this will be a big lesson for him, imo. not sure what he was thinking, and i am sure he already regrets it. i get that 3-1 is death and it was nip and tuck, but you showed no trust/faith in anyone outside of those five guys? no one? maybe in a true elimination game you do something like this, partially to prove a point to management about what you need to be successful. but now you've shown all your cards to both the opposition and to your own locker room (you don't trust gabe, vando, hayes, or goodwin, much less the deep bench).
Yeah, the biggest problem is that he showed no trust in Gabe, Vando, Goodwin, Hayes... and that is going to kill their confidence. I know he's a rookie coach, I get it; this can't be easy for him. Maybe he can try to fix this in game 5, let's see what happens.
Agree with Pika that you don't do that to Luka who still isn't in great shape and coming off a day of vomiting, and LeBron who is older than dirt. The result... the two of them were 1-13 in the 4th. Who could have imagined? Agree with abeer and karacha about the no confidence impact on bench players. Easily the biggest mistake I've seen JJ make. Live and learn, coach, live and learn.
I think we all knew JJ panicked, its like playing 2K and you keep the starters in and you gassed them and they play s***tier. JJ shouldve made adjustments when things weren't working, but others in there it might light a spark. Better than running our starters to the ground. But he's been doing great for a roster like this in his first year of coaching.
You can't do this with a 40 year old Lebron and AR Feel like he went all in without understanding the cards he had. Lebron at this stage of his career is definitely going to run out of gas and AR traditionally has had dead legs issues for stretches of the season. I know this roster isn't perfect but there were opportunities to play some of these guys in the second half Also the lack of play calling is bizarre. Yes it's Luka and he can generate offense with his eyes closed but why make it harder?
Pretty disappointing, it's one thing to ride a few super max star players but to just leave them all out there is just bizarre, Reaves catching a lot of flack for bad play, but he was mismanaged and he needs rest he's not Kobe, he's young and bounces back pretty quickly with just a few mins of rest.. there was no reason to push him like that.. that outcome would be entirely different had he had some rest IMO. That loss is on JJ, he's a good coach and I highly doubt he does this again.. it's sad we'll likely end it in the first round though.. will be a very very long summer.
Once we got a double digit lead in the 4th he should have subbed Gabe and Vando for few minutes at a minimum. Gabe AR DFS Rui Vando Tell AR and Rui it’s their time to shine and let Bron and Luka get a quick breather. Worse case scenario they cut the lead to under 3 points which they wound up doing anyway.
The lack of organized offense continues to be a massive problem. That, more than anything, is why we lost each game in Minnesota. Turnovers, bad decisions, attacking the wrong guys on switches, all of that can be mitigated if you're running organized offense. Guys like Austin who don't have great physical tools need organized offense to put them in positions to succeed. It's a bit counter intuitive, but the cerebral types like Luka and LeBron also do better with organized offense. You don't want to ask them to create something out of nothing over and over and over, you want to scheme them into advantageous positions and then count on them to right the make read just about every time. The one game we've won out of 4 we ran organized offense 57% of the time, the other three have been 45% or less. I think JJ just trusts Luka and LeBron too much, frankly. Between the lack of organized offense, the team being flat and unprepared in Game 1 and then the no subs in the second half, JJ has done a bad job in this series. Period. It's okay to say that, I still think he's done a good job this year and I am excited to have him as our coach going forward. If we do end up losing this series, I think its going to eat at him all summer and unlike Ham he'll diagnose and attack the things he did wrong, rather than galaxy braining the rotation and blaming the players.
When Lebron is 40 and you are in a win now, you do not go out and find someone that does podcast for a living to coach your team. This might be a learning experience for him, but next year playoff he might again be in another situation where he does not have the experience for. How long are we willing to waste away Lebron's and Luka careers for JJ to learn...
We’re a fickle bunch. JJ is a great coach. Pelinka has done an above average job. We have two top 10 players and decent role players. We’re just missing a big - that we addressed before the deadline, but because of some strange rules we couldn’t amend the trade for it to go through. With one decent big, I think we what the Wolves.
What is your definition of "great'? If we have everything you said 2 of the top 10 players and a great coach, shouldn't we be sweeping the Wolves? Instead our great coach is down 3 - 1...
Our offense was much more fluid with him in the line up. Rui before the luka trade and after the luka trade was never really a good fit for us, at least that just my two cents. Remember when we first got Rui? He was just so terrible, I don't think he improved or gel'd with this team basketball chemistry wise enough.