Chris Parker/Cleveland Scene answers your questions

[Jon]

Agreed. The head coach needs to keep track of his own timeouts, even if he has an assistant who is also in charge of doing so. You can't fuck something like that up, especially in a late game situation. Blatt owned up to it, but we shouldn't be shifting the blame to anyone else. We got lucky there, but hey...sometimes luck turns in your favor and if anyone was due, it's fucking Cleveland sports.

Feel free to blame Blatt all you want for something that didn't hurt the team.

That doesn't change whether someone else on the staff dropped the ball first.

 

[TheBigAristotle]

Wait a second..

You're telling me if I got paid millions of dollars a year for a job and one of the most basic things I was responsible for was keeping track of timeouts on a clipboard that such a responsibility would be that difficult? Are you really saying the Cavs have to look at the jumbotron to know how many timeouts they have? Are you serious??? It isn't a mystery. You get a fixed amount each game.

If it was so tough to track timeouts then it would be a far more common occurrence. It's not.

C'mon bro.. give me a break.. Blatt fucked up.. Let's not pretend like he didn't.

Are you still talking about that non-call that could have would have but didn't have? Life goes on mate, let's spend time discussing Game 6

 

[Jon]

.... Jon .... there is no factual basis for these claims. It's supposition, loosely formulated at that.

I see no empirical reason to believe your claim, nor do I see how it amounts to anything more than purely a hypothetical.

So says the guy who bases his opinions on his wifes' ability to track timeouts.

 

[Jon]

Yes, we do. Blatt didn't use your exact words, but he's said flatly that it was his fault, and something he'd never done before. You're inventing the idea that Lue misled him, and that he apparently did so without any of the other players or coaches overhearing that Lue was giving Blatt wrong information.

I never said anyone was misled.

Ridiculous. There is absolutely no evidence that Lue dropped the ball.

Actually, the most damning evidence is the fact that Lue got up and grabbed Blatt. Now, it's possible one of the assistants was just passing on the information from the back row and couldn't get up and grab Blatt, but that would just be speculation.

The "evidence" points to Lue.

 

[gourimoko]

So says the guy who bases his opinions on his wifes' ability to track timeouts.

I'm not sure you understand what a fact is.

But you should write fan fiction bro, I think you'd be good at it.

 

[gourimoko]

Are you still talking about that non-call that could have would have but didn't have? Life goes on mate, let's spend time discussing Game 6

Da fuq? I'm responding to someone (2 people) who quoted me.

 

[gourimoko]

I never said anyone was misled.



Actually, the most damning evidence is the fact that Lue got up and grabbed Blatt. Now, it's possible one of the assistants was just passing on the information from the back row and couldn't get up and grab Blatt, but that would just be speculation.

The "evidence" points to Lue.

Jon, any time you have both @The Human Q-Tip and myself on the same side of an issue then you know you're probably mistaken.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I never said anyone was misled.

I thought you were hinting that Lue was trying to sabotage Blatt. If not, my mistake.

Actually, the most damning evidence is the fact that Lue got up and grabbed Blatt.

The "evidence" points to Lue.

I'm not following you. All that shows is that Lue knew the number of timeouts, and that Blatt either didn't, or brain-farted and forgot.

I don't have a problem accepting that part of Lue's job was to keep Blatt informed of timeouts. I just have an issue with the assumption that he didn't keep Blatt informed. We'd just finished a sequence where Blatt had called a bunch of timeouts in succession for that inbounds play. I can't believe Blatt did that without knowing, or even asking, how many timeouts there were. If he did all that without regard to how many timeouts we had, then he's an idiot. And he's not an idiot.

So, it seems completely reasonable to assume his staff kept him informed during that inbounds sequence, that we had two left, one left, etc...

I could see that they perhaps didn't specifically remind him that there were zero left after he called that last one for the inbounds. But I can't blame the assistants for that. You tell the head coach, "Coach, we've only got one left", and he then calls another timeout a few seconds later, you don't then say "coach, you now have zero. You'd expect the guy to remember from one minute to the next, and it would seem almost borderline insulting to think he didn't know that 1-1=0. Especially since all that happened in a very short span of time.

I really like Blatt, and have been defending him against what I think are unfair criticisms pretty consistently. But this particular error is on him, and he doesn't seem to dispute that. It was just a brain fart.

 

[Jon]

I thought you were hinting that Lue was trying to sabotage Blatt. If not, my mistake.

No, I said if it came out that Lue failed to tell Blatt we were out of timeouts (and that was in fact his job) then the media would quickly spin it in to an act of sabotage intended to embarrass Blatt and lead to Lue replacing him.

I'm not following you. All that shows is that Lue knew the number of timeouts, and that Blatt either didn't, or brain-farted and forgot.

I don't have a problem accepting that part of Lue's job was to keep Blatt informed of timeouts. I just have an issue with the assumption that he didn't keep Blatt informed. We'd just finished a sequence where Blatt had called a bunch of timeouts in succession for that inbounds play. I can't believe Blatt did that without knowing, or even asking, how many timeouts there were. If he did all that without regard to how many timeouts we had, then he's an idiot. He's not an idiot.

So, it seems completely reasonable to assume his staff kept him informed during that inbounds sequence, that we had two left, one left, etc...

I could see that they perhaps didn't specifically remind him that there were zero left after he called that last one for the inbounds. But I can't blame the assistants for that. You tell the head coach, "Coach, we've only got one left", and he then calls another timeout a few seconds later, you don't then say "coach, you now have zero. You'd expect the guy to remember from one minute to the next, and it would seem almost borderline insulting to think he didn't know that 1-1=0. Especially since all that happened in a very short span of time.

I really like Blatt, and have been defending him against what I think are unfair criticisms pretty consistently. But this particular error is on him, and he doesn't seem to dispute that. It was just a brain fart.

Yes, mistakes like this typically happen because people assume; but that's why you have coaches to remind themselves and the players of the situation because it gets messed up so often. If you want to avoid gaffes like this, you don't count on anyone remembering anything. You don't assume. You make sure.

The system ALMOST failed. The question is where?

Blatt's the head coach. His actions are most certainly his responsibility, but that's not necessarily the whole story.

 

[Jon]

Jon, any time you have both @The Human Q-Tip and myself on the same side of an issue then you know you're probably mistaken.

Hard to say. Wouldn't we need to find out whether his wife can track timeouts?

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Yes, mistakes like this typically happen because people assume; but that's why you have coaches to remind themselves and the players of the situation because it gets messed up so often. If you want to avoid gaffes like this, you don't count on anyone remembering anything. You don't assume. You make sure.

How often are you supposed to remind the guy, though? This was a sequence that was pretty continuous, from the inbounds play, to Chicago going the other way, to the Cavs coming back and Blatt trying to call a time out. He probably was told the number of timeouts less than a minute before, and he's obviously watching the game very closely. Is it really smart for an assistant to distract him at that point and say "Coach, we don't have any timeouts left", when it's something that he as essentially just told? Are they supposed to keep reminding him every 30 seconds?

I just can't blame the assistants for that.

Blatt's the head coach. His actions are most certainly his responsibility, but that's not necessarily the whole story.

That's quite a bit different from claiming that "all evidence" points to Lue.

 

[Mr. Orange]

How about you guys go to the David Blatt thread?

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

We don't need to tell you. It's either true. Or it's not. What does your opinion have to do with what NBA teams actually do?

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/1/2/5266348/nba-assistant-coaches-tracking-stats

http://www.nba.com/thunder/news/meetthestaffjoesharpe_090722.html

If you read those links, you'll see it's typically the job of the athletic trainer.

Who's job is it on the Cavs?

I'd just like to point out that this is about whose job it is to track the number of timeouts and fouls. It doesn't say that it is that person's duty to affirmatively remind the HC of that information on his own, without being asked.

I'd kind of picture it as the HC asking whenever he's unsure, and someone being responsible to have accurate information handy.

 

[Cavatt]

It's easy to be like, "Duh, he should have known." but they had 3 timeouts and used 3 in 4-5 seconds. Remembering that JR needed one when he got trapped and then JJ used another one is a little confusing and it was so loud in there.

Noah didn't realize the shot clock hadn't reset on a possession and blew it. Is he a dummy? Yeah, but not for that.

Keeping track of this stuff is pretty hard in an arena that is so loud. I'm cool with it, and it was lucky Lue was alert.

 

[Jon]

I'd just like to point out that this is about whose job it is to track the number of timeouts and fouls. It doesn't say that it is that person's duty to affirmatively remind the HC of that information on his own, without being asked.

I'd kind of picture it as the HC asking whenever he's unsure, and someone being responsible to have accurate information handy.

That's certainly a possibility, and if it's the case (someone would need to find out), then I'd still claim we had a system error.

Why?

Because a system where the coach asks for the number of timeouts only when he realizes he's lost track has a single point failure.

And that makes it a bad system.