Theis was a disaster for the entire series, except game 5. He was the worst player on the court at almost all times. I love Theis, but this series showed every one of his flaws and magnified them 100fold.
If you could get Myles Turner for Smart would you do it? Turner would help this team out a lot.
That is at least in the ballpark of an acceptable target. I think Turner may be a bit overrated though he is young still. Injury-prone, though.
Only if Langford can actually step in and be 90% of what Smart is. Which is possible.
Brown only taking 7 of the 46 threes (4th most) is a problem as he was the most consistent long range option during the bubble, I thought.
And 46 threes is the biggest problem of all. They were at their best in this series when they were running and driving to the basket. Jacking up 46 threes is inexplicable. At least half of them were bad shot selection.
more importantly I can name, without even trying that hard, five fouls where Bam was not even hit..and often was over the back of the offensive player when he 'drew' a foul. Basically two early on Theis I believe in the first three possessions..where the contact was minimal at most.. and that was called far more often on the C's d. All of the fouls that Dragic drew by just falling down.. etc. You can name a couple gift calls for the C's..but you can also name a lot of times where there was minimal contact, that shouldn't be called a foul.. but then again it should be called the same both ways.
I'm with you on coaching Smart. The C's need a better ball handling option when Kemba is off the court.. You just can't trust Smart to consistently initiate good offense when he's given the ball... he looks for his own shot way too often. On a night like tonite.. where he started out hot.. he's going to shoot even more. Maybe the answer isn't less Smart..but they need to play better team ball.. that's on the team and Brad.
Very much agree with this. There are theee simple things the NBA could do to make the product a ton better. (1) adopt the Elam ending - we saw how fun this was in the All Star game this year. (2) make it a league policy that borderline, close-call fouls aren’t going to be called anymore - yes, games will be a bit more rough but I’d gladly trade that for the constant ticky-tack fouls and constant flopping we currently have. (3) eliminate all instant replay, whether ref initiated or coach’s challenge - the reviews, particularly in the playoffs, are interminable and it seems like the refs still only get the call correct like 50% of the time. It shouldn’t be a crutch for the refs, if they are sure enough about a call, make it, and if not, don’t.
They had 14 and 17 point leads in the first 2 games which is why this is such a huge disappointment.
The series was effectively lost in the 3rd quarter of Game 2. Just a ridiculous meltdown like we saw tonight. Win Game 2 and I firmly believe they win this series. Even getting it to Game 6 after that was a pretty good achievement.
I dunno. That was a tough finish but if you come right back and beat them, you can shake it off pretty quickly. Either way, Miami just played with more confidence and it showed.
This is the problem with those who complain about Smart's offense. Yet, he is susceptible to believing he really does have a hot hand. But all too often ain't no one else taking on the task of scoring.
Great question. It seemed to come out of nowhere. All of a sudden: iso on Theis, and it was impressive.
Smart is wide open a lot because the defense wants him to shoot.. often he’s the fifth best shooter on the floor for the Cs.. which means that there’s basically an extra guy out there to play help defense on everyone else. He also wastes a lot of time whenever he handles the ball and often calls his own number when he’s playing point. If he’s not playing lock down defense then he shouldn’t be on the floor nearly as much.
Yes. As someone else said, he needs to be reined in a bit, especially on the threes.
