Don't think that's the issue in this case. Hard to mentally prepare your team when all of them except Mcgee and Chandler have been included in at least one offer to NO. Not many coaches go through that.
Our starting PF has 3 rebounds in the last two games, Vet Point is a turnover machine, bench mob who want to throw paws with the coach over minutes, and have only two of five starters that show any interest in defense ... tough hand Luke ... This is a hot mess
Luke is just in over his head at this point... Head coach with no authority. He tried to excert authority too late (with minute distribution) and the bench-mob rose up against him with not a peep of support from the FO. Luke is a young defensive minded coach who needs help with offensive schemes but was given a hand with only Zo and BI mildly interested on that end. With no offensive scheme its either fast break or ISO with this group. I like Luke, the young core and the team as a whole but someone has to be the coach/manager/butt kicker and it isn't Luke. He's witnnessed the team consistently getting bullied and their butt handed to them while playing Kuzma at PF when that should be LeBron's position. He retards development by splitting minutes between Zo (pre-injury) and Rondo when Rondo has clearly lost more than a step defensively. He consistently watches players get a hot hand and then not see the ball for stretches. He watches the ISOing start and does not shut it down and slowly watches this style of play slowly trickle down to the rest of the team (I'm expecting Bonga, Svi, and Caruso to start calling for clear outs with a high post pick soon). This is painful to watch.
Your right ...they are bad at it. I just believe that its because the lead dog has little interest in defense and the majorirty follows his lead. I think Luke places an emphasis on it but they've tuned him out a while back on that subject. That's what folks overlook about Zo ... he covered up a lot of the defensive deficiencies.
I expected the team to show more improvement from the beginning of the year until now Very disappointing I can’t see how or why he would be brought back next year at this point unless a slight miracle were to occur
^If the team would be healthy...there is always the excuse of injuries which we have undoubtedly suffered a lot of.
If the team was healthy we’d have won more, but our style of play still looked like crap. Rotations were crap.
I'm cooling on Luke, but let's be honest, Magic and Pelinka handed him the most unbalanced roster in recent memory. Hard to have a fluid style of play with injuries and nobody with the ability to shoot outside of 15 feet....or inside 3 feet since they don't want to get fouled for fear of having to make a free throw.
Isolation offense won't get you anywhere, and exposes the team when your only isolation player (LeBron) is injured. Figured Luke would have picked up something in GSW. Guess I was wrong.