Yeah, Horry's just sick! We were screaming for him last night almost as much as we were screaming for the Pistons to beat Shaq and the Heat a couple weeks ago. Good stuff, and it's great to see Horry come through in the clutch once again, and further enhance his "Big Shot Bob" image. Carrying the team on his back for the last quarter and a half (21 of last 35 points for the Spurs, I think), throwing down that monster jam, hitting the game winning 3... Man, just awesome. I was definitely rooting for the Spurs last night (after being indecisive about the series in general so far). I've decided that I definitely want the Spurs to win now. Seeing Horry tie Jordan and Pippen for the most rings in the past 30 years would be pretty sweet - on 3 different teams no less...
My view with Phil is Jordan/Pippen and Shaq/Kobe never won anything until he got there.
Brian makes a good (and popular) point about Phil having the luxury of coaching the top talent(s) in the league, but Jay definitely points out the flipside of Jackson's defense, in that Phil got both of those teams over the hump. He's definitely a good coach, but I still think he's a little overrated. I just think he's a much better motivator, who prepares his teams for games very well (during practice and such).
My beef with him comes
during the games. He just sits there all stoic, with his arms crossed on his chest, doing virtually nothing throughout the course of the game. He rarely ever calls timeouts at crucial junctures (to break the opposing team's momentum when they're on a run), he has
horrible substitution patterns (if a Laker gets hot, he's benched within the next minute or two), and he just doesn't make necessary adjustments during the game when he should (changing defensive assignments or schemes, telling the players what to do or not to do, etc.). Nothing. He mostly just sits there and stares, as if he's oddly amused or perplexed by whatever's transpiring on the court at any given time. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there screaming, "Why doesn't he just do such and such?!?!?" Dude just often makes no sense once the game clock is moving...
It'll be very interesting to see what goes down this year. Maybe his first chance to really prove that he's a good coach. Sure, he's still got Kobe, one of the top 5 players in the league, but that's about it right now. The rest of the team is complacent, lacks desire, and definitely plays ****** defense - all leading to the lack of a playoff berth for the first time in years. So if Phil can come in and turn that around with essentially the exact same cast, then I think he may finally earn some real credit for his actual coaching skills. We'll see...
