rabman_gold
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Looking at the box score... two things stand out... 7 turnovers each from Love and LBJ, and Blatt really shortened the bench. He basically went with a 7 man rotation (tho if you combine Harris and Dion's minutes = about 15 minutes, so I guess it's like an 8 man rotation).
He really has to get a handle on this. Lebron had almost as many minutes as some of the Dallas starters who played a 2 OT game! It should help with Delly coming back... but the bench has been so up and down a solid rotation is a real stretch some games.
I don't disagree with this, but I do feel it needs some context.
Dave Blatt is the first official European coach to move to the NBA. There are no case studies to determine how a successful coach from a international league would fare in a longer (minute-wise and season-wise) and more separated (talent-wise) basketball league.
Still, Mike D'Antoni was the first coach in Europe to take his expertise to the NBA. That's it.
- D'Antoni started out with Denver in 1999. For such a successful coach in Europe, he had a measly 14-26 record that lasted for 1 year.
- He also had plenty of new pieces (McDyess, Van Exel, Billups, LaFrentz) and attempted to bring a mini-European system (6th fastest pace in league and 2nd most 3 point attempts).
- He didn't fully break in until 2004 when he replaced Frank Johnson. With what he had in place, began utilizing his faster paced system to the fullest. For a 2000s NBA team, they were fast and outran other teams with this pace.
Now, let's compare that to Blatt.
Last year, Blatt employed 9 different players for at least 25 games out of 31 total Euro League games. All except one of them played more than 15 minutes a game (465+ total minutes). He isn't exactly a high-octane offensive coach, but he sticks to his guns and held every team down when it mattered.
Yet, I think we're holding Coach Blatt to some lofty expectations due to also having great achievements in Europe. But he's shown to be way more flexible when it gets down to it.
- He's finally starting to learn how to stagger his best player's minutes.
- That said, LeBron was needed at the beginning of the 4th. Blatt will pick and choose his rotations in close games, but it was a far above the last close game (Spurs).