Talk strategy all you want But sitting Westbrook wins that game. In the last series getting James 3 minutes rest in the 4th might have ended it early. This is a championship team With proper player management Rocket River
And take chance on losing series or just as bad the WCF? A mentally focused and committed Russ is absolutely critical to win it all.
The Coach has to to know how to make the tough call and how to soothe an ego Or make a person so concerned about looking selfish that they get in line manage the players Rocket River
Coaching superstars like that will get you fired as well as lose your chemistry when you need it the most. D'Antoni coaches through positive stimulus, empowering players, especially his best players.
Weird situation. First you humiliate a veteran albeit stubborn coach by relegating him to lame duck status. Now they saw his value against OKC and want him back.
Unfortunately you take the Good Russ with the Bad Russ... You deal with game 6 (vs OKC) Russ in order to get Game 7 (vs OKC) Russ when James is not playing well. All we can do is hope he bounces back for a good game 3 and we finish this where we didn't in Game 2.
Only CF and media think this, Morey and even Tilman have repeatedly said that they want to retain D'Antoni.
This. I would rather Westbrook return to pre-bubble form than bench him. Pre-bubble Westbrook and current Harden beats this Lakers team in a 7 game series.
who the **** do you think screwed this team so he could play with his "buddy" vs a guy that called him out for his stupid 20 step back 3 plays.
The guy who called him out for his 3's ? You mean the guy that had never been to the third round and gave up a 3-1 lead to him? The Guy that has come up short in every stop? Rocket River
Yea biggest problem is your paying 2 players lebron salary, and but probably only need 1 of these guys. West brook going to have to go. He probably belong somewhere that team willing to cough up some talented players or rookies that would be needed to put around james. This way of small ball, and 3pt live or die is gonna have to be scraped including Management and Coaching. That means Morey gone, Mike D, and get Gm caple of adding good role players around Harden, and find some scorers who can avg 10-15 a game and play defense, might can find 3 of those for Salary of Westbrook. I would also trade Eric Gordon. I think this whole team needs a new identity 1 last start from scratch to see if you can put anything around harden that could be worth it. If not then maybe be good to just have a fire sale and rebuild. At any rate whatever...
Bench let us down in this one. House out, Rivers and BMac giving us nothing. Jeff Green was the only one doing anything off the bench. We have to get production off the bench if we're going to win. Hopefully, House is back next game.
There has always been bad with good with Westbrook but we need him to win this series. If we don't have that creative slashing threat to go with the rather static Rocket's offense this will look like it did in game 7 of 2018 WCF. If Westbrook can't do it we need Gordon and Rivers to take up that role but I don't think we can count on them to get to that level and we will need multiple slashers.
i think Phil Jackson is best suited for coaching this team. if you can handle Rodman and Jordan's ego, you can handle Russ and Harden.