Those have been the biggest criticisms of him going back to his days in Minnesota. I remember watching a rerun of the Kings-Wolves WSMF from '04 - and the problems he had then are the same ones he has now. His offense was geared towards jumpers then, too; one analyst even commented about it - of course, he didn't have the personnel 1-12 he has now, but they won that game on KG's sheer will, not because Flipper outcoached Adelman or made any adjustments. It's just the way he is. He buckles under pressure - that's not gonna cut it when he's matched up against someone who can actually coach championship ball - or Mike Brown.
This team does have players that can go inside - Sheed, Stuckey, Chauncey. But Sheed prefers hanging out at the 3-point line, and the rest of the team settles for forced jumpers when going gets tough. Maybe it is not just Flip, but the whole team is not mentally strong enough to pull through the difficulties and takes an easy way out. Lots has been written about that, and not in just local press, that if you take Pistons out of the comfort zone, they'll begin jacking the jumpers and their offense will grind to a halt. And the team is vulnerable to pick and roll.
Former NBA coach John Calipari and now coach of the undefeated # 2 Memphis tigers did just that in a game last Thursday vs Siena. . After about 3-4 minutes of watching the bench, the starters got the message and Calipari put them back in....they won 102-58 I don't think Flip has the balzz to do that!!
Yeah. I've read those too. It's just we don't have a true inside presence who will spend time in the paint 90% of the time unless it's demanded of them. A lot of our failings are on the players for sure, but Flip can't get off scot-free. He needs to put his foot down and make them do what he wants, or else. LB could do that. Pop could. Riles could even make Shaq do what he wanted (lose weight prior to last season) - Flipper doesn't have the hardware for that, though. Dude doesn't even care where the points come from, so no, I don't believe he's demanding more interior play from the guys either. Haven't we been dead last in points in the paint the last 2 years, as we are now? Sheed is our only real post presence - but he's almost 34; he can only do/take so much. Particularly when there are so many defensive lapses on the perimeter (I'm looking at you Chauncey, Tay) that he has to cover for as well. If he were 22 like D12, sure, why not - but he's not. When matched against quicker players, Chauncey gets burned everytime. If he's being played by bigger players, he's pretty ineffective as well. He can post up or drive the lane, but he can't explode to the basket; he's a low precentage shooter, even from inside, and he's not always gonna get the call. Rip's handles suck. He's not a penetrating guard, and he shouldn't be. He's just gonna get himself beat up and we don't need that. Tay's a viable option, but he's so passive, and he's not exactly gonna beat his man either. Dice usually only shoots 12-15 footers. At this point, Stuckey/Max are our best hope for that paint scoring.
HOOPSWORLD | NBA News, Rumors and Information I've got a solution for Flip - play guys who want to play and have desire to be out there and do whatever it takes to earn minutes that he won't give them anyway.
So flip was disappointed huh? I hope he expressed his disatisfication in angry yelling words and not the soft twitching clueless responses he gave to the ESPN sideline reporter...
You would think that, but it worked again with Jackson in the GS series as well. That's the way to defend Dirk. If you let him get a rhythm early, you're screwed. And i read somewhere that he only went to Hermann to manage the foul situation so it's not like he actually came up with a bright idea. And that was proven when Hermann sat in the 3rd.
I wouldn't really expect him to say anything worthwhile to the reporter, or if that's what he's really thinking then he's going to lose this team.
I almost forgot about that. I would count it except i don't think GS is very good. Their defense is awful, and we had a definite advantage in the post. Also Sheed went off. I'm talking got your ass kicked by BOS, came out with a team wide intensity and fire, and beat DAL down (or 2 similar caliber teams) Those are the Pistons i miss. edited to add; Mikhail, i think he's already lost this team.
That's not true. Neither JMax nor Dice were in foul trouble when Herrmann came in during the 2nd quarter; in fact Dice ended up not committing any fouls at all for the whole game, and JMax only had one. Sheed was playing with 2 fouls, but he was the one big man out there with the small lineup as Herrmann guarded Dirk. Now, I agree that something should have changed in the third quarter once it became clear that the starters were reverting to the same crappy play from the first quarter. I'm not sure that bringing Herrmann back in would have been such an obvious answer--the starters did play pretty good D at the beginning of the quarter, but fell behind because of stupid forced Js. But an adjustment should have been made nonetheless.
Going into the Celtics game, the Pistons had won 18 of 20. There are a couple of teams in the NBA that are actually better than Detroit. The Pistons just happen to be playing 3 of them in a row.
We're not talking about wins and losses. I am happy with the record of the team. We're talking about the adjustments necessary to win. Flip didn't even try - he has that blind faith in the starters that hurt them two years in a row in the conference finals, and that's where it will end this year as well unless something changes. He has to at least try something different if the "good old way" is not working. He is at the frontline and he has to fight the complacency. If player is not performing and his head is not in the game - sit him, don't stick with him until the game gets out of hand. For the most part, Flip has done good job managing the minutes, but he has to be firmer with starters. Nellie kept his three top players on the bench for the most part of the Portland game because they didn't produce.
Maybe if Lambieer was coaching a young lottery team. He would not take that approach with a veteran team like the Pistons. Don`t get me wrong, I am not saying it shoudn`t be done, just not by a rookie coach like Lambieer.
Brandon Bass was impressive. I like Stuckey. Brezec was a lot faster than I remembered him as being. Not that he's Amare Stoudemire, but he's not completely stiff.
Laims seems to me he would be a "no nonsense" coach who would tell it like it is. It wouldn't matter if it was year 1 or 21. Do you think any one of those players would have been able to argue they were playing like garbage?
The problem is that this is players league. If players tune out the coach, who do you think loses his job? Joe's not going to trade the entire team.
