Let me call in my guy, DFS, and we can take it from there. He’s an expert in that field and he can tell us a little more about it.
In hindsight, it looks like that was a combination of having a great roster, great assistant coaches, and playing in the easier Eastern Conference.
So if the Pistons lose to the 8th seed Magic would you consider the Pistons not contenders as well? What about if the 6th seed T-Wolves were healthy and beat the 3rd seed Nuggets would you consider the Nuggets not contenders as well? Its all about matchups...we lost to the Warriors because they have our number. I argue if we had the T-Wolves last year we would've won that series because we matched up better with them (last season) than the Warriors.
It's more that Grit and Grind doesn't work against the best teams in this era of basketball because offenses are so good. Go look at top defensive seasons of the past 5 seasons, 10 seasons, 20 seasons, etc. There is clear trend line of defensive rating clearly worsening, mostly due to offensive getting better and more efficient. So it more that when you get to the playoffs, you have to either have a high floor of offensive production or at least high variance of offensive production (boom/bust a la Rockets Harden era) and have some luck.
You are pretty knee deep in delusion. It was not a matchup issue, they’ve had the same offensive issues since last year . The narrative was that maybe we didn’t have that guy, which is why we swapped green for Durant. Since then we’ve been losing to tanking teams left and right and have one of the worst 4th Q offenses in the league. We’re down 1-3 (and at one point 0-3) to a lakers team led by 42 year old LeBron , kennard and Marcus smart By no objective context of the word contender are we remotely close. you can’t win 0 playoff series or anything remotely close to OKC, SA and call yourself a contender lmao
Yeah it was all talent thats clear as day. In order to win a chip they had to pivot to an offensive coach. Ime's cheating on Nia Long was the best thing to happen to the Celtics.
You mean the team Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum took to the finals? What evidence do you have that any of that was on Ime, considering that team is still super competitive whenever both guys show up, and we're almost never competitive with Ime.
....there are a lot of great rosters, great assistant coach teams, and great teams who played in the Eastern Conference who never got there. I'm not saying Udoka is the best coach but it's a bit disenguous to say Udoka rode on another team's coat tails to get to the Finals and that is proven by how bad this poorly constructed roster has struggled in the playoffs. Ime can be - overrated as a coach - but still an okay coach - ...and still a guy impacted by a poorly constructed roster - that is also missing literally $100million in salary to injuries All of those things can be true at once.
I've been saying this. We can't simultaneously complain that rule changes favor offense and still think that defense wins championships. Sorry but offense is more important now. Obviously you'd prefer both but if team building constraints force you to pick one or the other, offense has to be the focus. Prime Scottie Pippen wouldn't have stopped Smart and Kennard from making those shots in game 1 cause they were already lucky in nature. You have to have the weapons to score with them till their luck runs out.
i just disagree, take a look at how alpi operates in the post, amen is right there and his defender can easily double anytime he makes a move and vice versa. alpi with 4 shooters and a clean paint would be a totally different beast, and so would amen.
I think you're delusional with your thought process of our team. If we had FVV, we wouldn't have those 4th quarter meltdowns.
Offense >>>>>>>>> defense Offense is the name of the game. It’s about outscoring your opponent. Now some of you want to do it like the head coach with a final of 80 to 77. Every league has shifted/prioritized/favors offense and 2/3 teams in town be like “**** your offense.” No, offense/shooting isn’t the only thing but it’s a lot. And I’m not saying defense isn’t important or you don’t need defense. Why Durant & Curry & LeBron (freak athlete himself) can play until they’re 40. Why Fat Luka, Curry, Harden, Jokic are & were top 5/MVP candidates despite not being very good defenders. Why “The Freak” is breaking down at 31. Why Westbrook is on his 5th team in 6 years, now making the minimum. Why Simmons is out of the league at 29 (also in part due to injuries) basketball players >>> fun, exciting, freak athlete And once it goes… And that’s why I’m not building around a defensive role player and paying him $40M plus, no matter how exciting his dunks get you. People talk about Mobley($46M, end of deal it’ll be $61M) being a bad contract or Jalen($33M) or even Jabari($24M)…$40M+ to a freak athlete playing the “dunker role” with no shooting beyond the restricted area, who is spoonfed buckets, dunks, or running out in transition, off the attention of Jalen/Sengun/Durant, … nope!
No difference between offense and defense. The rating can change forever, but it is as rare as ever to win by only being great at one of these things. Championship coaches coach both ways. Championship rosters do both things. Champions are almost always top 10 on offense and defense. Any time you try to be extreme on one side, you’re trying to cheat the game. Won’t work.
You could verify this pretty easily with a simple google search..we’ve had them since this unqualified hire got the coaching job. We had FVV and still lost to a 7th seed. again you can’t convince crazy people so you do you.
Or if Ime would have just given the ball to Amen instead of Durant. People forget how sucky FVV was last year. Making Durant our 4th quarter pg is the problem. That’s on Ime. We averaged 103.8 ppg this year. We averaged 104.0 last year. FVV is not the answer. Getting rid of Durant and Ime is the answer.
Yeah, he would’ve been perfect to fulfil his obligation and do the 4-5 years and then make way for a new one. Not his fault the GM and or redneck owners jumped the gun and counted themselves lucky too soon.
The old adage that offense is talent and defense is effort comes into play. Ime has gotten a lot of effort (and bringing in defensive guys like FVV and Brooks) but he wasn't able to improve the offensive skills of our players. Jabari isn't turning into Tall Klay. Reed isn't turning into white Curry. Sengun isn't turning into Baby Jokic. And Jalen didn't turn into Devin Booker before he left. Cam flamed out and Tari never improved his shooting nor his finishing. Basically Ime rasied the floor but he never raised the ceiling. Because our young core couldn't blossom all their offensive talent under his regime.
