I'm sorry, not a single coach in any league in the world is going to tell players to stop doing their actual practice so they can shoot 4000 FTs a day.
We'd be the first team in NBA history to shoot 95% from the stripe and 20% from everywhere else.
CJ is trash. I don’t know why he’s still in at the end of games, and I don’t know how people can seriously defend the decision to keep him in.
i don't overreact to the result. but i will say the body language from the sidelines and the player coach interactions in the 4th were terrible. willie and company look confused far too often and it doesn't appear like the players (zion especially) really listen to them.
I didn't say hundreds, I said THOUSANDS. TENS of thousands. Until just by muscle memory alone the ball goes in. You say there are bigger problems on this team than FTs. But we'd be 21-10 and the 3rd seed if we just made a normal amount of FTs. We're 31 games in and we've already lost FOUR games directly due to poor FT shooting. Players ENJOY practicing jumpshots and threes. They don't DESERVE to enjoy practice.
You can say it was directly due to FTs if you want, but you can point to a hundred things.
Sure, we lost this game due to FTs.
Or, did we lose it because we shot 32% from 3? After all, one more made 3 would've been a win. Wouldn't have even gone to OT. Maybe everyone should just shoot THOUSANDS of 3s in practice and never do anything else?
Or was it because we got outrebounded 50 to 46? One more board might have cost them a point. Maybe we should just do solely boxing out next practice.
Turns out that excellence is a lot of small things done well, and this team does none of them well. Focusing on one to the exclusion of all the other paths to success is called missing the forest for the trees.
There is a disconnect. That much is clear. You have to have shooting. Getting into the paint and diversifying your game is important. But we just got Trey freakin Murphy back and we aren’t taking any advantage of him to space the floor. We have Jordan Hawkins who was a very promising young shooter with great movement off the ball that has been completely frozen out. There is something up.
That's just RIDICULOUS , Why don't you tell me where Hou. and Mem. are ranked defensively?. We shot for CRAP tonight it was not their defense. You think it's great defense when a guy missed a wide open shot or blows a layup when it's NOT SMH. We lost tonight because we didn't have what you need SHOOTING SHOOTING SHOOTING from the field AND at the FT line SMH
Fellas we have the hands down worst coach in the league. Nobody even close to it.
I like CJ and think he doesnt get the credit he deserves, but even I dont like him in at the end of games. If we can go small with Herb at the 5, that gives us room to play BI, Z, Trey, and 1 other guy... I dont know who that would be tho. Dyson? Naji?
Memphis shot 43% from the field, 24% from 3. We PLAYED DEFENSE. We lost it on the one thing you CANT play defense on, free throws.
It really should be
FREE THROWS! - FREE THROWS! - FREE THROWS!
because thats whats costing us games.
Almost 30% of our losses are DIRECTLY the result of poor FT Shooting.
It’s all about execution in close games. Execution lacks badly which is directly attributable to the Head Coach. He’s still learning in the job. This team really needs an experienced coach not an intern.
If only Zion had more than one offensive move, hard drive to his left. In crunch time guys just overplay that and we get turnovers and charges.
Just noticed in the Box Score that Memphis registered SEVENTEEN blocks tonight, including 5 by Xavier Tillman and 3 by Vince Williams Jr. That's ridiculous.
The only thing that's not on WG is the poor FT shooting and STILL there is something he can do about it. Make them focus MORE on it
Willie trending on twitter
Media might be taking notice now
What the heck was Jonas doing on the last play of regulation? The only shot Grizzlies could get was a lob to the basket. As the play starts, Jonas takes a step out toward the FT line letting Jackson go right by him to the rim. Actually would have caught the lob and dunked had Jonas not fouled him as he tried to catch back up. The only play Memphis had time for was a lob, didn’t Willie prepare Jonas for that. Had Jonas just used his feet and kept Jackson from running free down the lane Pels win. As a matter of fact, if the Pels have a quicker big man with better ups than Jonas, he should have been in.
Man...that's a bummer to see.
Not to fond of the amount of games we are losing by single digits at this point.
Miss me now? At least he was not afraid of a fine.
Id love Willie to do this for Zion
Missed free throws: Even worse.
Passive offense in the clutch: Check.
BS calls all favoring opponent: Bane out of bounds with assist for 3, CJ robbed of continuation made shot and free throw, no loose ball foul on Smart after missed free throw at end of regulation, etc.
I'm so sick of watching CJ and BI backing up for 15 seconds of the shot clock. No force, no aggression, no fouls drawn, just blocked shots and fadeaway jumpers.
Willie's seat getting hotter and hotter each day...
Just a question for the Fire Willie crowd, which coach do you want him to replace ? And how many win you think such coach can impact ?
I honestly don't see this roster as a perenial 50 wins per season nor title contender, so I'm curious to see what are the expectations justifying firing the coach with the higher winning percentage with this franchise since Byron Scott (with one more win over 0.500 it's since Floyd). Btw I'm not saying that Green is the best coach in the League, just that I don't see much upside to his eventual firing.
it drove me crazy watching dyson guarding Kat and Kat took advantage of the mismatch and scored the winning bucket........i thought i was not going to see a mismatch like that again from this team.......wrong, wrong,...last night they put dyson on JJJ and JJJ took advantage of the mismatch and scored on dyson in the same situation that we had with the twolves.....im not understanding putting dyson on 7footers on possessions that can win or tie a game.......
smart coaches and players, know if zion has the ball in a go to situation. just overplay to his left and its a chance that he will dribble the ball off of his leg or bully his way into a charge.....
team seem like they dont have any pride in making free throws....
lately for some reason, the team plays tight and panic in close games and dont run any set plays to get a good shot to put teams away or tie the game up....
i think willie should have let dyson guard JA instead of herb at the end of the 4th and had herb be the help defender.......dyson bodied JA real good on a one on one play earlier in the game and ja had to work hard to get by dyson...now ja did score on that play in the paint but it was a difficult shot that he had to shoot over dyson... i hope i get to see more dyson guarding ja in the next Memphis game....
Maybe the problem with our offense is its too much 1 on 1. It works ok for part of the game but crumbles in the most important situations when defenses are 100 percent locked in. Its crazy how bad the offense has looked with the game on the line and all of our best offensive players out there.
As for guarding Ja, I said it a bunch already but BI is our best guy for the job. Ja was scoring on Dyson and Herb repeatedly but BI was giving him fits with that wingspan
Agree. Willie needs to put this out there. Zion gets shoved on drives and no call, but if someone stares at Ja too long, it is a foul. How many games have you seen the officials call a bogus foul with 1.5 seconds left to decide a game. Then, after it gets overturned, it becomes a jump ball even though the Pels clearly possessed the rebound. And then on a loose ball desperation lob with 0.4 seconds left, get another questionable call. Come on, that is too obvious. Let that happen against the Lakers and see the outcry all over the media the next day.
This is unbelievable. Again we are falling apart in the last minutes of the game - WTF is going on with this team ??
The only thing saving Willie is he has a record above 500. That is the extent of our aspirations as a franchise.
Except he’s not in. I understand the issue with shooting. But here’s the problem, CJ late in games hasn’t been a shooter and he hasn’t been a defender. So if you can’t count on him not to choke, then you might as well put in defense, to at least try to disrupt the other team and maybe create some transition late in games.
Herb at least seems to come alive a bit in the 4th and actually hit shots. But you actually have to have him out there. The reason our offense is coming apart, is that we are putting our mentally softest players out there in crunch time.
Zion becomes too impatient, BI becomes too indecisive, and CJ becomes too scared.
Dyson was actually giving you more offense than CJ in the 4th quarter of the game. And Naji while he wasn’t playing great at least isn’t too scared to step up in the fourth.
Unfortunately, I think the real issue is that BI and Zion don’t work together. It’s why our starter’s minutes are so much worse than our “backup” minutes. Because our backups play with either BI or Zion but not both. You defend Zion and BI the same way, you clog the lane. I was hoping that maybe BI could help out with spacing when he’s on the floor with Zion but that hasn’t happened. It’s time to pull the trigger and trade one of them.
Well , I'm starting with Borrego as interim. When you have the many blown large leads and collapses late in games it's all on focus and discipline and that is coaching.This staff has done nothing to develop Z and Herb and TM3 have just developed pretty much on their own . By firing WG now we have plenty of time to do a search for a HC
+2. It shouldn't be this hard to see.
Ok then but how many more wins do you expect with Borrego as HC ? It's interesting that so far no one replied with a number. Given that this roster have no player in the top 3 of their position (maybe even top 5) or top 20 in the League if you prefer the positionless approach, I'm curious to gauge the expectations the new coaching staff would/will face if/once WG is fired.
I think the two best players on the roster are really hard to build around since both are at best average defender and 3-point shooters. It basically forces the coaching staff to play only 3 and D players next to them and they're not the most common roster-building item out there, especially if you consider that you also need additional shot creation since neither have the primary ball handler skills to keep everyone involved on offense.
Not necessarily, it's all about the right balance, it could be CJ but his defense forces to play elite defender on the perimeter to compensate the deficiences of the other starters so basically you'd have to play some star 3 and D if you don't want to sacrifice spacing or defense.
With the current core it's all about wishing that one of the top 3 will improve on one of his deficiencies to broaden the spectrum of the complimentary pieces, because so far you need one elite 3andD and one center who can shoot 3s and premium shotblocker. In both case, we are speaking about a potential all star.
You're missing the issue. It's not just about x's and o's it's about discipline , focus and fire. WG is weak and has no fire. that's why we have blown more 20+ leads than anyone that's ALL lack of focus, motivation. And that's coaching. It's also the reason we're like 0-6 in games under 5pts. WG clearly has no real plan in those crunch times. He is also weak when it comes to dealing with the refs, He whines to them, he rarely gets firm enough to get a tech which is needed sometimes. He just does not command respect. You want to know how many more wins I think we'd have with Borrego? I say we would not have as many losses , especially blown 20 pt leads and losses under 5 or less pts