David Blatt is a former NBA coach

The Oi said:

Game was overall very strong, but stopping Teague and Schroeder's penetration was huge and the extended stretch where he left LeBron on the bench while the team was hot took brass balls.

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Stopping Teague and Schroeder's penetration was huge and absolutely necessary. As for Lebron? It was either brass balls or two quick fouls and a twisted ankle. After a season of riding Lebron big minutes, I don't see the coaches suddenly changing policy voluntarily in the playoffs as part of a pre-planned strategy.

Not to single you out here Oi, but it is my opinion that the average poster in this thread is attributing a significantly higher percentage of the team's success on the actions of David Blatt than we might see in many areas outside of Cleveland or perhaps even the team's front office. But it's all good after a big win and 7 more wins is all that matters.

Perhaps you're right that the average poster is attributing more success to Blatt than he deserves. Or perhaps that is just how you see things (maybe you're incorrectly assuming what people think? or maybe you're incorrect in how much credit Blatt deserves? who knows).

But even if what you say is in fact true, I'd say the reason is because local/national media consistently take a nano-second to bash the guy anytime there may be the slightest reason to do so, and most of them tend to refuse the idea that he deserves some positive credit once in a while when things are going very well for the team despite SO much adversity throughout the season/playoffs. It's infuriating. And it's likely best for me/us to just accept that most media sucks fucking donkey balls, rather than to impatiently wait for them to magically get better.

It's simple really....would you prefer Blatt or Mike Brown in this situation? One superstar out...one badly hobbled...How would MB have handled this?

Kbiz8288 said:

It's simple really....would you prefer Blatt or Mike Brown in this situation? One superstar out...one badly hobbled...How would MB have handled this?

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By losing.

Mike Brown said yesterday or 2 days ago that he was picking the Hawks because he expected Horford and Millsap to have a field day on us...How did that work out for you in game 1 lol?

And Horford had a pretty good game, it's just that Mozgov was still really effective in his 24 minutes, something that Mike Brown said likely wouldn't happen.

Isn't it bad form to pick against a team that is still paying you?

I saw somebody mention on twitter that Celtics coach Brad Stevens was on Mike & Mike this morning and went out of his way to praise Coach Blatt. We'll have to see if a podcast comes out later today. I know ESPN tends to edit their podcast so that segment may or may not get cut out.

Douglar said:

Stopping Teague and Schroeder's penetration was huge and absolutely necessary. As for Lebron? It was either brass balls or two quick fouls and a twisted ankle. After a season of riding Lebron big minutes, I don't see the coaches suddenly changing policy voluntarily in the playoffs as part of a pre-planned strategy.

Not to single you out here Oi, but it is my opinion that the average poster in this thread is attributing a significantly higher percentage of the team's success on the actions of David Blatt than we might see in many areas outside of Cleveland or perhaps even the team's front office. But it's all good after a big win and 7 more wins is all that matters.

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Well, as an "average poster," from where I'm standing, I'm having a hard time understanding how you can deny Blatt any credit the way that you (and most of the media) have been denying it. I don't think you personally hate the guy or anything, but most of your posts after Cavs have a big win are something along the lines of "Blatt did an ok job, but you can't really attribute any of the good things that happened to him."

I've followed Blatt's career for over a decade now, and I can see his fingerprints in a lot of the things the Cavs do, because I've seen him doing it many times before. I've seen him, almost every season, pull a role player or two out of the hat that end up getting him big wins. I've seen him struggle early in seasons while he learns his players' strengths and weaknesses, only to adapt to their style later and significantly overachieve. I've seen turn teams with average talent into suffocatingly defensive teams that just frustrate the life out of their vastly-more-talented opponents and cause them to make silly frustration mistakes.

If you look at the entire year leading up to this series - Coach Bud's (reigning coach of the year) team was amazing in the first two thirds of the season, but peaked too early and it's easy to see that he showed all his cards during the RS (including against the Cavs, who he knew would be his likely ECF rival), and had no more rabbits to pull out of the hat. Blatt, OTOH, is getting a team who has essentially lost two of its big three (and the third is playing arguably the worst basketball of his career) and was not deep enough to be expected to endure these losses, to play maybe the best defense in the NBA and beat teams that many people were picking over them prior to the playoffs when they were fully healthy. He is doing it by getting everyone to play together, play tough defense, and allowing the role players to thrive by emphasizing the strengths of each of these players (TT's rebounding, Shump's defense, JR's shooting, etc.). And I know he has a big part in their success because that's how he has won his entire career.

This is why the media's constant digs on him as a "rookie coach" are extremely unprofessional and lazy. Blatt has a track record, and he has fingerprints as a coach. If you want to really know what he is doing all you have to do is compare what he is doing now with what he has done in the past. But the media and many fans are too lazy to do that and are content with the "rookie coach" label, because actually learning something about the guy they are scrutinizing would be too much work. It's much easier to spew the same "LeBron is the coach of the Cavs" BS.

Douglar said:

Stopping Teague and Schroeder's penetration was huge and absolutely necessary. As for Lebron? It was either brass balls or two quick fouls and a twisted ankle. After a season of riding Lebron big minutes, I don't see the coaches suddenly changing policy voluntarily in the playoffs as part of a pre-planned strategy.

Not to single you out here Oi, but it is my opinion that the average poster in this thread is attributing a significantly higher percentage of the team's success on the actions of David Blatt than we might see in many areas outside of Cleveland or perhaps even the team's front office. But it's all good after a big win and 7 more wins is all that matters.

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I'm not sure...

This is a team who's success in the regular season was largely attributed to a dynamic and unstoppable offense. Our defense got better as the season went on, but I think the most optimistic would have called it average.

Now we're into the third round of the playoffs missing Love and having Irving almost unable to force any semblance of dribble penetration. James' jumpshot is streaky, and he's had as many off nights as on nights.

This is a team which was regarded as having the weakest bench going into the playoffs who lacked lateral speed on the Defensive end. Even guys like Delly were expected to be exposed by the faster more athletic guards who fill the NBA.

Yet here we are, 9-2 so far in our playoff run. How did we get there? Via adjustments, and significant ones not even game to game but quarter to quarter. We have seen this team defend the pick and roll by switching, doubling, showing a high hedge, or running through or underneath, all in the same game. We've found a way to keep shooters off their spots, and trap guys who aren't particularly big threats but are poor ball handlers in the hopes of forcing mistakes. (Seriously, the way they attacked Korver in game 1 is not being appreciated nearly enough. Forcing him to put the ball on the floor was pure comedy).

And offensively? We won game 1 as you attest to JR. How about game 6 against the Bulls? Fucking Delly. Game 2 against the Bulls? Shumpert.

We've seen games where Mozgov dominates and games where he is marginalized. And we've seen a coach that had handled his minutes appropriately depending on what's happening that night. The sign to me that Blast deserves much more credit than he's getting is the fact that he is willing to make so many adjustments, even after coming off wins. He's the right blend of proactive and reactive with his lineups. And that we're getting contributions from so many players over each series is very telling.

Yes, we won in large part due to JR's performance last game, but if he hadn't stepped up, someone else likely would have. After all, Kyle Korver has to guard someone.

Blatt is handling his business, and is one key factor for our success.

Blatt is getting much deserved credit in here again, but surprisingly you guys are missing what I thought was one of the best plays of the game. With 37 seconds left we have TT set a pick 15 ft away from the 3pt line and have Lebron go opposite of the screen to leave milsap and horford in the dust, creating a 4 on 3 for us with 3 excellent 3pt shooters to spread the floor. In this situation we got an easy Lebron dunk, because no one wanted to step infront of him at full-speed, but at worst it would have led to a wide open 3.

Excellent play from Blatt, sealed the game for us. Lebron gave Blatt the credit for this, so I will too.

MalTalm said:

Yet here we are, 9-2 so far in our playoff run. How did we get there? Via adjustments, and significant ones not even game to game but quarter to quarter. We have seen this team defend the pick and roll by switching, doubling, showing a high hedge, or running through or underneath, all in the same game. We've found a way to keep shooters off their spots, and trap guys who aren't particularly big threats but are poor ball handlers in the hopes of forcing mistakes. (Seriously, the way they attacked Korver in game 1 is not being appreciated nearly enough. Forcing him to put the ball on the floor was pure comedy)..

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LBJ mentioned this in particular. When asked about the defense, the first thing he mentioned was that the coaching staff did a lot of great work breaking everything down, coming up with schemes, strategies, etc. to slow down the Hawks, and all the Cavs had to do was execute that gameplan. And he didn't say it as if he was just mouthing false compliments.

And that's a good time for a reminder that some of the Maccabi/Blatt fans posted at the beginning of the season that he was falsely being sold here as primarily an offensive genius, when it truth, he is actually at this best on the defensive side.

How can Blatt not get major credit for how this team has performed defensively, which has actually been the key to the playoffs?

I might seem like someone who puts too much emphasis on Blatt's contributions but if so it's only as a counterbalance to the negativity or at least the lack of appreciation he gets.

Think about it... Love out, Irving hobbled, and James playing at less than what I'm sure he would consider his best considering that he hasn't been able to use the weapon of a reliable outside shot for awhile.

This team has been winning primarily by utilizing a team basketball concept and that's being executed by what many considered to be nothing more than role players until recently. James has been excellent as usual in adding whatever he can, mostly by attacking the rim, posting up, giving assists, and by being a part of the team defensive effort.

James gets a lot of credit for being the ultimate leader on the floor and in the locker room, but there's no way this team comes together the way they have without Blatt orchestrating the effort effectively as he has. I have no doubt that James has come to recognize and appreciate Blatt's contribution. Blatt has been careful to deflect any praise towards his staff, James and the players. Blatt has also been diligent at accepting any and all blame for things that haven't been perfect, again attempting to shield James and his team mates. I think this has begun to sink in with Lebron and many others like Kyrie, JR. and the rest have seen it from the start.

So does what credit should Blatt receive for what we've been seeing? He deserves credit for managing the coaching staff, effectively delegating responsibilities, for that staff effectively designing, implementing and managing game plans that the players have obviously bought in to. He deserves credit for effectively managing a locker room of egos the size of Mt. Everest, and for being a part of selling a self-less total team concept. He deserves credit for winning the trust of his staff and players, and that was apparently no small task.

Those are not insignificant things, yet I hear little of it from the majority of the media or from certain fans. This thing of winning in spite of injuries, utilizing role players in a team concept? That pretty much has Blatt's stamp all over it. He deserves credit for that.

I think he's a great coach and obviously hope thats proven with a Championship this season! But if not, it will come, even with what seems like a Cleveland curse I'm confident we will get there. This team is remarkable considering how short a timeframe it's been together and the things we've had to deal with injury etc. Whatever happens from here I'm very proud of everyone at the Cavs and thats all you can ask for as a sports fan really, pride in what your team do whether they are winning or losing!

At this point, I'm convinced that Douglar is a NEOMG member.

Seems like every day is another chance for Douglar to take a veiled dig at Blatt and any poster here that supports him.

Budenholzer had a great regular season and I'll never deny that. Any team that wins 60 games will have likely received some good coaching along the way...there's no denying that.
However, I thought everything they did on defense was awful. Even in the beginning of the game when they were up, they looked to be scrambling. Then they were switching on the pick and roll leaving Teague to go one on one against LeBron. LeBron simply went 7-9 for 14 pts in the quarter. Then to have Milsap picking up LeBron fullcourt. (Granted, it worked up until the last possession).


If Blatt had made those same mistakes, the media would've served him up on a platter. The local writers would have written stories about how a coach with no prior experience isnt ready for the playoffs etc...

I thought Blatt made really good decisions once again last night and his adjustments and rotations were damn near perfect last night. (My only critique is I wish he would've taken a time-out and drew up a play when LeBron decided to play 1 on 5 vs the Hawks down the stretch)