Picking up the mantle from JB Bickerstaff and at times Alvin Gentry

the David Blatt -> Tyronn Lue switcharoo

Say what you want about the clippers but they’ve had a grand total of 2 head coaches since 2013

Mitch was lacking in game knowledge in the finals. Billy is kind of a robot but handles end of games very well. Designs great OOB plays. He won tons of close games with the Bulls. With never more than mid talent. Spurs were addressing a weakness of Mitches. More and more it’s almost like there’s a co head. He’s a good defensive coach. Good choice in my opinion.

Seriously. This year was a bad exit for sure. But this sub would have lost it on any number of playoff blunders from Pop or the big three.

Mitch has to address choking huge leads. It was so bad.

Yeah man I like this mentality. I mean you can point at Mitch and blame him if you want for the collapse. In fact I would say placing majority blame on him is fair

What you don’t do is get rid of him. He doesn’t deserve that first of all and second of all if you did that for every coach that made some mistakes in the playoffs you’d be getting a new coach every year and we can make the argument every coach other than probably five of them should have been fired last year if that’s the case.

Give them some time man

Pop was the GM, fired the HC, and took that job until he retired

Ok, but that’s assuming that he’ll grow.

Go to the Bengals subreddit and ask them their thoughts about Zac Taylor’s growth since their Super Bowl run.

An attitude like that would have seen us fire Pop after any number of embarrassing playoff blunders, bad subs, getting bounced by lower seeds in the first round

Pop won the championship in his second full season with the team…

While he got out coached in the finals let’s not forget Mitch did get the spurs to 62 wins and the finals

Mitch was already the second biggest voice lol, he handles the day to day for Pop’s team. 

In all seriousness though, him and Billy’s son came up together on the Austin staff, and from what I’ve seen online are still close friends. I’d bet that plays the biggest role here. 

I mean the Spurs already have Brett Brown in their coaching staff for years as well.

Mitch was an idiot for not drawing up plays and calling timeouts when his team of 22 year olds lead by a basketball terrorist was in the process of committing a generational throw

2k players who don’t understand the concept of fatigue

Tom Thibs would

I mean that lineup would have been better than Fox 😭

Man, apparently asking to play guys who are hot and bench guys who are cold based on how they’re playing in a given game and not on who’s a Klutch client makes you basically worse than a Lakers fan to some of y’all..

He was an idiot for having his team press Brunson full court from Q1 on. The Knick rope-a-doped the Spurs in literally every game. Too much defensive energy spent to start the game left them exhausted  and unable to hit shots down the stretch. All of that was designed to fluster Brunson, and Brunson still killed them with clutch shots.

The adjustment should have been to slow down in the 1H. Limit possessions, get your subs in early, match NY if they press/run but don’t be the aggressor. Then press late. Let Brunson get a rhythm early then disrupt that rhythm during crunch time instead of letting him get used to the pressing/pace and having the Knicks workshop solutions in Q2/Q3 that they’ll use to kill you in Q4.

I do blame Mitch, but it’s because he employed the same strat for every game and every game went the same way, big lead when you have energy - lose late because you punched yourself out. The fact he and nobody on his staff suggested that they adjust strategy to conserve energy is malpractice. It’s one thing to lose 4 games, it’s another to lose all 4 games the same way for the same reason. 

Oh no, my coach was bad in his first finals, surely it’s all downhill from here. Surely he can’t also learn from his mistakes and grow just as the team will grow 🫩

“People can forget 100 good things you’ve done, but they’ll remember the one mistake.”

The negative bias is crazy.

Apparently a 62-20 RG, followed by a Finals appearance, all while defeating the holding champions, has been completely wiped from existance by a bad performance in 5 games.

All of which happened in his first full season ans a head-coach.

It’s not like he was in uncharted territory and was against a 20+ years experienced coach.

I’m not gonna pretend Mitch was perfect but his max contract PG and 6th man of the year completely disappeared while Wemby was dominated by KAT on both ends. What was he realistically supposed to do?

Hell, Daigneault kept starting Dort vs. the Spurs in the WCF even though it was very clear that Caruso or Wallace would have been better options. Two players who were legitimately punishing the Spurs and kickstarting runs with both their offense and defense and Daig kept going to Dort who just didn’t seem to be effective against any of the Spurs’ key players.

Mutiny

We don’t but CBB does have players demand more money half way through the season or they quit the team

Honestly for the type of college gig that Billy would be able to land, it probably wouldn’t be too bad these days. Tennessee’s Rick Barnes said that on the recruiting side of things, his job has never been easier because you can essentially just ask them “what amount will it take to get you here” and that’s that. Obviously for schools that don’t have a warchest of resources, it can be a nightmare. Though Billy could avoid those types of jobs if he ever returned to the college ranks. Granted, it seems clear he has no interest in that regardless.