Prior to the trade, he had some ridiculous coaching habits.
regularly playing 10-12 guys per game.
He was matching up with the opposing lineups (i.e. if they go small, we go small, etc.)
He was playing Novak and Fields regularly as PF.
He would play Lowry and whatever backup PG we had in 2 or 3 gaurd lineups.
He didn't know how to call a timeout
he sat our best players until the games were well out of reach
And then the trade happened. Now all of a sudden, he has a strict 9 man rotation, and knows how to coach consistently?
It's like night and day. Does anyone have an explanation for this? It seems he knew the whole time what our identity was and what he wanted this team to be. Why not enforce this earlier with his in-game management?
He played two PG's because DeMar can't handle the ball, so opposing teams would just double Lowry to force the ball out of his hands and then our offense would just go stagnant. Now that we have Solmons on the floor a lot of the time he doesn't need to go to a two PG line up as much becausle Solmons can handle the rock.
The bench players from Sacramento are far, far superior to Fields whom could defent but couldn't hit a jump shot to save his life, or to Novak whom could shoot, but plays no defense at all. Even Patterson gives you a good blend of defense and shooting which Tyler doesn't give you.
The time outs thing is sort of baffling to me as well. Not sure why his time outs are so on the ball these days.
I think a lot of it is just circumstance. When they first made the trade the organization likely wanted to give Salmons and co. some minutes but then, all of a sudden, they started winning. And kept winning. So, Casey ran with it.
As for Val and Ross, I think Casey has finally realized that it isn't just developing those guys - they actually make the team better and help get wins.
Now, they are winning and even the worst coach in the world knows not to mess with it. I used to joke that Casey's coaching motto was, "If it ain't broke, break it", but it seems he's turned the corner. Plus, I think he's grown comfortable with this group of players and trusts them, so he doesn't feel the need to play matchup games, etc.
The timeouts I can't explain. Also, his entire clock management has been better. Maybe he's delegated an assistant to poke him from time to time? Maybe they are just better prepared as a staff after the early season debacle in Charlotte?
MIAMI— It says something about how far they’ve come over the last month that after losing a fair fight against the Heat, Raptors coach Dwane Casey was accentuating the negative.
“We missed a lot of easy shots we should make. You shoot …” — and here he held the final stats sheet out in front of him like it had been dipped in something contagious — “… 57 per cent from the free throw line, you’re not going to beat too many people. I don’t care if it’s the Miami Heat or Miami-Dade High School.”
Offered the chance to slip out the rhetorical back door when someone threw out the (quite reasonable) suggestion that it had been a “moral victory”, Casey screwed up his face like he’d been hit with a strong smell. “You don’t get any medals for losing.”
When someone else brought up offensive rebounds, Casey interrupted him to say, “… to the 30th-ranked offensive rebounding team in the league.”
Seems like he's trying to be more tough. http://www.thestar.com/sports/raptor....vWKwXtdH.dpuf
Last edited by KazanTheMan; Mon Jan 6, 2014, 12:06 PM.
"Masai WILL win us a championship"
- Tim Leiweke
Ujiri: "One thing I can say for sure is that we will not be stuck in the middle."
(a) Masai doesn't care if we win or not, all he wants to see is what we have so let's showcase everyone! I'm going to mix up the lineup so that other teams can see how our players fair in various situations even if they don't make any sense!
to
(b) Hey, I think we can win this game! I just have to keep the losers on the bench.
I usually am, but I'm not with him. He was playing at an identical borderline-mind-bogglingly-high level last year in the preseason, and in the regular season before he got injured. Then the injury took him off the rails, and may have compromised him for the rest of the season. Plus, there was the PG controversy, which had a palpable effect on his approach to the game. Anyhoo nothing about his character makes me think that he'd get paid and then let himself go.
"Stop eating your sushi."
"I do actually have a pair of Uggs."
"I've had three cups of green tea tonight. I'm wired. I'm absolutely wired."
- Jack Armstrong
I agree with what everyone is saying about Casey earlier in the year with his game management and substitutions
I just want to point out what i think he does great and that is managing the team behind the scenes and that gets overlooked.
if you see some of the problems on other teams, you don't see them here. No one is sleeping with each others wives, no one is fighting each other in the locker room. There are no cliques in divisions that I see (I am sure some teammates are closer to some teammates than others) and Casey never throws his guys under the boss or tries to embarrass them in public ( always we got to do, we got to do better at this ) He is a good company man that has created a great team atmosphere in the locker room that shouldn't be overlooked
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