I think Ricky A is a good coach, however, there were a couple of strategic errors. 1. Not forcing Derron to give up the ball before crossing half cout by running a subtle double team. Especially after Rafer was hurt. Other teams were very successful in slowly Utah. This forces someone else to run the offense. The dude murdered us. 2. Not switching Shane Battier to Derron and forcing Korver, Brewer or another non post up player to score. 3. Playing Luther at all. We need to know if Brooks can replace Rafer 4. Continously running Tmac on the post with lack of ball movement. Takes other players out of the game. The team needs to run the offense and let's not modify for Tmac. Ball movement is the key to our future. 5.
(1) We beat Utah twice out of 5 times (2 of 5) IN Utah last season. The rest of the league managed 3 from 39 attempts. I would think that our coach MIGHT JUST be the one who knows how to beat Utah on their homecourt (they DO happen to be the best team in the league at home you do realise) (2) This has been done to death. IF Battier could stop Deron, he would clearly guard him - he can't so he doesn't. RA knows this. (3) Luther's minutes kept decreasing, but somewhere you NEED to believe that the guy who hit 37% of his threes in the regular season might have some sort of form in the post season. Your wish might be granted for next season, we might have seen the end of Luther. (4) Pretty sure TMac lit it up in the last game. Sadly Deron was hard to stop. (5)
1) How exactly do you make Deron give up the ball? Double him and leave someone open? We don't exactly have the quickest guys on this team that can double Deron and get back on defense in a hurry. + it hurts me to say but Deron is damn good.... 2) I agree with Battier comment I thought same thing actually. 3) Its tough here, Brooks and Luther both sucked all series. We just needed to have Rafer healthy whole way, but we didnt . 4) Man you can only move ball so much, its hard, we were hurt and we just did not have enough help overall. 5) GOOD POINT! .
You make Derron give up the Rock by running a soft trap once he crosses the halft court or right before half court by rotating off one of the non shooters. 5. At least using Mike Harris to give Shane a break
