Game 2 of the NBA finals isn't on today until 9:00 p.m. eastern. Why? It's Sunday. These are the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Days of soda, and pretzels, and beer. You've got an entire day to play with, and you don't put the game on until what is bedtime for a lot of people. I don't get it.
Paul Coro says that Mike D'Antoni, Steve Kerr, and Robert Sarver discussed the following at their recent meeting:
...more practice
emphasis on defense, reducing Steve Nash's workload, using a deeper
rotation, a coaching-staff addition for defense and holding Amaré
Stoudemire and Leandro Barbosa more accountable.
Aside from Shaq's free throw shooting, I'd say that pretty much covers the terrain. I'd also say that there's no way D'Antoni is the guy to make this happen.
Who is? Pat "One More Mission" Riley.
As noted earlier, I did attend the game tonight...though only for the first half. My seat was rotten--a mere five rows from the top. But that's what you get when you buy a playoff ticket on Sunday for a game the following Tuesday. And THAT'S what you get when you're not certain until that Sunday that your team is even going to be around the following Tuesday. Anyway, I watched dutifully for the first half, drove to a sports bar during the third quarter, and watched the fourth quarter there. I wasn't able to live blog, but I did record my thoughts in real time. I'll share them with you now, in the order that they occurred to me:
And that's what I've got for you. I've been saying for years now (literally), that Mike D'Antoni's system will not win a championship. Though I've been wrong about some of the details along the way, I've been right about the fundamental point: offense doesn't win championships. No serious basketball fan can consider this team a title contender any longer.
The evidence is in. The window is closed. The trend is downward. The future is bleak. The time to start rebuilding is now.
Mike D, you're a good guy and a good coach, but you've done all you can do here. We wish you well.
Okay, you won't actually be there, but I will be. I'm gonna be your eyes and ears. Wish I could live blog it... Don't think I can, but maybe I'll surprise you. In any case, I'll definitely have a report for you late Tuesday or early Wednesday.
Prediction: Spurs beat the Suns in a competitive contest. After the game, Greg Popovich announces that he and Manu Ginobili spent last summer building a time machine. In front of a gobsmacked press, Pop proceeds to spin the dial back to Sunday, April 28, 2008 and presses a big red button. The Spurs go back in time to Game 4, route the Suns, and sweep them the hell out of the playoffs.
I have never in my life--not once--asked a girl if I could kiss her. I just go in for the kiss if I think the time is right. If she's not feeling it, she'll let me know: she'll giggle as if I had just been kidding, turn her head so that I get the cheek, produce a restraining order, whatever. Point is, that's how I roll.
How does Mike 'Antoni roll? (You'll notice I'm spelling his name with no "D." Why? Because his basketball teams play no "D," i.e., defense. Same reason they used to refer to Jason Kidd as "Ason Kidd" -- no "J," i.e., no jump shot. I stole the "'Antoni" joke from some unfortunate slob on a Suns' blog.) Just in case you got lost in that extended parenthetical explanation, I'll ask the question again: How does Mike 'Antoni roll?
He wants his team to outscore you. It's the way he's played and coached all his life. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Just like me and my girl-kissing philosophy.
But what if Aluminum Mike did something crazy today and said (to himself), "Here we are, with access to the former and future world champion Spurs. They're the best there is. We've shown we can't beat them with offense. So, let's see what happens if we build a game plan entirely around defense. Let's say that our energy ratio today goes 70 percent defense, 30 percent offense, instead of the reverse. What would happen? Could we be more competitive? If the answer is 'yes,' then maybe we win. That gives us something to work with in the next game...heck, it gives us something to work with next year, too. If the answer is 'no,' well, we were gonna lose the series--and I was gonna lose my job--anyway. So, that's it. Today we're a defensive juggernaut, win, lose, or draw."
If 'Antoni does that, then when I'm at my game-watching venue (a place called Bikinis), I'm going to ask my waitress if I can kiss her. Maybe it will work out for both of us ('Antoni and me, not the waitress and me).
Footnote: I know you'll say, "He doesn't have the horses to play defense!" Actually, he doesn't have the horses to play GREAT defense. He does have the horses to play better-than-average defense. That's all I'm asking for.
Anklenote: What is this Bikinis I speak of? Bikinis is like Hooters, except that the girls wear bikini tops and cotton shorts rather than white t-shirts and nylon shorts. There's also a place here called Twin Peaks, at which the girls wear revealing clothing in a vaguely Pacific Northwest motif.
And which is my favorite? Well, when I'm in the mood to see women as nothing more than beer-delivering sex objects, I usually give Twin Peaks the nod. But today, for some reason, I'm in a Bikinis kinda mood...
For the last few years, "we're close" (to a championship) has been the Suns' mantra. Truth is, we're not close, and we're getting further away every year. The team built to beat the Spurs can't even compete with the Spurs. (Boy, was I ever wrong about that...) Without dramatic change in personnel--on the floor, on the coaching staff, or both--there's no reason to expect anything different next year.
As frustrating as the Suns have been over the years, one thing they have never been is a stand-pat team. I'd expect to see big changes in the off season.
But what kind of changes? Well, the Suns are spending much more on payroll than they were when Robert Sarver took over. They've got one of the best point guards in the league (though I think we're finally seeing Nash in decline). They've got one of the best power forwards in the league. They've got an aging but still intimidating big man. They've got a shooting guard who's two years removed from being sixth man of the year. They've got a solid defender in Raja Bell. They've got a reliable veteran presence on both ends in Grant Hill. (Oh yeah, they've got some guys on the bench, too. We don't know that much about them because the coach never plays them. There's that one French guy--Doris Meow, I think--sometimes he plays like Michael Jordan, sometimes he plays like Michael Milken. Anyway...)
Point is, the Suns have lots of payroll and lots of talent. What they don't have are: a) a deep bench; b) good team defense; c) enough rebounds from their big men; or d) a system that can win in the playoffs.
What's it all mean? Goodbye, Mike D'Antoni. Hello, Larry Brown.
Suns' coach Mike D'Antoni takes a lot of heat when his team under-performs. The common complaints are as follows:
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?"
Tonight was a typical Suns/Spurs playoff match-up: Suns play just well enough to give you hope, and then end up caving to veteran players with veteran coaching.
Let's be honest here. The Spurs are world champs, playing with home-court advantage. If you were betting, you'd bet they'd win the series. (Okay, I wouldn't bet that way, but most sensible people would.)
But come on, Suns...if you're going to lose, at least lose in respectable fashion. You can't have players and coaches making rookie mistakes, as they did in Game 1. You can't have key role-players going 0-fer in Game 2. (Leandro Barbosa, that means you.) You can't melt under the Spurs' defensive pressure; you have to have a half-court offense that is capable of scoring with the shot clock below :08. Oh yeah, you also can't let Tony Parker score a billion points in the paint. I mean, seriously, ask yourself: how many points did Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa score in the paint?
Despite all of that, there were two things to feel good about tonight: a) a couple of hard fouls on Ginobili and Parker in the lane, which is something I've always wanted to see from the Suns; and b) the fact that losing to the Spurs means we don't have to lose to the Lakers.
Once the Suns are excused from the playoffs, whether in this series or a later one, where does that leave them? I hope it leaves them with this conversation between Robert Sarver and Mike D'Antoni when the season is done: "Mike, I think you'd agree it was another disappointing season. I'd like you to have a full year with Shaq, though, just to see what you can do when you've got time to prepare with a genuine big man. But if we all end up being disappointed again at the end of next season, it will be time for sweeping changes in the organization. Those changes will start with a new head coach."
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.
