Is it really Doc's fault?

[Who]

Outrebounded? Really?

C'mon .... The Cavs are the best rebounding team in the league on the season and slaughtered the Wizards in the first round on the backboards.

Outrebounding? Really?

They're not even beating us on the backboards. We've won two games on the backboards, they've won two games on the backboards. All four games were closely contested on the backboards with the advantage normally going to the team who forced the most misses. Overall we're even with them on the backboards through four games.

Outrebounding ..... come on.

The two games the Celtics lost, they were outrebounded.  Perkins played 19 minutes in one game and 26 minutes in the other.  Yes, outrebounding.

In game three they missed 12 more shots than the Cavs. They only got outrebounded by 5. Typically a team gets around 70% of their defensive boards, Cavs are up around 77%. That's normally a 8 rebound difference. That game was about Boston missing shots, not being beaten on the backboards.

They're not losing games because of rebounding. It hasn't been an issue that decides who wins the game.

[Who]

When I talked about execution I was talking specifically to the Celtics offensive struggles.

The Celtics struggles have been self inflicted not because of Mike Brown. The overwhelming majority of those reasons have been because of the players and not the coaching staff. Those two reasons are why I don't think Mike Brown is outcoaching the Celtics despite the series being tied 2-2 with a weaker team.

Mike Brown is not playing Rondo when his shot's not falling, Rivers is.  No matter how many times you try to lay off the rotations and the play calls onto the players, they'll always come down to Rivers.  Mike Brown is killing him right now.

I've never said Doc is perfect or that Doc is devoid of blame. I have said that the overwhelming majority of the responsibility is on the players.

I don't agree with Rondo being benched. They can work around what's happening. But I do agree it's a problem.
Mike Brown runs a mickey mouse offense that limits his team and has made his star player's life extremely difficult. He's not devoid of blame either and he's not outcoaching Doc. The offensive problems Cleveland are going through are Brown's fault and have been his fault for three years. They're worse than anything Doc has done in this series. He's not outcoaching Doc.

[paintitgreen]

Thing is, nobody disagrees with the fact that Mike Brown and Mike Woodson aren't good coaches. Most of us know that. The problem is, Brown is doing better than Doc. He saw in Games 1 and 2 we were doubling Lebron with a big man whenever he got a whiff of the paint. So, he got his big men to get into open space for shots and that's how they got rolling in Game 3 and blew it open before the end of the first. Doc has yet to make any such adjustment. It's not by a wide margin, but he is doing better than Doc.

And Who, I have agreed, a big part of the problem is execution, but a lot of the things you blamed on execution aren't execution. Missing layups and free throws is poor execution, failing to set screens is poor execution, failing to make the pass the play calls for is poor execution, failing to crash the boards is poor execution. I agree.

However, "when KG has 13 points mainly out of the low post in the first quarter and then they go away from him like him Game One. Or in game four when he had 13 at halftime but they didn't keep going to him" - that is not execution, that's poor playcalling and poor reading of the game.   

"when Paul Pierce is killing every Hawk wing off the midpost and then Rondo stops going to him" and "when Rondo dribbles the ball up, then doesn't make the quick pass to start the offense. Instead he holds onto it for the first 8-10 seconds of the offense which is happening far too often" is not execution, again, it's playcalling. If it's Rondo calling the plays, then I'll take it back, Rondo is more to blame than Doc, though I wonder why we're suddenly giving him playcalling control in the playoffs when we've run everything through Pierce and KG during the season.

There are numerous examples of poor execution by this team.  However, you picked out a bunch of things that more accurately reflect poor game preparation and playcalling than poor execution, which is precisely why I believe that's our major problem in this series. They're not running a great offensive system and failing to execute it, they're running an inexplicable and to me, incoherent offensive system based on isolation, and failing to execute it.

Things aren't working. Offensively, they weren't working in Games 1 or 2, but we made no effort to adjust for Games 3 or 4. Doc stands by his belief the players have to do better. That might be true, but this is the problem we've all seen with Doc for years. When our players aren't doing better, he does absolutely nothing to help the situation, he just sticks with what doesn't work and makes haphazard rotation decisions.

[Who]

However, "when KG has 13 points mainly out of the low post in the first quarter and then they go away from him like him Game One. Or in game four when he had 13 at halftime but they didn't keep going to him" - that is not execution, that's poor playcalling and poor reading of the game.   

"when Paul Pierce is killing every Hawk wing off the midpost and then Rondo stops going to him" and "when Rondo dribbles the ball up, then doesn't make the quick pass to start the offense. Instead he holds onto it for the first 8-10 seconds of the offense which is happening far too often" is not execution, again, it's playcalling. If it's Rondo calling the plays, then I'll take it back, Rondo is more to blame than Doc, though I wonder why we're suddenly giving him playcalling control in the playoffs when we've run everything through Pierce and KG during the season.

Playcalling is execution. Recognition is execution. Understanding of your best weapons is execution (coaching has it's place here too).

Doc has his team run sets rather than precise plays so recognition of what to do stands with the players. If this were a Rick Carlisle team he'd be telling Rondo what to do on every possession and then Rick would be more responsible for end product. That's not how Doc coaches. It's also not how Phil Jackson coaches or Rick Adelman or D'Antoni. They give their players the room to make decisions like Doc does. The players are more responsible for those decisions in these types of offenses.

Thing is, nobody disagrees with the fact that Mike Brown and Mike Woodson aren't good coaches. Most of us know that. The problem is, Brown is doing better than Doc. He saw in Games 1 and 2 we were doubling Lebron with a big man whenever he got a whiff of the paint. So, he got his big men to get into open space for shots and that's how they got rolling in Game 3 and blew it open before the end of the first. Doc has yet to make any such adjustment. It's not by a wide margin, but he is doing better than Doc.

You see this makes no sense to me

To me this sounds like Brown did a bad job all season and put his team in a worse position to win but this shouldn't count for the playoffs. We gotta give bad coaches a handicap and then judge them.

This makes no sense to me

If Mike Brown did a better job during the regular season his team's offense would be better and his team would be in a better position to win this series. Why should he get a handicap for failure?

My bottom line is that Mike Brown's terrible coaching on offense is worse than any and all mistake(s) Doc has made in this series. That's why I don't think he's outcoaching him.

I also think Mike Brown has made mistakes on his side of the aisle during this series. Joe Smith's minutes would be top of my list. He should be playing a lot more. They're a different team when they have his offense on the floor. He defends KG well and he's a quality rebounder. He should be playing more minutes. In the two games they won he played 24-25 minutes as opposed to 16-19 minutes in the first two, and he only got 19 minutes cause Ben got dizzy. I regard him as their second best big man in the lineup and he's getting the least minutes of the four.

Doc did make an adjustment prior to the series begining. The defense we're playing on LeBron James isn't our normal defense and it's been very succesful.

As you said Doc has used the big men to limit Bron's penetration (part of the Bron adjustment). Doc is using KG on Ben in a similar manner to Brown using Delonte on Rondo; to consistently cheat off their man to limit an opposing team's best player.

Plus I don't agree with the adjustment you cited for Mike Brown. Ilgauskas was outside shooting jumpers throughout games one and two. Varajeo hasn't suddenly killed us from outside and neither has Ben Wallace. Joe Smith is doing the same thing he always does, he just hit shots (7-8 in game three instead of 2-7 in game two). I haven't seen what you described but I'll look for it, maybe I missed it.

The Cavs did have more player movement offensively (in games 3+4) but that was mainly down to their perimeter players

The single biggest difference by a huge margin is they're just making more of their shots and that's not a Mike Brown adjustment. That's just players shooting the ball better. The series didn't swing on anything he did. Just like the Celtics performance didn't change on the road because of anything Doc did. Cavs shot better, Celtics executed their offense worse.

Things aren't working. Offensively, they weren't working in Games 1 or 2, but we made no effort to adjust for Games 3 or 4. Doc stands by his belief the players have to do better. That might be true, but this is the problem we've all seen with Doc for years. When our players aren't doing better, he does absolutely nothing to help the situation, he just sticks with what doesn't work and makes haphazard rotation decisions.

I completely agree that the offense isn't working

Here's a good stat I read from the daily links today - The Celtics were held below 90 points only 11 times over the course of the regular season. They've yet to crack 90 against the Cavs this series.

[Scintan]

Outrebounded? Really?

C'mon .... The Cavs are the best rebounding team in the league on the season and slaughtered the Wizards in the first round on the backboards.

Outrebounding? Really?

They're not even beating us on the backboards. We've won two games on the backboards, they've won two games on the backboards. All four games were closely contested on the backboards with the advantage normally going to the team who forced the most misses. Overall we're even with them on the backboards through four games.

Outrebounding ..... come on.

The two games the Celtics lost, they were outrebounded.  Perkins played 19 minutes in one game and 26 minutes in the other.  Yes, outrebounding.

In game three they missed 12 more shots than the Cavs. They only got outrebounded by 5. Typically a team gets around 70% of their defensive boards, Cavs are up around 77%. That's normally a 8 rebound difference. That game was about Boston missing shots, not being beaten on the backboards.

They're not losing games because of rebounding. It hasn't been an issue that decides who wins the game.

The team that has won the rebounding matchup has won all 4 games.  The team with the best shooting percentage has also won all 4 games.  Not surprisingly, I'm talking about Rondo's jumpshooting woes and the effect that has on other players' offense, and Perkins not being in to help rebound.

It's not all execution and it's not nearly all execution.  There's a whole lot of coaching that Rivers is failing at, and Brown is kicking his tail all over the place.  Now, the good news is that the next game is at home, and home teams are dominating this round of the playoffs.  Let's hope Rivers makes some smart adjustments, players execute better, and shots fall more often.

[Who]

Outrebounded? Really?

C'mon .... The Cavs are the best rebounding team in the league on the season and slaughtered the Wizards in the first round on the backboards.

Outrebounding? Really?

They're not even beating us on the backboards. We've won two games on the backboards, they've won two games on the backboards. All four games were closely contested on the backboards with the advantage normally going to the team who forced the most misses. Overall we're even with them on the backboards through four games.

Outrebounding ..... come on.

The two games the Celtics lost, they were outrebounded.  Perkins played 19 minutes in one game and 26 minutes in the other.  Yes, outrebounding.

In game three they missed 12 more shots than the Cavs. They only got outrebounded by 5. Typically a team gets around 70% of their defensive boards, Cavs are up around 77%. That's normally a 8 rebound difference. That game was about Boston missing shots, not being beaten on the backboards.

They're not losing games because of rebounding. It hasn't been an issue that decides who wins the game.

The team that has won the rebounding matchup has won all 4 games.  The team with the best shooting percentage has also won all 4 games.  Not surprisingly, I'm talking about Rondo's jumpshooting woes and the effect that has on other players' offense, and Perkins not being in to help rebound.

It's not all execution and it's not nearly all execution.  There's a whole lot of coaching that Rivers is failing at, and Brown is kicking his tail all over the place.  Now, the good news is that the next game is at home, and home teams are dominating this round of the playoffs.  Let's hope Rivers makes some smart adjustments, players execute better, and shots fall more often.

The team that executes their offense better gets more high percentage shots and shoots a higher percentage from the field. The team that shoots a higher percentage wins the game. It all starts with offensive execution.

The Cavs simply do not have enough offensive weapons to match the Celtics if Boston do a good job of executing their offense. They can't do it. The whole series is going to be decided by how well the Celtics execute, it's that simple.

[tenn_smoothie]

contrast the style of kc jones who did not need to put his personal stamp on a game with over-strategizing ......... he knew he had the horses and was content to do his own small part and let the players win.

[Andy Jick]

contrast the style of kc jones who did not need to put his personal stamp on a game with over-strategizing ......... he knew he had the horses and was content to do his own small part and let the players win.

there's more coaching these days because players don't understand the game as well...imagine a player today with 3-4 years of college under his belt - more than basketball he learned about life.

also, the game is more "individual" oriented than it is "team" oriented.  a coach is more of a psychologist these days, and then you hire 85 assistant coaches to handle the players...

[Scintan]

The team that executes their offense better gets more high percentage shots and shoots a higher percentage from the field. The team that shoots a higher percentage wins the game. It all starts with offensive execution.

The Cavs simply do not have enough offensive weapons to match the Celtics if Boston do a good job of executing their offense. They can't do it. The whole series is going to be decided by how well the Celtics execute, it's that simple.

Tonight's game was a perfect example of why I keep saying you're wrong.  Boston won despite Cleveland executing their offense better.  Not surprisingly, however, Boston won the rebounding battle and shooting percentage battle.  If you think Boston was running plays to get Rondo free for 3 pointers, both I and LeBron have some bridges we'd like to sell you.  And, on the off chance that you claim that was Boston's intent, that would clearly be poor coaching by Rivers.

On the other hand, look to what Boston did well tonight, even as the offensive execution remained shoddy:

Rivers subbed Rondo back in at the perfect time
Rivers subbed Davis in, which paid off extremely well tonight
Rondo shot well
Pierce became a scoring threat again
BOSTON WON THE BATTLE ON THE BOARDS, including a 12-7 edge in offense rebounds

In other words...  the two players who needed to improve their offense did just that, and Rivers coached better tonight than he had for the past 2 games.  That's not execution, but it was the difference between a win and a loss.

[nickagneta]

I'm submit, as I did in another thread, that last night might well have been Rivers best coached game as a Celtic.

But I'll also give credit to where credit is due. The Big Three(KG, Pierce, and Rondo) really stepped up their game and played extremely well.

That other guard there, what's his name? Hold on, hold on. I know it's Ray something! Heck, I guess I'll look it up.(Goes to ESPN.com)Ray Allen, yeah, him. He even had a couple of three pointers and a big time rebounded tip to KG late in the game. I still say he might make a difference in a game this postseason.

[Brickowski]

Well, the second half was probably his best coached half as the Celtics coach, but suppose Rondo wasn't able to play 24 minutes, then what?

And why did it take 12 games for Rivers to do something right?

[CoachBo]

Doc gets too much credit when we win, and way too much blame when we lose.

Some of you are ignoring the huddle evidence that television provides. He's been begging for three games for what he finally got in the second half last night - aggressive offense, attacking the rim with authority, great team defense.

There isn't a switch Doc turns on and off. As a coach, you can ask, beg and plead all you want - but until your players carry that pleading out, it means bupkus.

[FireDocRivers]

Is Avery Johnson a good coach?  His Dallas team won 67 games last year and went to the NBA Finals the year before.  He wasn't a particularly good coach and now it looks like Dallas has missed its chance at a championship.  Their roster only could take them so far before they needed a little coaching to put them over the top.

I'm afraid that the same thing could happen with the Celtics.  Doc will take the team far enough to keep his job but not to the promised land.  I hope we fire him before the window of this core group closes.

FIRE DOC RIVERS!

[nickagneta]

Well, the second half was probably his best coached half as the Celtics coach, but suppose Rondo wasn't able to play 24 minutes, then what?

And why did it take 12 games for Rivers to do something right?

Holding the team together in the first half and recognizing that Sam had nothing and that Posey was useless on LeBron and quickly going back to Pierce on LeBron were excellent first half coaching decisions. Doc's first half coaching was pretty [dang] good as well.

And all the what ifs to take a shot at Doc isn't going to change anything that happened last night.

Neither is asking Monday morning point guard questions about why he hasn't been doing it in other games.

Fact is that some of the audio evidence has proven that Doc has been coaching the team to do the right things, but the team hasn't done it. There is zero proof to the contrary. All the conjecture about Doc saying one thing and doing another is pure speculation, there is no proof other than Doc implored his team to do things and that the team just didn't do it.

And just because the players haven't performed well on the road does not mean that Doc hasn't done the right things. I'll admit that some of his substitutions have been bad. His pregame emotional preparation of the team on the road has been atrocious, and his sticking with bench players too long while not playing the starters big minutes has been just plain wrong.

But much of the culpability for what has occured with this team on the road lies squarely on the laps of the players. At least in my opinion it does. Blaming the coach for poor play on the players part is just a cop out for those who just do not like this coach and wish to see him replaced.

I remember Terry Francona being considered the same way. Now he's considered one of the best coaches in baseball. If Doc wins the whole thing this year with this teamm, I grant you that it will probably be because of the talent. But someone had to put those players into the positions they needed to be in to win.

But Doc won't get credit for that. At least not here he won't.

[teddykgb]

How is doc coaching the right things when he's asking them to attack the basket? That's just general coaching talk, a platitude.  It means almost nothing, everyone says it, and it's self evident.  Shooting closer shots is better than shooting far shots. 

What Doc did last night, finally, after 90 games, is actually make an adjustment.  They completely ditched most of the offensive sets they had been running for something they did very early in the season (our best time offensively, btw) which is to simplify the offense into a pick and roll offense.  We stopped running ray around 3 screens, which Cleveland has stopped by simply switching off aggressively and flashing into the passing lanes, and instead of running a very wide offense, we set some good old fashioned screens and let the players made simple decisions to pass or shoot.  It helped that Rajon caught fire with his floaters, but at least we made an adjustment, we didn't just keep running the same thing over and over again.  As someone who heavily criticizes doc, this is major progress.