To be fair to Jabari, very few players can stop Steph on an iso. I’ll start or give Jabari the bulk of the minutes any day. He’s been consistent in his shooting and rebounding and you can’t teach heights.
Ime completely negated our strength by only going 8 deep. Our level of defensive intensity requires fresh legs. Holiday and Cam/Tate should have played some minutes.
Tate is injured, so he's not an option. Cam unfortunately ain't seeing the floor in this series. Ime essentially gave up on the guy. Same to a lesser extent with Reed. Aaron should be playing though. Either in place of Fred or Jalen when one or both of them are struggling. Last night, Fred actually had it going for once, so I get Ime sticking with him. But Jalen was so horrendously awful that Ime has gotta be willing to go deeper into his bench.
Ime Thibodeau probably isn’t guy moving forward. Too rigid. This isn’t the 90s. (Kerr said it too. “Felt like 1997 out there.”) Now maybe they Capture the Flagg or acquire another star (and he looks better) but he’s not unfireable. Cavs could’ve been content to ride out 50 wins each year with Bickerstaff, Nuggets fired Malone, Grizz moved on from Jenkins… What semi-realistic coach would you hire today if you had the chance? Let me guess, clamoring for JVG again? Oh wait, Sam Cassell!
The surprising difference-maker in this series? Steven Funaki Adams. He's thrown the Warriors off balance in ways that don't show up on the scoreboard, but matter everywhere else. They can't figure him out. Ime Udoka needs to lean into that. Play Adams more. Get Jabari on the floor. And don’t be afraid to sit Sengun or Green if the moment calls for it. Sometimes the game shifts when you trust the unexpected.
No doubt about it Ime was outcoached. I called it out as soon as it happened that he should have just left Adams in. Hack-a-Dude is a bullshit strategy. The whole point of it is to force the opposing coach to take the guy out the game and Ime folded. We needed Adams interior defense and rebounding desperately. We were doing really well forcing them to shoot 2s and Adams was cleaning up everything. Ime is just way too conservative. Quentin Post is in the game getting real minutes. Can we see if Holiday’s shooting can help? Can we see if Cam can get hot? Fine, you don’t trust the youth, ok so put Jeff Green in for a spell.
i hate threads like these but 4 games and we haven't seen a single adjustment. are we saving our cards for next year? Not even a single minute besides a 5 min cameo for Aaron Holiday for one of the deepest benches in the league. Absolutely baffling.
Throwing the last 2-3 games of regular season and not using bench players lol..........I guess Udoka has job security.
Even Aaron's cameo doesn't count. That was only because Amen got 3 fouls in the first quarter of Game 2.
Exactly. Sure the scheme isn't great but these mfs are incapable of making open shots, free throws and even damn layups. Not sure what Ime is going to do with that. Getting Jabari minutes and shots is my biggest complaint on the coaching thus far
Ime is playing guys who can't make shots. Amen has no reliable jumper. Fred prior to last night was shooting 27% from the floor. Jalen isn't even attempting to shoot in most of these games. He has other guys he can go to. Jabari as you mentioned being the biggest example. But he could also use Aaron for 10-15 minutes. He shot 40% from 3 this season and would allow Fred a breather so he's not exhausted by the 4th quarter. Even Jeff Green could give them a few minutes off the bench since Jae'Sean is injured.
Perhaps he over performed with the level of talent this roster has? Do you really think we would be championship contenders by keeping the same roster and swapping the coach out ?
What more can Ime do?? How about play other guys when certain players have shown in multiple games that they are struggling. The frustration with him is that he hasn’t done everything he can do to win this series. If you are ok with that then cool, but let’s not act like you don’t know why some of us are holding him accountable. I’m not one that wants him fired, but he has to own his share of blame as well.
It is about balance - Ime plays defensive players over offensive ones. GS has balance, Curry, Hield, Post among others suck on D, but they are good on O.........Ime has guys like that in Holiday, Reed and Cam, and Landale, but he just doesn't play them........ So, we are unbalanced - we can't shoot. It is so much easier to teach a gifted offensive player how to play adequate defense than it is to teach a gifted defender how to play adequate offense. Ime should have played Reed and Cam all season long so they would be ready when needed - instead he short termed it, and we are unbalanced because of that. Stone needs to trade away some of the DEFENSE ONLY players and force his hand. And we need to trade some redundant pieces like Jalen Green for someone like Jaden Ivey - so we can get a true creator on the floor to help everyone. DD
