While many people did not think Kawhi would be THIS good. Many...I think the majority of this board actually, wanted him over Morris. We really coulda been sitting on Harden and Kawhi and championships... I do think Pop helped his development a ton though so who knows. He really enabled that growth and basically told him from the start. "You can be the next Jordan."
no one is as dumb as Skip Clueless who bashed Jerry West for trading away his 26-yr old starting center, Vlade Divac, for an 18-yr old high schooler, Kobe Bryant Predicted that Steve Walsh will beat out Troy Aikman as the starting QB for the Cowboyd
I think we need to start considering a coaches ability to psychologically affect his players. Especially if you have a championship contending roster. From Red Auerbach to Phil Jackson, the best coaches are part-time psychologists. I don't know Nick Nurse's background or much about his coaching style, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was able to reach Kawhi on that level. Popovich knows how to pull the mental strings of his players. Kawhi didn't like it, but maybe he needs it to get the best out of himself and his teammates if what he wants is championships.
Yea man chemistry is important. Also I read somewhere Doc Rivers' team tend to play terrible in game 7s. HIs players are usually gassed when game 7 comes.
I don't get how his team is especially gassed in game 7. His players don't play more minutes than the opponent's. And I don't see his team's style is specially tiring. The only possible cause is that his practices are too demanding, which I doubt.
I think he freezes in situations that call for him to adjust. Even his attempts to motivate, his best quality, fall short because the players expect strategy. The moments are sometimes prolonged. I mean, we can now look back at the Dallas series and see problems that continued through the Denver series. Problems that he wasn't able to fix. They need to strongly consider finding another coach. Kawhi doesn't look like his prime will last much longer and he has definitely left his physical prime. I don't think he wants everyone to know whatever it is that has caused him to lose some athleticism. I've heard the rumors that he has some condition that is hurting him and will continue to deteriorate his legs.
I don't disagree about his adjustment and strategy issues. But the "gassed" excuse seems weird to me. If game 7 is too physically demanding for your team, why is it not too demanding for the opponent? That said, last night's game did show that the Clippers missed a lot of shots in the 4th quarter most of them short hitting the front iron, some way short. That seemed to be shot from tired legs.
Yea I don't know what the reason is, but there were definitely fatigue issues. I remember reading somewhere back then Doc's Celtics also had similar problem against Lakers in game 7.
Same thing with Bucks and frankly the Rockets as well. Wonder what's been going on. Only 35 YO ascended Lebron isn't affected.
Working as a consultant and having to travel quite a bit before COVID I can tell you that staying in a hotel room for long periods at a time suck hard. Sure these guys should be used to it for road games but that's with knowing that they'll eventually get to sleep in their own beds. Two months of this on anyone blows. That being said, King James isn't slumming it up like the rest of the players as he got the presidential suite: https://lakersdaily.com/heres-lakers-lebrons-presidential-suite-nba-bubble/
I can at least understand that the Rockets' small ball takes a lot of energy to play defense. Doc's team shouldn't have that problem. And the Clippers are supposed to be one of the deepest teams.
Add to the potential Pop influence, if Kawhi still had injury problems (maybe worse given Houston's history) and still felt the lure of those LA bright lights, no telling how long he would have lasted here, or how productive he would have been. Half of the topics of discussion as a Rockets fan (one of the most painful teams to cheer for over the past 24-years) are "what ifs". What if this guy didn't get injured, what if we drafted this guy, what if we didn't do this trade, what if Scott Foster was in prison where he belongs... But to me, this Kawhi thing is one of the less interesting or regrettable what ifs. While it's dumb AF in retrospect, no matter how any of us claim we felt at the time, it's not difficult to understand why this happened the way it happened. I think what happened with Chris Paul was not only something we more obviously f*ck3d up, but it had a much more immediately obvious negative effect... THAT'S what we should be better about, if anything.
