Doc Rivers has won coach of the year once, and is the favorite of many pundits to win coach of the year this year. Yet he might be the most maligned coach in the NBA, and the most maligned Celtics coach since Rick Pitino.
So what gives?
Part of the problem has been his substitution patterns, which more closely resemble the sport of hockey than they do basketball. Another problem has been his crunch-time decisions in the fourth quarter of close games. They seem to make sense when he explains them, but they have rarely netted a win when it counted. Most observers feel he was outcoached by Rick Carlisle in the first round of the playoffs a few years back, when a healthy and deep Celtics team fell in 7 games to a badly hobbled Pacers team.
Which leads to the subject of this post.
While most Celtics fans respect the fact that Jim O'Brien got more out of his players than anyone expected, a growing throng of Celtics fans can be heard calling for the "good old days" of KC Jones. Now there was a coach. First year on the job in 1984, KC earns himself another ring. Surely, he was a Master Tactician, right?
Not so fast.
In his autobiography, Bill Walton recounts the following events:
Late in the fourth quarter of a close game in the 1985-1986 season, KC called a time-out to diagram the next play. Larry would inbound the pass to DJ, who would hit Danny cutting across the lane. Robert would set a pick for Danny, who would then either take the shot or hit Walton under the hoop. Larry took one look at the diagram and said "To hell with that. Just give me the ball and tell everyone to get out of my way." KC looked down at the play he had just spent the last two minutes drawing up and said, "Ok with me."
No comments:
Post a Comment