How's My Driving?

Doc gets a B – not bad. He’s not making the decisions to pass on a seven-footer to kick the ball out to the arc for a low-percentage shot, etc.

With one major exception I think Doc has done a decent job throughout the playoffs. I think he totally mismanaged the use of Cassell and House in the first round. I think that if he had used House rather than Cassell that the series probably wouldn’ have gone seven games. I believe those extra one or two games are starting to show up in the teams play now. On the other hand I think he was slow in going to Cassell in the last game. I don’t think either Rondo or Cassell played particularly well but there was a point at which I felt Cassell needed to play and he wasn’t in the game.

doc has done a terrible job coaching. there is no way to defend playing big baby or pj brown over leon on a consistent basis. powe was arguably their 4th best player during the regular season and rivers has turned him to dust. rivers has stated that powe’s benching is because he has missed defensive assignments. well, were these assignments ones he missed during the regular season, because doc certainly wasn’t benching him then. i think doc’s rationale is bs. the real reason he’s benching leon is to safeguard himself against the media by playing the “veteran” pj brown. brown is a nice player who should get a few minutes, but he’s no leon. it’s truly outrageous what doc is doing. FREE LEON!!!

moving to cassell and house, cassell has been unbelievably bad. house lit a spark for the c’s at home and then doc inexplicably decides to go back to cassell who then misses every shot he takes and has zero assists in 17 minutes. that is simply horrific. in fact, the dude hasn’t had a single assist in the entire series. when stuff isn’t working with his guards, doc has to start trying some new things; put rondo and house on the floor together, put house at the one with allen. i’d also like to see tony allen get some minutes over ray when he is struggling. what has ray allen done lately to convince doc that tony deserves FEWER minutes (read: zero) than he was getting in the regular season?

overall, doc has:
1) played inferior players over better players
2) not made proper in-game line-up adjustments
3) showed zero creativity that might maximize his players’ strengths

 i hate phil jackson and think his arrogance outweighs his brains, but that guy is going to destroy doc if we make it to the finals—which isn’t to say the celts will necessarily lose.

I’m actually ok with PJ being in there. He’s made some key defensive stops and even your occasional jumper with 3 on the shot clock. What I definitely DON’T get is Big Baby over Powe. That’s just….. ridiculous.

mcpu40 said:
  Uh oh, here we go.

I really like Doc as the Celtics’ coach, especially last year with the younger guys. My thought has been that he’s a great teacher and leader.

I’ve always said I’m not anywhere close to some of the basketball minds on this site. However, I do think he’s made some mistakes in the playoffs here and there with rotations, leaving guys in too long, not taking timeouts when he should, no playing Leon Powe much, etc.

But those are the coach’s decisions, and I can’t quibble with them…especially since they are in GAME 5 OF THE EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS and legitimately one of the best 4 teams in the NBA.

This is as far as I’d hoped they’d go at the beginning of the season…so Coach Rivers, to me, has done a wonderful job balancing everything.

Well said and thank you. It is very easy for us fans to sit back and criticize (which is okay), but the furthest I’ve gone in basketball is street ball in the courts behind Yankee Stadium. I have never walked or played in the shoe’s of a professional basketall player nor in those of a coach. We do not know what it is really like, from the inside, especially at this time. To me it’s amazing these guys can go out and perform at all. Because I am from the Johnny Most Era of good and evil where evil was anything NOT in a green and white uniform, my words apply to the Celtics. Begrudgingly I need to acknowledge that these words should apply to all teams.

i give him a c. no in the moment moves-all programmed out.he is relying on the big 3 and it’s been a 2- can’t blame him. it’s the point guard situation stupid -rondo in more or out-eddie vs. sam. he sticks too long with sam when sam is stuttering.

Doc was beyond terrible in the Atlanta series. His substitutions were a mess. He had unexperienced rotations in for half of the fourth quarter in winnable games. He cost us game 3 by letting Ray get demolished by Joe Johnson. He couldn’t read the writing on the wall regarding Sam Cassell. Just an amazingly terrible job throughout. We won that series in spite of him, not because of him.

Cleveland series was better. He made some good moves in that series like finally going to Eddie for some spark, Big Baby in the 4th quarter in the game where he had a ton of hustle (can’t think of which one now), sticking with PJ a few times. Still I think he contributed to Ray’s slump with his refusal to run him off any screens to get some open looks. Going into the series Ray vs. Wally was supposed to be in favor of the C’s and it definitely didn’t work out that way.

So far in the Detroit series I have no big complaints. He had to go back to Cassell because the pressure on House bringing the ball up completely disrupted the Celts offense. Tony Allen is NOT a point guard and never should be used in that roll. PJ has played really well in this series and in the Cavs series and deserves many of these minutes.

The Powe/Davis/Brown thing isn’t a huge deal for me except pulling Leon because of a few “missed defensive rotations” is a cop out and stupid. Leon could easily have a game just like Maxiell did in game 4 that would energize the team, he just isn’t getting the chance.

Doc’s a decent player coach but we should have gone with an elite coach when we made the trade. He’s a liability more often than not and I shudder to think what our gameplans will look like next year if Thibodeau takes a head coaching job elsewhere.