Disappointing to see Doc call the Paul Pierce isolation once again late in the game. It's hard to believe that instead of stressing ball movement and avoiding the "hero ball" that Doc detests he falls right back into allowing Pierce to dribble around and take a contested shot.
The worst part is that Doc was happy with the shot and Paul sees nothing wrong with the late game execution either.
"Listen, Paul Pierce taking a step-back at the [free throw line], that's not a bad option," said Rivers. "I just wish we could have done it a bit earlier."
"I was trying to make the shot," said Pierce. "I got the switch on the big man, got to a good place -- I just missed the shot.”
Pressed on if he considered driving, or if he expected the Spurs to give a foul, Pierce shrugged off both notions.
"This type of stuff is not really pre-scripted, you don’t have an idea of what’s going to happen in those type of situations," said Pierce. "You get in those pressure situations and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t, but the thing is I’m not going to second guess my decision. I thought I got a great shot, created some space right there at the free throw line. It's just some days they fall, some days they don’t."
Doc did seem a bit frustrated that Pierce waited around too long instead of getting into the play quicker -
"We actually said that they probably would [give the foul] and we were trying to get Duncan on a Paul matchup, because we thought we had the speed advantage," said Rivers. "We wanted him to go a little quicker because I thought [Pierce] could’ve beat [Duncan] off the dribble and he would’ve reached the foul line and you know Paul has a knack of getting the ball up. But his step-back is what he wants. I just thought we waited a little too late in the clock.”
The Celtics had 2 timeouts to go over this play and it would seem Doc was stressing to get moving quickly. It made no sense for Pierce to dribble and wait until the last second to shoot. At the very least put up a shot with enough time to grab an offensive rebound and another chance to score. The Celtics had just held the Spurs to 28 points in the second half so even if Boston had left time on the clock their stellar defense would have had a great chance to finish the game.
Paul Pierce is a clutch player and has hit many huge shots over his career. Of course he is a top option to take big shots late in games. However relying on Pierce dribbling around and taking contested jumpers instead of using ball movement to get himself or a teammate a much better shot makes little sense.
It's disappointing that Doc isn't able to come up with a better option than just giving Pierce the ball and having everyone else uninvolved late in games. Ray had just hit a wide open look from 3 on the previous possession which resulted from great ball movement.
Instead of running an offensive set Doc went right back to his comfort zone of allowing Pierce to take over by himself. Doc seems to be missing the point that teams have no problem with allowing Pierce to take contested fadeaway jumpers in crunch time. Otherwise the Spurs would have double teamed to prevent the play that everyone knew was coming. Opposing teams just funnel Pierce further outside and live with the results of a contested shot. If the Celtics would change the script and run a different set then Pierce or his teammates could get much better looks. Instead of seeing this Doc just keeps insisting that isolating Pierce is a good way to finish games even if the results rarely are successful...
Topic: The dreaded end of game Paul Pierce isolation play (Read 13041 times)