How do you like his coaching style so far ? I like that he makes players accountable for their bad play. For example, Brew and Ty losing minutes. Giving KJ a chance to play. The way I see it, is if they weren't motivated enough to play previously then maybe sitting on the bench will motivate them to hustle if they get their number called again. I see some improvement on defense, but still lacking something. I think we are way undersized and that is why the twin towers seems to work as we don't get slaughtered on the glass. Bev starting was a good change because he sets the defensive tone. Lawson was sluggish on defense and couldn't score so he was useless. Just some thoughts. I think we will be all right.
We need more data. Perhaps he does a better job than Mchale in terms of "holding players accountable", but there is a lot of work to be done in terms of achieving the defensive prowess of last season. Last night was promising but I need a wire to wire win before even beginning to consider him as a positive. IMO, the biggest test after righting the defense will be successfully integrating Lawson. It feels so distant, but he is supposed to help us take the next step.
He has been the coach for what, 6 games so far? And has a 3-3 record in those games? Normally I would say that 6 games isn't enough time to evaluate either a coach or a player. However, this is Clutchfans, therefore I feel comfortable saying- "he sucks! we know everything we need to know about him! fire him and hire someone else! and whoever you hire next, fire him too!"
as i said before, the impatience is crazy strong with clutchfans. will the next coach even get a single quarter? "we're down by 5 at the end of the half, FIRE THIBS! CALL JVG! BAN ROCKETSBALLIN!"
I like the fact that he's willing to do some unorthodox things ... like Dwert and Capela on the court together , giving KJ some run in place of Brewer last night .... Still , the shooters can't shoot and Harden dribbles too damn much .... and the defense has been poor more often than not. I guess that's to be expected when you have Methusalem , BrainFreeze & Harden playing a lot of minutes. I just don't understand how a team starting Howard , Ariza and PatBev can be so damn bad defensively. JB has added some new wrinkles to the offense .... and for the most part , when executed they generate positive results. JB's biggest task right now is getting Harden & the team to buy into what he wants to do offensively. I really think they need to implement more movement and screens off the ball .... rather than standing around at the 3 point line while Harden & a big run the pick and roll because .... the bigs are one dimensional in that they have no range and Harden has turned the ball over an awful lot. Getting DMo back will remedy some of the problems offensively .... but it ain't gonna fix the perimeter defense , cant turn the clock back for Terry and Harden is always going to have a tough time defending quicker players.
He's doing better than McHale in that the players seem to actually be trying, even if some are beyond repair like Brewer. But it's the results that matter and so far they're an unimpressive 3-3(with 2 of those wins requiring huge comebacks and game-tying 3 pointers to force OT). The schedule is pretty soft between now and X-Mas, so we'll see what he can accomplish over the next 3 1/2 weeks.
I thought that inbound play to end the game was good. Obviously it wasn't spectacular, but they inbounded to try to tip it up in the air for the last 1.4 instead of trying to get it safely in someone's hands (it was the inbound play to Marcus Thornton). It was a low risk way to seal the game. I remember watching Magic Johnson make a similar play where they threw it to him and he threw it straight up. It burns time without anyone able to possess it.
Good thing I haven't heard anything about "juice" and "sticky" and "throwing darts" yet. And the players actually listen to him. They do seem to be playing harder!
Problems as severe as the ones we developed with McHale won't be cured over night. Having said that , I think Harden's effort has looked better, though he still has breakdowns. LOVE the Capela/Dwight combo, and was happy to see Brewer get benched. Anyone notice the PLAY we ran to get Bev an open layup late in the game last night? I almost forgot what a play looked like! However, I still think we're seeing too much Harden-iso, and the offense still gets incredibly stagnant at times. But like I said earlier, this isn't going to get fixed over night. I'll say we've taken a step in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.
He has integrated plays. In the sixers game he was exposing their weak post defense and had Harden at the low post and Dwight would come and set a pick and that worked until they decided to double. Against the Knicks there was one play out of a time out where Bev had a wide open lay up I believe it was the 4th qtr and that got the ball rolling. just a few examples. I never saw this from McHale
One play that stuck out for me in the Philly game is when Lawson hit Harden for an alley-oop from an out of bounds play. And JB has already made plenty of adjustments, the pick and roll between Thornton/Howard changed the complexion of OT last night. Would McFail have thought of that? We won the game against Portland because we started going to Harden in the post excessively.
It feels like the offense has regressed to what we were doing the year before Dwight arrived.. A lot of people in this forum complain about how we undermine Harden even when he gets 50 points. I do feel that the quality of his shots (jacking up threes late in the shot clock) doesn't help the team. Last year we actually progressed from that with some nifty ball movement and post moves. I like how JB has slowed the game down because he's realised that if we don't make shots and don't run back on defense we are DEAD. So slow the game down, get these guys looks in the post and let them run back on D. I think JB has also realised that Dwight isn't as fast anymore and doesn't get back as quickly as he used to. So in summary, I see much better adjustments than McHale made in his first few games this season (with Ariza as PF and Thornton in the starting lineup). However, he needs to find a way to get Lawson involved and push Brewer further down the bench. I also like the 8 turnovers in the last game and that Beverley is looking like the Wolverine we all love. Thats a game changer right there.
You can't fire an assistant. Give him at least 30 games. We probably need to find a HC during the off season. I think this season is a throw away unless JB pulls a miracle.
