Doc Is Outcoaching The Zen Master
Of all the expectations going into this series, pretty much everyone thought that Phil Jackson was going to coach circles around Doc Rivers. But instead of the Zen Master daintily crossing his legs with that smug look on his face, he’s been whistling up a storm.
All series long it’s been Rivers, not Jackson, who has pushed the right buttons and given his team the upper hand. That was never more evident than in Thursday’s Game 4. Rivers’ in-game adjustments helped the Celtics shake off a three-touchdown deficit, while Jackson was left fumbling for a response all the way through the final seconds, when the Lakers needed to burn two timeouts to advance the ball with 15.7 seconds left after they’d mistakenly inbounded the ball before using the first.
The biggest adjustment was Rivers’ decision to go small by inserting Eddie House and James Posey into the lineup. Those two 3-point shooters provided the spacing Boston lacked with Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo on the court, and repeatedly burned the Lakers when they tried to double Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. It was something he’d been considering heading into the game, and once the Celtics fell behind and Perkins hurt his shoulder, he rolled the dice.
“They were trapping off Rondo [and] Perk,” said Rivers. “I brought it up with our staff yesterday. It was probably a 50-50 split, and I just did it because I thought we had to have floor spacing.”
Check out the rest of Hollinger’s article HERE.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:57 am
fallinup says:
Phil fell asleep in the second half. Usually, his teams are the one’s with the fire in the 3rd. But Doc has been consistently making the adjustments at half time and playing great in the 3rd. Yes, the Zen Master is being out coached.
Maybe he’s just getting too old. Or maybe he’s spent too much time in lazy L.A. This will be the second time that his L.A. team loses the chip because his team was out hustled.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Big Freeze says:
Yes, Doc Rivers has been outcoaching Phil, and I tried to explain the exact same point a few days ago but people were not trying to hear it. Doc Rivers is NOT a better coach, but he is outcoaching Phil this series. Phil’s lack of emotion wares off on his team, and they just don’t have the intensity needed to win the chip this year.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Celts Fan says:
Eerily similar to the SuperBowl. The GREAT coach (Phil/Belichik) gets so full of himself and his system, that he doesn’t adjust and gets embarrassed by a guy that should’ve been fired last year (Doc/Coughlin.) Celts just need 1 more W to make it official…
June 13th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
GEE...The 900 number! says:
I heard that Doc is an actually good x’s and o’s coach. Still I think is more of a feel coach and doing an excellent job of knowing what to say, when to say it and how to get it across to where the players believe and understand it.
I will always take Phil over Doc but for what Doc has he is doing a better job in regards to knowing how to get the most out of his players and what they respond to.
Phil is the same Phil but I don’t know if he has the players mentally able aside from Fisher and Kobe to do what he wants to set forth.
Right now Doc is on it! His players are making him look good too.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
dh says:
the lakers have been bad in most 3rd qtrs this year. especially for most of the playoffs. maybe someone besides the phil should be pumping them up too.
June 13th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
bron42 aka coffee black says:
what happen to all the “lakers are gonna sweep…we have phil jackson, you have doc rivers….come on” speechs? Docs “he havnt done anything yet” mentality seems to be workin so far, lets just hope they get this close out game or kobe goes back to old kobe and just starts jackin or decides not to take a shot just to prove a point.
And people seem to be overlookin brian scalibrinis playoffs experience with the nets, you knooooow he has to be workin magic in the huddles lol