Monday, June 11, 2007

Does this guy even know how to coach?

Simmons was ripping on Mike Brown the other day for how bad he blew the first game of the Finals. I don't think he was implying that Cleveland had a chance to beat the Spurs but his point was that Brown isn't helping matters any.

His main point was, "Why is Larry Hughes playing at all?" He's clearly injured and can't guard Tony Parker to save his life. Every minute that he's on the court he's a liability. Why don't they let Daniel Gibson start and play 40 minutes. Check out the line from last night's game:

Hughes: 20 minutes, 0-5 shooting, 0 points, 2 turnovers, 2 rebounds, 2 assists
Gibson: 31 minutes, 6-12 shooting, 15 points, 0 turnovers, 1 rebound, 0 assists

Now let's review game 1:

Hughes: 23 minutes, 1-5 shooting, 2 points, 0 assists, 3 rebounds, 0 steals
Gibson: 27 minutes, 7-9 shooting, 16 points, 4 assists, 1 rebound, 4 steals

This isn't rocket science. Gibson was 7 for 9 in game 1! And I realize that Gibson is playing more minutes than Hughes already and he's a rookie but I think Simmons point was questioning why Hughes is playing at all.

Hopefully games 3 and 4 will be less of a slaughtering. At this point the only way this series would go five games is if it was a best of nine. Burn.

2 comments:

jeremy said...

I hate to trash Mike Brown and in no WAY am I predicting Cleveland take this series but they did get blown out in the first two games in Detroit as well?

It almost feels like more a product of their poise (probably due to youth and inexperience) than piss poor coaching.

I actually don't know what CLE's starting five is but it's possible (if these 4 are starters: Varejao, Pavlovich, LeBron, & Gibson) that 3 are younger than Tony, one is only 4 months older, and none have the experience that Tony was blessed with (yet...I mean they are all playing with LBJ).

That said... Mr. Brown is outmatched vs. Pop and I'd bet that his assistant coaches don't even close to compare to Pop's crew. I'd wonder what kind of supporting crew Pop had in his first Finals appearance? If he kept some of the guys from winning teams in the 90's or if he had to drag some along from prior life(s)?

dullstone said...

Varejao and Gibson come out off the bench. The other starters are Gibson, Hughes and Ilgowskis(no idea how to spell it).

Brown or Cavs did a few odd things in detroit series that i questioned. He doesn't seem like the strongest coach to me. But i don't really know how good or bad he is. I don't think he's got nothing on Pop. Hard to tell though, when i'm watching the games in x3 speed. Last game ,I fast-fowarded all parts where Cavs were down by 15 or more. So, pretty much the whole game.