if u go small like that, then u need guys on the perimeter that are gonna make their perimeter shots or get to the FT line & get you points... our shooting has been inconsistent of late & we've paid the price... when Amare gets shut down by bigger lineups we need perimeter guys we can lean on to carry the offense... right now we don't know what we'll get out of any of our young guys on any given night, & Ray Felton's getting run down w/his minutes load.

JesseDark wrote:

Panos wrote:Amare was the ONLY legitimate big man that played today.
When he sat, it was basically a PG or TD + 4 wings. WTF? You can't win ballgames without some size.
You need to be able to body up your opposition, play some interior D and grab some rebounds.
This is fundamental basketball.
WTF is Mike so stubborn about this? Can you please give some minutes to SOMEBODY with some size when Amare is on the bench?
Shawne Williams being the biggest guy on the court is NOT a recipe for victory!

To me this is an indictment of the coach. He may know how he wants to play, but you can't win over the long haul playing that way. You can't win 4/7 in the playoffs without size for rebounding and intimidating.

Bull. Just because something is out of your normal comfort zone doesn't mean it doesn't work. Phoneix won many 4 out of 7s in Coach Mike's time there.

orangeblobman wrote:Let me explain this to you. Chill out guy.

Coach Mike, he brings the revolution home, he brings the business and you can't sit here and tell me he's a bum coach after every loss. There will be losses. This is all Chicken Little Sky is Falling talk, it's alarmist, it's destructive politics you're playing, Mr Panos.

Let's beef up the backbones and see how we do, right now, premature with the sky is falling. Because at the height of Coach Mike's system in Phoenix, they were championship contenders and came within a C-hair of the Finals. That's it. That's it.

Papabear Says

Did he get to the finals?? No! and that team was better than the team we have now. Mike D is stubborn and won't change his ways. He is gonna burn out Felton and Amare before the playoffs. We have no size and with Mike D we will never win a championship. Face it with the guys we have now they don't play defense giving up over 120 points a game. We play match point. Waiting for the other team to miss but the other team gets the rebound too. We have no legit big man under the basket who can defend or score. Don't be surprised if we go under 500 ball in 2 weeks. Carmelo is better than Gallo, Chandler, and Fields, let's face it. Melo may not be a defender but he sure can rebound and shoot at a high level.

Papabear wrote:

orangeblobman wrote:

JesseDark wrote:

Panos wrote:Amare was the ONLY legitimate big man that played today.
When he sat, it was basically a PG or TD + 4 wings. WTF? You can't win ballgames without some size.
You need to be able to body up your opposition, play some interior D and grab some rebounds.
This is fundamental basketball.
WTF is Mike so stubborn about this? Can you please give some minutes to SOMEBODY with some size when Amare is on the bench?
Shawne Williams being the biggest guy on the court is NOT a recipe for victory!

To me this is an indictment of the coach. He may know how he wants to play, but you can't win over the long haul playing that way. You can't win 4/7 in the playoffs without size for rebounding and intimidating.

Bull. Just because something is out of your normal comfort zone doesn't mean it doesn't work. Phoneix won many 4 out of 7s in Coach Mike's time there.

Papabear Says

He never won a champion ship!!! Point Blank!! Would you be satisfied with winning and not getting to the championship round with Mike D!! Come on be real!! We have a 3 - 4 year window and we will be going up agains the Heat, Orlando, and the Celtics, and Chicago. Get real!!

SO WHAT!? How many coaches in the league right now have ever won a championship. There have been coaches in this league that went 30 years without one. Jerry Sloan doesn't have one and he's been coaching the Jazz for 20+ years.

Just because Coach Mike never won a championship doesn't mean he can't win one. The guy has been a head coach for less than 10 years in the league and he has been closer to the chip and achieved more success than most NBA coaches can even dream of!

Bull! GTHOT!

YOU WANT PATRICK EWING TO COACH!?!?

YOU GET REAL PAPABEAR, YOU GET REAL!

We may have big swing men, but there not great defenders and there certainly are piss poor rebounders..

Were getting CRUSHED on the boards...by 21 in LA, by 11 in utah, by 10 in sac, by 10 against the suns.

When your SG is the leading rebounder on most nights, thats a major major problem,

orangeblobman wrote:This is all Chicken Little Sky is Falling talk, it's alarmist, it's destructive politics you're playing, Mr Panos.

What does this have to do with politics? I'm talking about fundamental basketball - size mismatches, defense and rebounding, not politics.

If Amare plays just normal defense, we're going to win. If teams want to get him in foul trouble, fine. I'd take our chances with our wings and a combination of AR/Moz/Turiaf if Amare was in serious foul trouble.

We need Amare in there to close out games, but to play crap defense the WHOLE GAME to stay out of foul trouble is just crazy. Mike D has some wild strategies, but this is one that he needs to correct.

Look guys, the team is not deep enough. YOur saying he is stubburn but the assumption is AR is just waiting to bust loose. Or Moz will be "The Natural" and do some crazy Russian "Teen Wolf" action and all will be good!

What are the suggestions to to shore up the interior defense?

martin wrote:

Panos wrote:Amare was the ONLY legitimate big man that played today.
When he sat, it was basically a PG or TD + 4 wings. WTF? You can't win ballgames without some size.
You need to be able to body up your opposition, play some interior D and grab some rebounds.
This is fundamental basketball.
WTF is Mike so stubborn about this? Can you please give some minutes to SOMEBODY with some size when Amare is on the bench?
Shawne Williams being the biggest guy on the court is NOT a recipe for victory!

how about this, at some point early in the season MDA and his staff thought that AR and Moz were not ready to play minutes or that the minutes they played were both detrimental to the team and to the players' themselves.

What do you think their thought process was as to when they should bring them back? Would it be when the likes of a team like the LA Lakers came into town, and since they have a lot of bigs, that would be a good time?

Or would it be more like when each of the respective players has shown enough to warrant being on the court that that would be the time?

Or perhaps you can suggest a different benchmark?

It's the same with a ton of other coaches. Why isn't Tiago playing? Why isn't Evan Turner starting? It's probably because the coaches have some internal benchmark and they want the players themselves to pass it before moving them to the next level.

What would your suggestion be as to the handling of guys like AR/Moz?

My thinking is simple. You need more than ONE SINGLE big man playing in a game. Period.
We know that Turiaf is fragile and is going to miss about half the games with injury.
If you don't think AR/Moz are legitimate NBA players deserving even of 5 minutes in a game, then do something to go get one.
You can't tell me that no backup big is available anywhere out there whether by trade, or in the D Leagues.
Its bad enough that we only have 1 big on the floor at a time when STAT is in the game, he should have some help.
But that line up with TD and a bunch of wings was just putrid.
It was like watching the JV team playing Varsity. And Pheonix is not even a good team.