and FT shooters. A closer game and we likely would have lost because of PJs turnovers.

3) Every coach looks great when %'s are good. What type of coach is he when things aren't going well for the shooters? So far in MDA's career, he has come up short in high stress situations vs his peers.

In summary, great win but MDA hasn't changed, grown, or regressed even. He's still the same, stubborn, regular season success, championship out of reach, coach.

 

Harden and Westbrook don't strike me as the easiest personalities to deal with as a coach.

 

Not everyone can be Steve Nash. MDA should know this more than most, considering he followed that up by having to coach the likes of Melo, Kobe, Dwight, Harden, CP3 and Russ.

You want to win as an NBA coach, you got to deal with huge personalities and egos.

The reason Phil was a great NBA coach was his ability to do that while surrounding himself with even better x's and o's guys, but pretty much horrible as an executive because that meant he had to do a lot of the decision making, x's and o's type stuff, which wasn't his strength. Pop is considered one of the all-time greats, because he was really good at both, generally (Kawhi aside)... though Pop also did have Tim Duncan and David Robinson, which makes the personal relationship side a bit easier. Still, I'd choose Pop over Phil on the coaching ladder.

 

good coaching (game plan), and excellent game execution
no more, no less

 

didn’t watch the game, but you’re not supposed to win in Utah with that collection of talent...so that’s an auto 20 outta 10 for me...salute MDA

 

Eric Gordon was scorching hot, to me, that's how we won. Hartenstein is a good 3 point shooter, but dantoni won't let him shoot 3s, in an offense built on 3s....

Rivers had his best game all season, and the Jazz, especially Conley were turning the ball over like it was a hot potato
(Scratches head trying to find a complement for dantoni)

 

Did not earn an extension from Tilman this morning or even a tweet so obviously not good enough. 0/10.