David Blatt is a former NBA coach

[The Human Q-Tip]

Would you have hired a guy with no NBA experience, player or coaching to win a Championship ? face it he was hired to win maybe 10 more games than last year and grab a 7th or 8th seed. and that's it.

Well, I'd have preferred to have hired Popovich, but he wasn't available.

The reality is that the guys generally perceived to be the best available NBA coaches already have jobs and are under contract with other teams. So you either go for a retread who has already failed, or someone more unproven in the NBA. If you go with a college coach, you're talking about a competition where recruiting and developing very young players are core components of success, but neither ability has much relevance to coaching this team.

Blatt succeeded in a league with play that is higher caliber than the NCAA, coaching men not boys, and usually while having less talent than his opponents. He's coached against NBA players, and coached guys who've played in the NBA. And he understood the language of basketball so well that he could revive and succeed with a Russian program despite not even speaking the language. To the extent he did not have personal familiarity with the rule quirks of the NBA, he hired highly competent assistants who could help fill that one gap in his knowledge.

Ask yourself how many games has he out coached his fellow coach and won a close game ?

Honestly, quite a few. Our inbounds plays have generally been outstanding. The ball movement is the best I've seen from any Cavs team since Price was playing the point, and some of the defensive adjustments he has made to slam the door on teams that were surging have been brilliant.

what's important is playing well and being fresh for the playoffs is. the way he is playing our best players they will not be fresh that's for sure.

LBJ has missed the most time of his career when Blatt gave him extended time off to heal nagging injuries. Because of the poor roster fit and injuries in the first third of the season, we were way down in the standings and heading towards away series in difficult first-round matchups. So, for awhile, we had to play catch-up to get back in contention. Blatt's been resting our older guys more as we've played better.

In the last 4 games, LBJ has played 28, 38, 30, and 31 minutes.

How great is he minus LBJ?

As has been pointed out, we were not only missing LBJ, but also missing other key players, had guys with injuries, and/or otherwise stuck with a roster that did not fit. We came into this season with virtually every pundit in the world looking at our roster and saying that we lacked the defense to be a championship contender, and they were right.

But Blatt took one problem child that nobody wanted (Smith), an injured, borderline starter SG (Shumpert) and a "meh" center in Mozgov. and turned them into gold with the rest of this roster. The ease with which they fit into this roster and system of play must be credited in substantial part to the coach.

Honestly, I can see someone arguing that Blatt hasn't yet proven that he's a great NBA coach, but the evidence that he's at least a competent coach seems inarguable to me.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Just included that because it's funny. I wonder if LBJ considers himself "just like madmadworld".

Damn. Now that's how you take someone down.

 

[CLEZenith]

If you take the blowout games away the big 3's minutes are higher than what we see in most stats.

Oh okay. So if you only take the stretches at the beginning of the season where our brand new team was struggling, then you will see our three stars minutes are higher. All you have to do is not look at the more recent games where we are gelling together as a team to see how ineffective Blatt is, everyone. Just forget those parts.

 

[madmadworld]

Happy Valentine's Day

 

[oracio]

Happy Valentine's Day

 

[melecoaze]

My god this thread went full CavFanatic.

 

[Simon]

First i was a Laker fan before the Cav's were a twinkle in Nick Mileti eye. born in C-town Cav's fan from day one. seen every game this year too.

Been waiting ALL 50 years for a Championship season, this is my/our best chance over the next 4 years. even if you are 25 years old this might be it fellows.

Would you have hired a guy with no NBA experience, player or coaching to win a Championship ? face it he was hired to win maybe 10 more games than last year and grab a 7th or 8th seed. and that's it.

Ask yourself how many games has he out coached his fellow coach and won a close game ?
playoff games are close most of the time. and he will be exposed for what he is in the playoffs, a guy with zero NBA experience. i hope I'm wrong but i don't think so.

Myself i'm like LBJ regular season games are not important,
what's important is playing well and being fresh for the playoffs is. the way he is playing our best players they will not be fresh that's for sure.

How great is he minus LBJ ? that speaks for itself. good coaches win without their best player. with his record without LBJ we would have won less games (half) this year than the 33 we got last year. heck every other NBA coach doesn't have LBJ and they all win more games than this guy percentage wise. David is the weakest link on this team.

Most here are in love with this guy i see....how sweet.

June will come let's see how that Love is then.

Does not compute....

 

[Kizzle]

First i was a Laker fan before the Cav's were a twinkle in Nick Mileti eye. born in C-town Cav's fan from day one. seen every game this year too.

Been waiting ALL 50 years for a Championship season, this is my/our best chance over the next 4 years. even if you are 25 years old this might be it fellows.

Would you have hired a guy with no NBA experience, player or coaching to win a Championship ? face it he was hired to win maybe 10 more games than last year and grab a 7th or 8th seed. and that's it.

Ask yourself how many games has he out coached his fellow coach and won a close game ?
playoff games are close most of the time. and he will be exposed for what he is in the playoffs, a guy with zero NBA experience. i hope I'm wrong but i don't think so.

Myself i'm like LBJ regular season games are not important,
what's important is playing well and being fresh for the playoffs is. the way he is playing our best players they will not be fresh that's for sure.

How great is he minus LBJ ? that speaks for itself. good coaches win without their best player. with his record without LBJ we would have won less games (half) this year than the 33 we got last year. heck every other NBA coach doesn't have LBJ and they all win more games than this guy percentage wise. David is the weakest link on this team.

Most here are in love with this guy i see....how sweet.

June will come let's see how that Love is then.

lol

 

[kookoo]

I was one of those "fire Blatt" guys. But obviously the losing was the personnel. I have major respect for the man right now. Benching LeBron when he's playing like a dumbshit (not sure if one word, two or hyphenated) takes balls. And suddenly we're only down 7. Big ups to BlattBlattBlattBlatt.

 

[madmadworld]

Does not compute....

the 1960s there were no Cav's or NBA in Cleveland, kinda like the NHL now. if one liked basketball you had to pick a team from somewhere else that simple. no cable or internet also. lol

 

[kookoo]

I was one of those "fire Blatt" guys. But obviously the losing was the personnel. I have major respect for the man right now. Benching LeBron when he's playing like a dumbshit (not sure if one word, two or hyphenated) takes balls. And suddenly we're only down 7. Big ups to BlattBlattBlattBlatt.

I think I jinxed him. It seems like Blatt doesn't have a good grasp of rotations when we have injuries. Either that or our 9-15 is SHIT. I'm going to go with a mix of the two.

 

[Rich]

James Jones just played 23 straight minutes. I'm just gonna leave it alone.

 

[All4One1ForAll]

Yeah I don't know what was up with James Jones playing 29 minutes more than he should in any given game (he can play 1 minute in blowouts).

The offense was hella stagnant tonight. Probably just an anomaly though.

 

[kovanovich]

I think I jinxed him. It seems like Blatt doesn't have a good grasp of rotations when we have injuries. Either that or our 9-15 is SHIT. I'm going to go with a mix of the two.

Well, we sort of know that roster spots 9-15 are marginal NBA players, which is why we are so concerned about trying to upgrade the roster spots #8 and 9. But still Blatt's rotations do leave you scratching your head sometimes (and I am not one to complain about coaching). I don't think anyone could figure out what he was doing in the 4th quarter out there. And now on a night when they are down a big, when they have only 3 bigs on the roster who actually play, Marion doesn't play the whole second half, even though he at least has played PF in the NBA, and instead James Jones plays the whole second half, at least some of it sort of as the PF. I mean, the spreading the floor, "small ball" strategy didn't exactly work. Maybe this game will convince LeBron they really do need another big rather than Ray Allen.

 

[Tazoz]

Jones played as a stretch four instead of Love. James and Irving were shooting really badly from outside in the early game which made Marion a serious liability. The choice was between Miller and Jones and Miller is more a SG/SF than a PF which is why I believe Blatt decided to go with Jones. I assume that Blatt saw that it was working (Jones' plus minus was positive most of the game) and decided to stick with Jones. Unfortunately, Lebron and Kyrie never really managed to get into the right frame of mind and whenever the momentum started shifting in our favor someone missed a three or turned over a ball.