Ime is the coach, his job is to put the right players in positions in which they can succeed and to make adjustments if those players are struggling, either with personnel changes, or changing attacking points, and stratagems. His SCHTICK is that he Values defense above all else, that is his calling card, and that will win in the regular season as you outhustle more talented teams as they wait for the playoffs. But in the playoffs when everyone hustles, the talent of shot making (THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN BASKETBALL) is tantamount. IMHO, we should have been playing Reed and Cam as backups all year, so that if Jalen or FVV struggle we have someone to come in and provide an alternative to them, we didn't. So, did we play Holiday, or Green......nope, we did not, we rode and died with the same struggling lack of offense. In Boston, Ime wouldn't play Pritchard because he wasn't a good defender and he preferred Marcus Smart - once Ime was fired they immediately got rid of Smart and started playing Pritchard and won a ring. BALANCE wins championships, not defense, not offense, balance, our team has players to balance the lineups, but IME won't play them. And, don't get me started on his offensive sets, or lack of movement and picks off the ball - Ime's offense is rudimentary at best and relies far too much on individual skills. He isn't helping them at all by getting them the ball in places of success.....for instance. GS was packing the paint and guarding the 3pt line - leaving a midrange FT line extended space wide open, why was no one flashing there? Sengun can score there, Jabari can score there, Jalen, Fred, tons can score there, but we didn't adust. Sengun was killing it, but instead of posting him up as GS played small - we kept him at the FT line and had very little cutting, and no off ball screens. Ime has to do better, or this will be a short playoff run......so yeah, our players struggled, but our coach did NOTHING to help them, IMHO. DD
Best shot makers on the team: Aaron Holiday, Dillon Brooks, Jabari Smith, Alperen Sengun, Cam Whitmore, Reed Sheppard Ime's priorities: Jalen Green, Fred Van Vleet, Alperen Sengun Hmm.
Yeah, the midrange jumper may have fallen out of favor during this analytics-driven period, but when you can’t hit a three and they’re packing the paint, it’s your best option. Sure, 3 is better than 2, but the 3s weren’t falling, and 2 is way better than 0 — and much less frustrating for the players. Ime definitely should’ve given Jabari, Amen, and Dillon the green light on midies, since they’re our most reliable from that range.
Ime can't make an open 3s, free throw, and layups for his players...however, he should've given Holiday some minutes as FVV was struggling with his shot. As bad as we played, we only lost by 10 points - thats encouraging especially this is the 1st time our young core experienced playoffs basketball.
If Fred or Jalen had just an average game at least we would've won. The only critique is that I would've given Holiday some minutes when it was clear that Fred and Jalen were struggling to make open shots. But this loss is more on the backcourt being terrible than it is on Ime.
It's no secret Jalen struggles against GS. Ime knows this, so why not plan for it. If not Cam, bring in Holiday. We just needed somebody to hit a 3pt shot. I'd give Jalen and FVV until halftime of Game 2, if they're not hitting their shots. You have to make adjustments
Should have just fed the ball to Sengun the entire game. Let him get more fouls on Draymond and anyone else trying to guard him. I’m not saying to this all the time, but he was cooking last night. Also, when we go into those long scoring droughts, bring in Cam. I know he is in the doghouse, but the dude can score. Very bad loss last night.
A trusted (well played rookie or 2nd year player) option would have done wonders because the game called for their strengths. Yes, probably not the 2nd seat if they got playing time in the season, BUT that advantage is gone after the first home loss. (Yesterday). Tomorrow is still coming and our team STILL hasn’t developed the youth.
The Rockets missed FTs and open/wide open threes. He doesn't have an offensive superstar to lean on when the shots aren't falling.
Yawn….. The issue is the roster not being good enough. Ime isn’t responsible for missed open shots. OP has had a vendetta because he thinks he knows much better than the head coach.
And what do you expect him to do with a team that can’t shoot… he’s got the best out of the roster. The roster just is not good enough.
He has shooters on the bench - guys that can shoot, but suck at defense - he just doesn't play them. Think of this, Jabari gets hurt, and Amen replaces him.......Amen stays in the starting lineup when Jabari is healhy - he replaces a shooting threat with a better defender, and unbalances the lineup even further. Every decision is about defense........our offense sucks because we don't value the most important skill in basketball - shooting. Ime is a good coach, but not a great one - he gets outcoached a lot when you go against guys that understand how to exploit weaknesses. DD
I agree. I think we're getting KD next year and Amen will be our point guard. Question is what other players the Suns are going to request in a FVV/draft picks package for KD?
Ime has to be better about recognizing when certain players are obviously off and need to be substituted for, but the players need to be better about executing too. Plenty of blame to go around.
Sure, Ime isn’t perfect and probably should have played Holiday last night given how much our two starting guards were struggling. Im not sure why we went away from Sengun. It’s happened before; not sure if that’s the plsyers or Ime. But what happened last night is not some unforeseen development. Our shooting has been a problem all year, including free throws. Fred hasn’t hit shots all year and he slows the pace, which undercuts our athleticism advantage. Jalen took a nice leap this year but he’s still capable of disappearing in games and still struggles with confidence. It’s his first playoffs. I’m betting Jalen will shake this off and play better in game 2, but my patience has run its course with Fred. This is a guy who’s been there before. As a max vet coming off a bad season, you don’t follow that up with a game 1 playoff clunker. Just freaking terrible.
