Outplayed or outcoached?

The Suns lost a game on Saturday that they should have won. The two key sequences played out identically. The Spurs were down by three, and they found an open shooter who hit a three to send it to overtime. (The Spurs won in the second overtime.)

In each sequence, there are two options for the Suns. First, you foul. Don't give them a chance to hit the three. Foul them before they can shoot, put their guy on the line, and then make them foul you and put you on the line. In other words, make it a free throw contest.

Obviously, Mike D'Antoni didn't make this call. I did make the call, however, as anyone within a quarter-mile of me at the time can tell you. D'Antoni didn't listen.

That takes us to the second option: do not leave anyone alone behind the three-point line, even if that means you give up an easy two-point bucket. Just be sure that if you DO give up that easy bucket, you don't foul the shooter.

In practice, this one can end up turning out the same way as the first one: you give the other guys an easy two points. In the first case, it's from the line. In this case, it's on a layup. But that's okay, because you're still up by one, and you've got the ball.

So, did D'Antoni call for option two? I think so, I hope so...but if he did, his team didn't execute. Now, when Finley hit his three, he slipped off of two screens, so you can see how he might have shaken even a tenacious defender. (Unfortunately, he was being chased by Leandro Barbosa, who can't even spell "defense" in Portuguese.) But when Duncan hit his three? To me it looked like no one thought he was worth guarding.

I'm tempted to say, "that's D'Antoni's fault," except for two considerations. First, that was an extremely low-percentage shot for Duncan, so guarding the other three-point threats was probably a reasonable call. (You can hear D'Antoni saying, "If Duncan ends up taking a three, then we've done our job." Actually, it's eerily reminiscent of that Game 1 the Suns stole from the Spurs in the Frank Johnson/Stephon Marbury era, when Amare--of all people--hit a three at the end of regulation.) Second, I have seen coaches during timeouts say, "No matter what you do, do NOT do X," or "...make sure you do Y," only to see players go ahead and do X or fail to do Y. It happens.

Did it happen on Saturday? We'll never know.

The one thing we DO know, however, is that D'Antoni did not call for option one -- the foul-'em-before-they-can-get-off-the-three approach. That clearly was a mistake (which I can say even without benefit of hindsight, having called for it before the plays happened). It's also one more bit of evidence that while Mike D'Antoni is a good coach, Pop is a great coach.

Comments

[Vox]

Even I called for option 1 - can't imagine why D'Antoni didn't.

Stubborn? Short sighted?

We'll never know - and we'll never get the game back.

Arizona sports teams will break your heart....

[Special Agent Johnny Utah]

Jeff Dean on Xtra Sports 910 said that as a rule of thumb, you don't foul in these situations unless the clock shows 8 seconds or less. What makes this situation different, though, is that Tim Duncan can't shoot free throws. Furthermore, this is the Spurs we're talking about. World champs. They've owned the Suns. They've got home-court advantage. You do NOT want this to go to overtime. You REALLY do not want it to go to two overtimes. Foul them, and then get the ball in Nash's hands on the inbounds so that he's the one shooting free throws.