Agreed. For everyone that says Avery was being outcoached, keep in mind that he has decades of basketball coaching experience sitting on the bench at his disposal. That being said, I don't think he needs it. He knows basketball. He's also played it. As a point guard, he's seen and executed most of the things he tells his players to do. It's not foreign to him. This game was about the players and a coach that gave them a bit of slack to do what they wanted. It was about an entire team playing as a team and never quitting. A good coach and a good team beat an up-and-coming coach and and a team on the brink of finally doing something right. It goes back to the old saying about how individuals don't win championships, teams do. The stars and their sidekicks were playing well and the leader of the pack, JVG, was orchestrating it all.
If you were to bet whether Avery Johnson screwed up as a coach or Keith Van Horn screwed up as a player, 99% of the time, it's Van Horn. When even Isiah Thomas doesn't want you, that's a bad sign.
If they gonna blame KVH for the loss, then Avery should share most of the blame. He was the one who put KVH in the final few minutes. Go get some tapes when KVH was in Sixers playoff, KVH is a well-known big time choker. KH
Avery's just inheriting the same thing Don had. It's a team that is a group of good players but not necessarily ones that work well together. You've got good offensive players that suck at defense. You've got good players that make mistakes because they're so young. And you've got veterans like Bradley that flat out suck or are pretty one-dimensional like Dampier. Contrast this to what the Rockets have - 2 superstars and a bunch of guys that will all play defense and the majority of them can pop jumpers/threes all day long. Not to mention they're interchangeable parts. The Rockets are a team. The Mavs are a bunch of pretty good players.... Team 2 Pretty Good Players 0
While I really liked the no timeout move, I think some of the best calls last night by JVG were substitutions. Puts in Weatherspoon for Yao, foul called, then Yao back in. Brilliant way to protect your big man. There were a couple other moves like that but I though that one was particularly good.
Why did Avery have KVH in the game? He's not a defender and all he wanted to do was get rid of the ball.
avery was outcoached. tnt said that in one of the last timeouts during the 4th avery talked only to KVH on what he had to do on the offensive end. the next play he hesitates on 2 wide open 3s and the rest of the mavs are standing still cuz they have no idea what to do since the "play" out of the TO was for KVH only. you dont ever talk to one player during the timeout at that stage of the game unless he your superstar (dirk in the case of the mavs) houstons going to win the series due to the inexperience of AJ
Why is everyone getting on Avery. They got quick fouls on a couple of players. Thats why they sub'd a lot. Yao and T-Mac played out of their minds, Dirk did not. Avery can not coach that. On one of their last plays, Dirk was covered by Jon Barry and did not take him. He passed it out to Van Horn who was afraid to shoot. Is that Avery's fault?
We won by 2. Let's get game 3 convincingly to take any fight they have left....a great win, but it was not dominant. DD
The sports talking heads on the Ticket & ESPN 103.3 in Dallas are simply speechless over this little bit of coaching. Not only did JVG burn Avery but he burned Del Harris and the other 14 coaches that Mark Cuban is paying. Don Nelson was on the radio this morning and he described called what JVG did as brilliant. Mavericks were caught sleeping. As you put it: UN FRICKING BELIEVABLE!
I am having a great time today laughing at all of the folks who are going after Keith "Special K" (the nickname Mark Cuban gave him) Van Horn for not being aggressive on that last play and for playing poor defense. They knew what type of player he was when they traded for him: a soft player with good offensive skills who plays little or no defense. So what happens last night? He plays soft and non-aggressive on defense and now everyone is up in arms over his "failings" as if they could not see this coming. This is almost too much fun for a HillBoy to have!
i agree, JVG outcoached Avery but you really have to give AJ credit as well. he is extremely inexperienced compared to JVG and he did a good job.
He may have been outcoached, but I thought AJ did a pretty good job in the game anyway. The Mavs were pretty good in the third. The pressure they put on Sura was really bogging down our offense, and Dampier repeatedly getting open (while Yao was helping on the initial attacker) for easy putbacks was killing us. And, we never did much better than them in the rest of the game either. Really, if if he was outcoached, it wasn't by much, and if the Mavs were outplayed, it wasn't by much. We only won by 2 points. If the game were a minute longer, who knows who would have won? It was a great performance by the Rockets, they showed grit when they needed to and pulled out the win. But, we only just barely won. I'd say they essentially played us even for the game; we just pulled it out in the end.
Thats all it takes in the playoffs, JVGs coaching no matter how slightly better it is than AJ is going to be a difference maker. I think the difference is more that a little, holding Dirk to less than his season point and % averages is definitely attributable to JVGs replacing Spoon with Bowan. JVGs adjustment to get Yao more involved in game 2 worked brilliantly and that no-timeout was also a factor in game 2. While the Dallas D played well pressuring the ball in game 2, I didn't see any adjustments to get Dirk in the low post, I didn't see an adjustment on Yao. When you add up the points coming from the above, thats a huge difference and will likely win us the series.
I have trouble believing coaching is as irrelevant as some here seem to think. George Karl completely changed things around for the Nuggets. Last year, Hubie Brown did the same thing for the Grizzlies. Houston has one of the best Opp. FG % in the league. Their collection of players isn't full of defensive wonderkind. It's the coach that's a defensive specialist. There are many ways a coach can affect a game. Lately, JVG's subs and timeouts have been timed very well, as have his rotations (though I did wonder why Wesley got so much time last night!).
Close game! I wouldn't say JVG flat-out outchoached Avery Johnson, as the game was deided by two points, and the Mavs had a chance to tie/win at the end. The difference in the last minute was Tmac making the winning shot. And does anyone really think if KVH stepped out to guard Tmac better that it would have made a difference?!!! Tmac was going to hit that shot over ANYONE.
in the moment of the game it is clearly an example of stepping back and letting the players get it done, but doesn't happen without great coaching away from the game.....where most coaching is done... at training
