The "we're smarter than you" defense

Suns' coach Mike D'Antoni takes a lot of heat when his team under-performs. The common complaints are as follows:

• he doesn't emphasize defense/rebounding enough;
• he doesn't develop/play his bench enough;
• he's loyal to a fault with the players he likes;
• he tries to win games with sleight of hand, i.e., by putting the ball in the hands of Diaw and Barbosa rather than his stars.

After Game 1 against the Spurs, Aluminum Mike was also taking crap for not fouling before the Spurs could get off a three-pointer. Twice.

Generally, this is D'Antoni's defense to such criticisms: "You think that didn't occur to me? Look, this is my job. I do it 80 hours a week. Trust me, it occurred to me. If I thought it would help us win, I would do it."

That's a legitimate response if, say, you're Greg Popovich, and you've won four championships. Then, when your team doesn't foul Steve Nash in the second overtime with the Suns down by three, and Nash hits a three-pointer to tie it up again, you can say, "Well, maybe I should have made that call. But I've hung four championship banners NOT making that call, so I feel okay about it."

That should quiet the critics.

When D'Antoni says it, though, the correct response is this: "Well, maybe you need to think about it again. Two years ago, you went out in the conference finals. Last year, you went out in the conference semis. This year, you're at serious risk of going out in the first round. Your way of doing things appears to give you a good shot at regular season success, but a pretty slim chance of a strong playoff run. Why not try something different?"

Comments

[Michelle]

I know very little about basketball, but I'm good at repeating what the guys say on the radio.

They said the Suns repeated the same bad play in the second game that they did in the first: Boris Diaw is given the ball to make the final basket. (This fits your bullet point.)

I'll look for this in Game 3. Hopefully, I won't see it.