SpiritualPorn said:
Cran, is Eddie Jordan a bad coach? Whats the deal?
if you want to talk Xs and Os about that last score, it has more to do with brendan haywood not focusing and less to do with coach jordan...
i'm not comfortable calling out a head coach based on a single game, but there are definitely things that could've been done differently.
here's what coach jordan thought:
HEAD COACH EDDIE JORDAN
(On the game-winning field goal by LeBron James)
“He makes a great play. We wanted to try to stop him without fouling. Fouling is not the answer. I think he made something out of nothing, which great players do. He had the catch deep in the corner and pivot and go by one guy along the baseline, another guy on the baseline, and make a reverse layup. A lot of normal guys miss that.”
(On not having two best defenders on the court for the last play)
“Yeah, you don’t have that matchup, those assignments to kind of keep up with his speed and cut his angle off. You can sit here and say we could have done that, could have done this. We put Brendan (Haywood) on the ball. We had a big on the ball to kind of disrupt the pass. W didn’t want to switch while the ball was out of bounds. We just wanted to stay and trail and stay into people. He makes a great play.”
(On the number of defensive schemes the Wizards have against James)
“We doubled on him, we switched on him, we got difference matchups with Caron (Butler) and Jared (Jeffries), our best matchups on him. We doubled him, we showed double, we faked doubles, we switched. I don’t know, that’s all I know of. Unless you want to run another guy at him, 3 guys. That’s what happened in the first game, we loaded up on him, and he found other guys cutting to the basket, wide open shooters. He was helping his teammates and eventually he’s going to help himself after they score.”
(On Flip Murray replacing James with 4 fouls in the 3rd quarter and his effect)
“I thought we got a lead real quickly, then Flip did score some baskets, pull ups, pretty much like he did the last game of the regular season. He stepped up and made some things happen for them. That’s why they won 50 games. They have people they can go to.”
(Opening Statement)
“Obviously, a very tough loss for us. A great player made a great move. It was a terrific battle, terrific game and I hope we match that same type of energy and same type of execution coming back home. And, hopefully, we can get back here on Sunday.”
gil on how the last play broke down defensively:
(On the Wizards defense on the last play)
“I hit both free throws and I told everybody to calm down in the huddle, it’s not over, there’s three seconds left. We’ve been in this situation before where we lost game winners.
We put Brendan (Haywood) on the ball and told him to cut off that corner pass. Larry (Hughes) made a great fake to the three-point line and the center bit for it. LeBron got it and made an athletic move. They cut it out one side and I was the only person on the back side. Six-eight, six-three (heights), he jumped, I couldn’t block it.”
jared jeffries on how the last play broke down defensively:
(On LeBron James’ game-winning shot)
It was a tough shot that he hit.
In basketball terminology, the ball can’t go to the corner. We have to figure out a way to take away that corner and make the ball go out on the court where he is coming away from the basket and not having his momentum going towards the rim
caron butler on how the last play broke down defensively:
(On this being Washington’s game to take)
We felt comfortable about our chances. We were real confident down the stretch.
We should have done a better job on the out-of-bounds play and trying to push him back towards center court. LeBron caught the ball on the baseline and made a heckuva move maneuvering around two defenders and was able to get the shot off in time.