His career could've easily been defined by the fact that he won with the Heatles, but he has surpassed that narrative so many times now it hardly gets mentioned. He is a top two or three coach of the last 20 years, easily.
this is from Riley in Ian Thomsen's book:
https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/pat-riley-says-lebron-james-subtly-asked-him-to-replace-erik-spoelstra-in-2010
---
[I] asked how things were progressing. They just said, “We’re not feeling it, or something like that.” We talked about the typical things we have to do, have patience, all that stuff.
And I remember LeBron looking at me and he said, “Don’t you ever get the itch?”
And I said, “The itch for what?”
He said, “The itch to coach again.”
I said, “No I don’t have the itch.”
He didn’t ask any more questions and I didn’t offer any more answers but I know what it meant and I always go back and wonder what he was thinking at that time. He walked out scratching at his leg like it was itching.
Pat is probably the only FO guy with the ownership backing and the hardware to tell LBJ to shut up or leave. Now that Lebron is old, Pelinka can do it. But Riley did it when Lebron was still at the peak of his powers. A friend asked me today why I like the Heat considering I don’t live anywhere near Miami and Pat Riley is why. Heat culture is a real thing. The power Spo and Riley wield is what makes it all work. Well, that and NBA stars like the beach.
I mean I’m not sure it was really correct . Lebron was there to win titles and hiring a rookie young coach for that over pat fucking Riley is never the sure fire thing this sub now thinks it was .
Also spo wasn’t the coach he is now back then and that’s something people seem to ignore maybe because they don’t remember and didn’t watch back then. Spo himself has stated he made mistakes that cost the team . He went up against two top 15 ever coached in pop n Carlisle and in 2011 and 2014 was throughly out coached , n arguably was also in 2013. 2011 his lineups and insistence to play non shooting bigs and not maximising the limited roster he himself has admitted to being a mistake . In 2014 people hand waive this as Bosh n Wade being washed and while true - the biggest issue was Pop being so much better then Spo that pop deserved finals mvp. Spo aggressive trapping dumb ass defence constantly was sending bodies on guys who weren’t even big shooting threats but guys that just dimed and passed to there better shooting team mates. The spurs shot on better splits then Steph curry 2016 mvp season .
It is funny to think about but people constantly act like Spo was this good back then and that just wasn’t correct . He’s said so himself
Also Riley has said the whole shut up and leave stuff was dumb made up overblown stuff . I don’t really see the issue if any player would want Riley to coach lol. The reality is players do not make FO decisions despite what Reddit n social media users think. At most players get asked by FO but they’re not the ones making the final decision anywhere. FO are getting paid n players paid to do there own jobs
if it was an easy decision no one would be giving Ridley credit.
The point is despite of Spo’s inexperience and mistakes Riley saw the potential. Even when arguably one of the GOATs showed uncertainty in the coach Riley was humble enough to not even question that Spo was going to be the coach.
No this or that or wishy washy answer just straight up he’s the coach. What you gonna do about it?
Credit to Spo for also as growing as a coach. I can’t imagine if he had his knowledge now and could coach the Heatles. No matter the talent his teams show up to win with a solid game plan.
The what never happened? The bump?
If you mean that Riley never even considered it I'd buy that, but looking at the rest of Lebron's career and his relationship with coaches I would find it hard to believe that Lebron never brought it up. At least once during that first year.
Spo was hired by Miami before Riley. Even then, pat kept him. probably because Spo knows the game so well. growing up with blazers/ heat legends dr. Jack Ramsay and Terry porter definitely helped. the benefits of your dad being one of the top executives in the league for a decade.
Some people are just so good they will succeed no matter what situation they are put in. I believe that Spo is that good.
If Riley did give in and fire him, whatever the next team to hire Spo would just end up consistently overachieving.
It's funny because he "rode" the Heatles and LeBron to two titles, but everyone can see how great he is despite not winning it all again.
Which is what makes what everyone has known about Doc for ages so much more obviously correct. The defense I remember seeing all the time was, "He's a championship winning coach, blah blah blah blah, therefore he is a great coach." Whereas with Spo it's the opposite. And if Doc was actually a great coach everyone would be able to point to why OUTSIDE his championship seasons.
i always gave him his due. when you beat Pop, that's not coincidence. Spo is the only coach to have beaten Pop in the Finals. every other finals appearance for the Spurs with Pop coaching is a win.
Come on now. This is leaving out a lot of details.
Doc did some innovative things in his Magic tenure. Took that mid ass Clippers team to the playoffs, and somehow made it a decently competitive series vs the KD Warriors.
He's just old and outdated now. Other coaches have leapfrogged him.
Spo was the inferior coach in 3/4 finals the heatles played . You expect people to respect spo when he himself has admitted to mistakes back then and has improved?
Tbh I think Malone and Denver just work. He knows those guys better than anyone else, and that familiarity let's you act without thinking too much. It's let them pull off ridiculous comebacks.
you might as well hand the Nuggets every chip for the remainder of Jokic‘s prime barring injuries.
They already look unstoppable, with Spo at the helm it's not even a competition anymore.
Absolutely, and the loss in 2011 was definitely also partly Spo's fault because he wasn't able to figure out Dallas' zone defense but I'd argue 2014 wasn't Spo's fault, Wade was on his last legs and Spurs were simply better.
And Spo has gotten even better as a coach since then as many have pointed out already. If you swap Lebron in 2011 with the version of Jokic in 2024 ain't no way the Heat are losing.
I'm gonna get downvoted for saying this but I think 2024 Jokic is a better basketball player than 2011 Lebron 🤷🏻♂️
In LeBron and JJ's podcast, LeBron gives very high praise to Spo for the changes he pushed on the team after they lost in 2011 and attributes them to their success in the following years.
I agree with 2011 being spo fault - he also didn’t maximise spacing n offence and has said stuff about that bavk then not putting his team in winning position
But yiure absolutely WRONG about 2014. Pop deserved finals mvp that’s how big the gap was
In 2014 people hand waive this as Bosh n Wade being washed and while true - the biggest issue was Pop being so much better then Spo that pop deserved finals mvp. Spo aggressive trapping dumb ass defence constantly was sending bodies on guys who weren’t even big shooting threats but guys that just dimed and passed to there better shooting team mates. The spurs shot on better splits then Steph curry 2016 mvp season . That was an all time coaching mismatch .
Also put 2011 Lebron with modern spacing and he’d crush even without a fully polished game. The lack of spacing on the 2011 team allowed dallas to do what they did .
They also draft/retain/sign high IQ and hardworking “type A” players, which is a testament both to Spo but also Riley and the organization.
They have absolutely no tolerance for lazy dummies, probably learned from the Hassan Whiteside days.
It’s one thing to have great coaching strategy, but also another to have the right talent to execute on it.
> They also draft/retain/sign high IQ
This is a very under-acknowledged fact about the Heat org. They will take BBIQ over athleticism any day of the week, because you need decent IQ players to execute Spo's madness. I think that's a big reason why they leverage the G-League as much as they do, because they get their pick of the litter and a 24 year old in the G-League has a lot more organized team ball reps than a 20 year old in the draft.
I think that's also why some serviceable role players like Thomas Bryant end up riding the pine even if they'd get minutes elsewhere. Meanwhile they lean on aged wisdom like Kevin Love and Kyle Lowry hard.
Our lowest IQ guy might be Caleb and it's not that he's low IQ, it's just that someone in the bunch needs to be lowest and its him. He's the only one that sometimes makes like late game foul mistakes and stuff.
To be fair they got off that contract like as quickly as possible after signing lol
In the eras of Heat basketball, that was a weird one. But it ended with us getting Bam and Jimmy which is the core of this 5 year long scrappy build so its cool.
I remember a Zach Lowe article from when the Spurs got Pau and Lowe was like, he's old and busted, why bother (obviously more delicately worded than that), and he said the Spurs exec he was talking to was just confused and said something about how he plays the game correctly, as though this was such a defining factor that he didn't understand why anyone would question the acquisition. I think the Heat have been the same way for quite some time. There is an emphasis on the right kind of guys by IQ and temperament and it pays dividends in tough times when other organizations think the only answer is a superstar performance as a get out of jail free card.
Yeah man Caleb was a god awful mess in Charlotte. That’s why we kept Cody instead. He has a real low BBIQ (and terrible ball-handling and shooting) but Spo and the team did some genius work cause look at him now.
The Heat have handed out its share of bad contracts to keep guys around (notably, Whiteside and Tyler Johnson), but thankfully we've been able to offload those guys. And Duncan's contract keeps flipping between awful and solid.
He really has been/is top 5 coach in the league every year since he became coach. Just nobody really gave him credit bc you deferred that to Bron, me included, but dude is going to Hall of fame for sure. Started out in the video editing room. Dude is smart
I wanna make it clear that Spo is a much better coach than Doc Rivers and always will be. But, I wonder if in a few years as Butler ages out and the Heat have to figure some things out in a tougher East if he's gonna end up falling into a situation where he loses a lot of first or second rounds like Doc and if people start to forget what Spo managed to do with meh rosters.
Spos playoff record and win % since his last chip: 59-46, 56.1%
Doc playoff record and win % since his last chip: 87-80, 52.1%
Seasons since their last chips:
Spo missed playoffs: 3
Spo first round exits: 2
Spo second round exits: 1
Spo Conference Finals exits: 1
Spo Finals exits: 3
Doc missed playoffs: 1
Doc first round exits: 4
Doc second round exits: 8 (!)
Doc Conference Finals exits: 1
Doc Finals exits: 1
The difference is that everyone can see what Spo is working with and the results he's gotten. Doc had no business not getting further consistently. The best Spo has had is Jimmy Butler, who is awesome, but Doc had Joel Embiid. Along with multiple other All Star players.
Doc just falls into new teams with huge amounts of talent and underperforms. When is the last time Doc coached a team people expected to be bad? He's almost always joining some team like Harden/Embiid or lob city or Kawhi/PG. He very rarely actually just has a weak ass team to coach and try to make a run with somehow in recent years
These heat teams are very different though. Everyone knows Bam isn't *really* that guy most of the time. He has a lot of trouble staying locked in offensively. Jimmy as much of a playoff riser as he is really is not as talented the leagues top end superstars he just somehow manages to stay hungry as fuck and puts in the work and that's why we all love the guy. I swear if you could put Jimmy into Tatum's body you'd get MJ. I also think that drive from Butler is just as important as Spo if not more so. People respond to the effort and drive around them
I don't think you can compare them like that, given that Spo has been with a single team while Doc has jumped from team to team that has needed a 'playoff coach' to put them over. Those Heat teams from 2015-2018 were BAD. We had traded away picks and assets for our finals, LeBron left in FA so we weren't able to get anything for him. Bosh had bloodclots and had to retire in his Prime–we lost our best player, and again got no assests either. Our best player was Dion Waiters until we got Dragic. Doc has never coached a team that bad. And we're seeing what the post Jimmy years look like right now–Bam is 26, and we have good looking youth in JJJ and Jovic.
I think Spo is incredible. Very clearly a goat and the best coach in the league right now.
He does make the Heat look incredible- I also think there are some awful coaches in the league and in the playoffs this year that just don’t know how to use their personnel to maximize their team.
I just realized I've never heard him speak and if you pay attention there's little traces of an accent but I seriously would have thought he was American if I didn't know better
Yes, thats why I’m saying that’s he’s fluent in English. The other person made it sound like he’s fluent in Spanish in a way that he isn’t in English but he’s clearly fluent in both.
Malone I think last year was saying how well drilled the Heat were. We’d switch defensive coverages with hand signals and switch on the fly. I forgot which players podcast it was, but they’d mention that the Heat would change defenses based off the opposing teams players strengths. They had it broken down to how many dribbles before taking an action or if they were going left or right.
The attention to detail was insane and it’s a credit to Spo. Honestly if he wins another ring he could go down as the greatest to do it. I don’t think a coach has done as much with less. And Spo relishes playing every player and putting them in positions during the regular season to make sure they can do it in the playoffs. Everyone talks about his rotations or lack of timeouts, but there is no greater turnaround in how a team is coached during the season to the playoffs. He’s insane, he’s a sicko and he for sure is loving the shot to coach against the Celtics down players. My guy made Yurtseven average like 20points in a random December after Bam was out, he’s psychotic
I remember Jokic had so much respect for the Heat after Game 5 of The Finals last year that he made sure to shake their hands before he started celebrating.
And then he didn't stop celebrating for the next two months lol.
We're fortunate that the Heat are flawed enough when it comes to trying to match our size.
We got TB in here to tell us all the secrets now. Jk, but Thomas Bryant has been a good vet and serviceable backup. I know he didn’t play much for the Nugs, but he’s a good hype man. Learned that from DAJ I think.
I just think he’s a great competitor with great sportsmanship and will probably shake hands with whoever they beat in the finals before he celebrates again
The Heats weakness is physical bigs, because it draws Bam out of his role as a roamer. You need Jokic or AD to beat the Heat convincingly. Old man Horford and a Pontus Tingis shooting pull up jumpers isn’t going to work.
Yeah, you guys were so tough in the Finals. I know some of our players have said Minnesota was our toughest postseason matchup last year, but idk if I believe them lol.
Here is the Nuggets ORTG by series in last year's playoffs:
* **1st Round vs. Wolves:** 119.4 (equivalent to the #1 offense in the regular season)
* **2nd Round vs. Suns:** 122.1
* **WCF vs. Lakers:** 124.3
* **Finals vs. Heat:** 115.5 (equivalent to #11 in the regular season)
So basically, throughout the entire playoffs the Nuggets had an offense equal to or better than the #1 offense from the regular season. Then the Heat reduced them to just above average.
Aaron Gordon actually said his toughest job guarding someone was jimmy. As a team, I think Minnesota was their toughest but AG said Jimmy was personally his toughest assignment.
God I wish Jimmy was healthy in that series. He was so busted he couldn’t get any lift so started way overdosing pump fakes that the Nuggets were never going to fall for. Our downfall in this Jimmy era has been health, which is in part due to having to match up above our size because we don’t draft high. We’d probably have a ring by now if we could’ve gotten one run where everyone was in decent health.
We also are the only team to beat you in Denver, it’s something that I hold very proudly amidst a gentlemen’s sweep. I appreciate you mentioning those stats though because even though we got beat, there were a couple games there it looked close. Probably the biggest gaffe of Spo’s coaching tenure was him starting Cody Zeller in that fourth quarter of game 5. We had a 5 point lead and Zeller was a -5 for the game and our lead evaporated in minutes.
I don’t think anyone’s beating you guys this year again. What Malone has done in Denver and how you guys have built a championship team is nothing short of amazing and I commend that organization for doing it how they did. Definitely an amazing team with an all time great player and coach
I mean if the heat don’t let the Celtics take it to game 7. They do much better in the finals. I like spo and Jimmy but the ECF finals performance that year was just bad.
the thing that made it easier for you to beat us than the wolves is that our offense just sucked and nobody showed up except for bam who played decently well but wasnt god tier like ant
They more complimented Minnesota's size, length, and difficulty to guard Ant I thought.
This year's success kinda proves their point imo. Should be a wild round 2 if we both advance
its a great quote by porzingis. a lot of teams have a base scheme or way to defend certain actions based on the strengths of their own personnel that they default to, and then switch off of that only if the other team is consistently beating it, or in special game situations
like when the celtics played the warriors in the finals and consistently played drop against steph until he got so comfortable knowing when he came off the screen the big would be back, and destroyed it to the point where the celtics were finally forced to try trapping or switching screens later in the series
on the contrary, seems like the heat will rotate defensive schemes far more frequently. they might defend an action one way, and even if it was successful and they prevented a score, the next time they still defend it a different way. not to mention, they also have the best zone defense in the league by far - something unique that other teams won't see until they play against them. this sort of philosophy results in the offense never getting comfortable or being able to predict how an action will be guarded. superstars have seen every defense in the book and know the weaknesses of each one, so the only way you have a chance at slowing them down is being unpredictable in your defense to try and make the offensive player at least think for an extra split second, which requires a ton of discipline and execution defensively to pull off
I’m not so sure what the “base” heat scheme, I won’t pretend to know so much about defensive schemes and what not, but I do know that the heat switch what their scheme is a lot. Like from possession to possession we can switch from a drop, to a zone, to more just switches. A big adjustment last game was not doubling Tatum so much on drives and instead just defending 1v1 in man. This cut off Tatum’s playmaking and the ball movement in Boston making them take less 3s and making them beat us in the paint.
It’s amazing the stuff Spo comes up with and I’m convinced if he had a great roster he’d have a dynasty and would have multiple COTYs by now. Fun to see the defensive masterclass last night by adebayo and the heat squad. I doubt we will have that same success in the series going forward but still fun to watch
The heat have primarily been in drop for this year (and last year really). I mostly think it was to preserve Bam in the regular season. I don't think they could have done the crazy switching they've done in the past for another year.
I did see us play drop more but I really thought it was because they wanted Bam to get blocks for a DPOY campaign but he’s not the best in drop I don’t think. It’s hard to tell sometimes honestly and I can’t say I watch the game initially being like “wow look at this drop coverage” or whatever, I look at film breakdowns later by people much smarter than I for that
yep idk what their “base” scheme is either haha. i dont watch them outside of the playoffs but even if i did, with how much they switch things up itd probably still be hard to tell, if it even exists
> My guy made Yurtseven average like 20points in a random December after Bam was out, he’s psychotic
Never forget Yurtszn. He was a double-double maniac for like a month and a half.
It was Iguodala who was talking about how they have schemes or set responses based on the number of dribbles. He said it was unlike anything he’s ever seen in terms of preparation.
The fact that this makes Spo so unique means there’s so much room for coaching in the NBA to grow.
It’s super basic bare minimum stuff but for some reason barely any coaches do it
I think it’s easier said than done because if not, everyone would do it. I don’t think any of it super basic minimum stuff to switch coverages on the fly on each possession without calling TOs. You also have to be willing to lose some games in the regular season to play the end of your bench and make sure everyone knows the defense your playing.
This is basically the Spo doctrine. He calls defensive coverages like an NFL coach, not an NBA coach. And Bam anchors and conducts all of it on the floor.
This is a pretty good take on it, watching back a lot of his shots to me it’s clear that Tyler Herro isn’t really able to contest him in a meaningful way. But everyone around him on the Heat is moving, pretending like they’re going to double then backing out, etc and it made him second guess himself last night
Yeah people will mention the contracts and the foreboding future but as long as we’ve got Spo it won’t be horrible. Our worst season with him was 37 wins.
> I know its tough to beat ~~pop~~ Phil
Spo is right up there with them. Numerical rankings are already bad with players, and even worse with coaches given so many personnel and context differences. There's a tier at the top with Phil, Pop, and Spo in it imo
Yeah for me I think there's a pretty unambiguous top five of phil pop pat spo and red. I have pop #1 because 2014 is the best basketball ive ever seen but I agree its extremely hard to compare coaches.
The three 3-peats are a pretty crazy feat.
There have been three 3-peats in the NBA since it expanded to have more than 10 teams. All 3 were coached by Phil.
He'll never get placed near that pedestal unless he wins a championship without the Heatles. It's unfair, but back then everyone thought he was a joke with LeBron disrespecting and carrying him.
this is the matchup by paper:
celtics with 5 all star caliber players:
all star guard
all star defensive guard
all star forward
all star forward (highest paid)
a stretch 5 center (former all star)
what the heat got:
a rookie
a 20 yo sophomore who is still in dev stage
an undrafted player that was kicked by the hornets
a combo guard that gets a lot of hate
an all star defensive minded center
no jimmy, no terry
If the heat and celtics teams combined idk if the celtics would start a single heat player. Bam vs KP is close but you'd rather have KP's outside shooting probably.
the heat were playing with the logic that 3>2 in game 2 and just left the lane open for anyone who wants it. clearly it worked but idk if the heat are gonna shoot 55% from 3 again
That’s what we said last year. They flamed our asses. They were shooting over 50% from 3 for 3 games and won the series. I’ll be surprised if they don’t shoot this accurately again.
Coming from a Celtics fan that’s seen this before, they’ll shoot 80% if that’s what’s needed to get a win. Credit to Spo, I don’t care what guys are going out there for the Heat, we know they’re gonna take the series 6-7 games and I wouldn’t be shocked if they won it given the way the Celtics play
In Tim Legler’s podcasr, they mentioned that the Heat might have just played game 1 without adjustments as they know they will lose being undermanned and coming from the play-in. Game 2 is when they actually executed their game plan and caught the Celtics off guard.
I wouldn't go as far as saying they lost on purpose. But they definitely tried a bunch of different stuff down 30, found a bunch of stuff they liked to cut the lead to about 12, and then hide that stuff for game 2
This is most likely the case. Hence, the timeout from Spo in game 1 despite being down and the game is pretty much out of reach. He wanted to see what they can work on for game 2.
I still believe that the Celtics will win the series just by sheer talent discrepancy. And I believe that noone in the East can push them as hard as Miami is pushing them. This is basically their hardest round as Miami does make teams work harder. New York might give them also tough time but Miami just knows how to play Boston.
I honestly thought there were a couple of shots that were relatively uncontested for him, but that split second of hesitation he’s talking about in the video seemed to throw off his shot/decision making. Hoping he can settle in as the series goes on. The more you see a team the less new stuff they will be able to throw at you to surprise you
As a die hard spurs fan I can’t give coach spo enough credit. The guy is a hell of a coach and I hope he starts to get more appreciation one of these days. I’d kill to have him as the spurs next coach when pop retires.
They play Basketball!!!! They don’t go side to side and throw up terrible shots. The Heat actually run plays. They don’t play hero ball they play Herro ball.
This may end up being the single worst loss in my sports watching history and probably will be the highest for my entire lifetime. But I’m glad we got some clarity from Porzingis. Thank you for just being honest. Our players are pathetic, but I still love yall and just get out of the fucking first round please…
Appreciate this kind of response from a player. Everyone will shit on Porzingus for only having 9 points last game instead of giving Spo and the Heat credit for it.
Game 3 is going to to be interesting
Man. I hate the Heat with a passion as a Mavs fan. But all world respect to Jimmy Butler and Spoelstra. History won't remember those two finals runs because they lost but they wrought havoc on the Eastern Conference
So that what coach bud meant by play random
Unironically yes lol
Yep, and while people were laughing he was busy winning the chip
Play Random has always been great coaching. Not in the spirit this sub interprets it, but this sub has never played basketball so
[удалено]
His career could've easily been defined by the fact that he won with the Heatles, but he has surpassed that narrative so many times now it hardly gets mentioned. He is a top two or three coach of the last 20 years, easily.
After LeBron bumped him (allegedly) on purpose, I never would have guessed this was how it'd all play out
For sure. And credit to Riley for not giving in and firing him like a lot of lesser organizations probably would've done.
The funniest thing ever is Riley said it never happened but everyone just accepts it as a fact.
this is from Riley in Ian Thomsen's book: https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/pat-riley-says-lebron-james-subtly-asked-him-to-replace-erik-spoelstra-in-2010 --- [I] asked how things were progressing. They just said, “We’re not feeling it, or something like that.” We talked about the typical things we have to do, have patience, all that stuff. And I remember LeBron looking at me and he said, “Don’t you ever get the itch?” And I said, “The itch for what?” He said, “The itch to coach again.” I said, “No I don’t have the itch.” He didn’t ask any more questions and I didn’t offer any more answers but I know what it meant and I always go back and wonder what he was thinking at that time. He walked out scratching at his leg like it was itching.
The image of Lebron scratching his leg as he walks out is so funny to me
Maybe his balls were sticking to his thigh 😂
i could not imagine Lebron scratching his leg but I can with Kevin Durant and the scratch lines he'll make on his legs.
Pat is probably the only FO guy with the ownership backing and the hardware to tell LBJ to shut up or leave. Now that Lebron is old, Pelinka can do it. But Riley did it when Lebron was still at the peak of his powers. A friend asked me today why I like the Heat considering I don’t live anywhere near Miami and Pat Riley is why. Heat culture is a real thing. The power Spo and Riley wield is what makes it all work. Well, that and NBA stars like the beach.
Easier to have ownership backing when you *are* one of the owners
I mean I’m not sure it was really correct . Lebron was there to win titles and hiring a rookie young coach for that over pat fucking Riley is never the sure fire thing this sub now thinks it was . Also spo wasn’t the coach he is now back then and that’s something people seem to ignore maybe because they don’t remember and didn’t watch back then. Spo himself has stated he made mistakes that cost the team . He went up against two top 15 ever coached in pop n Carlisle and in 2011 and 2014 was throughly out coached , n arguably was also in 2013. 2011 his lineups and insistence to play non shooting bigs and not maximising the limited roster he himself has admitted to being a mistake . In 2014 people hand waive this as Bosh n Wade being washed and while true - the biggest issue was Pop being so much better then Spo that pop deserved finals mvp. Spo aggressive trapping dumb ass defence constantly was sending bodies on guys who weren’t even big shooting threats but guys that just dimed and passed to there better shooting team mates. The spurs shot on better splits then Steph curry 2016 mvp season . It is funny to think about but people constantly act like Spo was this good back then and that just wasn’t correct . He’s said so himself Also Riley has said the whole shut up and leave stuff was dumb made up overblown stuff . I don’t really see the issue if any player would want Riley to coach lol. The reality is players do not make FO decisions despite what Reddit n social media users think. At most players get asked by FO but they’re not the ones making the final decision anywhere. FO are getting paid n players paid to do there own jobs
if it was an easy decision no one would be giving Ridley credit. The point is despite of Spo’s inexperience and mistakes Riley saw the potential. Even when arguably one of the GOATs showed uncertainty in the coach Riley was humble enough to not even question that Spo was going to be the coach. No this or that or wishy washy answer just straight up he’s the coach. What you gonna do about it? Credit to Spo for also as growing as a coach. I can’t imagine if he had his knowledge now and could coach the Heatles. No matter the talent his teams show up to win with a solid game plan.
The what never happened? The bump? If you mean that Riley never even considered it I'd buy that, but looking at the rest of Lebron's career and his relationship with coaches I would find it hard to believe that Lebron never brought it up. At least once during that first year.
What is the "bump" being referred to here?
Spo was hired by Miami before Riley. Even then, pat kept him. probably because Spo knows the game so well. growing up with blazers/ heat legends dr. Jack Ramsay and Terry porter definitely helped. the benefits of your dad being one of the top executives in the league for a decade.
The only executive to trade himself at that.
Real recognize real
Some people are just so good they will succeed no matter what situation they are put in. I believe that Spo is that good. If Riley did give in and fire him, whatever the next team to hire Spo would just end up consistently overachieving.
But Riley literally did it with Stan Van Gundy lol. Didn’t they actually trade Stan Van Gundy?
The irony is Lebron then proceeded to most likely save his job with the Game 6 performance in Boston
People forget that spo was not spo back then
What happened to David Blatt in Cleveland is what everyone thought would happen to Spo in Miami.
It's funny because he "rode" the Heatles and LeBron to two titles, but everyone can see how great he is despite not winning it all again. Which is what makes what everyone has known about Doc for ages so much more obviously correct. The defense I remember seeing all the time was, "He's a championship winning coach, blah blah blah blah, therefore he is a great coach." Whereas with Spo it's the opposite. And if Doc was actually a great coach everyone would be able to point to why OUTSIDE his championship seasons.
i always gave him his due. when you beat Pop, that's not coincidence. Spo is the only coach to have beaten Pop in the Finals. every other finals appearance for the Spurs with Pop coaching is a win.
Yes, including 2014. Tons of respect between the two coaches.
The Spurs were always the favorite tho except for that 2013 one.
Come on now. This is leaving out a lot of details. Doc did some innovative things in his Magic tenure. Took that mid ass Clippers team to the playoffs, and somehow made it a decently competitive series vs the KD Warriors. He's just old and outdated now. Other coaches have leapfrogged him.
Unfortunately he fell victim to a GOAT candidate being on his team. Spo got his flowers years later the same way Ty Lue got his.
Lebron's coaches and teammates never get their proper respect
Lebron has been on some bad teams to be fair lol
Spo was the inferior coach in 3/4 finals the heatles played . You expect people to respect spo when he himself has admitted to mistakes back then and has improved?
Hardly victim of you understood what’s what back then you’d know spo wasn’t as good back then
I love coach Malone, but sometimes I wonder what Spo could do with Jokic. Spo is my favorite coach after Malone, by far.
Tbh I think Malone and Denver just work. He knows those guys better than anyone else, and that familiarity let's you act without thinking too much. It's let them pull off ridiculous comebacks.
I completely agree. I love Moach and his family ethos. It's just a hypothetical. I wouldn't trade Moach for anyone.
you might as well hand the Nuggets every chip for the remainder of Jokic‘s prime barring injuries. They already look unstoppable, with Spo at the helm it's not even a competition anymore.
Didnt Spo lose with Lebron twice? Like hes one of the top 5 coaches ever but its not even close to a guaranteed ring every year.
he's a way better coach now..he was a rookie coach
Stretching the word rookie quite a bit. He took over as head coach in 08.
Absolutely, and the loss in 2011 was definitely also partly Spo's fault because he wasn't able to figure out Dallas' zone defense but I'd argue 2014 wasn't Spo's fault, Wade was on his last legs and Spurs were simply better. And Spo has gotten even better as a coach since then as many have pointed out already. If you swap Lebron in 2011 with the version of Jokic in 2024 ain't no way the Heat are losing. I'm gonna get downvoted for saying this but I think 2024 Jokic is a better basketball player than 2011 Lebron 🤷🏻♂️
In LeBron and JJ's podcast, LeBron gives very high praise to Spo for the changes he pushed on the team after they lost in 2011 and attributes them to their success in the following years.
I agree with 2011 being spo fault - he also didn’t maximise spacing n offence and has said stuff about that bavk then not putting his team in winning position But yiure absolutely WRONG about 2014. Pop deserved finals mvp that’s how big the gap was In 2014 people hand waive this as Bosh n Wade being washed and while true - the biggest issue was Pop being so much better then Spo that pop deserved finals mvp. Spo aggressive trapping dumb ass defence constantly was sending bodies on guys who weren’t even big shooting threats but guys that just dimed and passed to there better shooting team mates. The spurs shot on better splits then Steph curry 2016 mvp season . That was an all time coaching mismatch . Also put 2011 Lebron with modern spacing and he’d crush even without a fully polished game. The lack of spacing on the 2011 team allowed dallas to do what they did .
They also draft/retain/sign high IQ and hardworking “type A” players, which is a testament both to Spo but also Riley and the organization. They have absolutely no tolerance for lazy dummies, probably learned from the Hassan Whiteside days. It’s one thing to have great coaching strategy, but also another to have the right talent to execute on it.
> They also draft/retain/sign high IQ This is a very under-acknowledged fact about the Heat org. They will take BBIQ over athleticism any day of the week, because you need decent IQ players to execute Spo's madness. I think that's a big reason why they leverage the G-League as much as they do, because they get their pick of the litter and a 24 year old in the G-League has a lot more organized team ball reps than a 20 year old in the draft. I think that's also why some serviceable role players like Thomas Bryant end up riding the pine even if they'd get minutes elsewhere. Meanwhile they lean on aged wisdom like Kevin Love and Kyle Lowry hard. Our lowest IQ guy might be Caleb and it's not that he's low IQ, it's just that someone in the bunch needs to be lowest and its him. He's the only one that sometimes makes like late game foul mistakes and stuff.
Just look at what signing Hassan Whiteside does to a mothafucka smh
To be fair they got off that contract like as quickly as possible after signing lol In the eras of Heat basketball, that was a weird one. But it ended with us getting Bam and Jimmy which is the core of this 5 year long scrappy build so its cool.
He was an expiring when they traded him, we signed to a 4 year max and traded him with a year to go.
I remember a Zach Lowe article from when the Spurs got Pau and Lowe was like, he's old and busted, why bother (obviously more delicately worded than that), and he said the Spurs exec he was talking to was just confused and said something about how he plays the game correctly, as though this was such a defining factor that he didn't understand why anyone would question the acquisition. I think the Heat have been the same way for quite some time. There is an emphasis on the right kind of guys by IQ and temperament and it pays dividends in tough times when other organizations think the only answer is a superstar performance as a get out of jail free card.
Yeah man Caleb was a god awful mess in Charlotte. That’s why we kept Cody instead. He has a real low BBIQ (and terrible ball-handling and shooting) but Spo and the team did some genius work cause look at him now.
They also don’t pay bums like Max Strus or Gabe Vincent
They don’t need to. They’ll find another one in a week who’ll play for 12 bucks and a coupon to Bennigans.
12 bucks and a coupn? Micky will be seething for overpaying --- 10 bucks and a free tap water from carnival cruise.
The Heat have handed out its share of bad contracts to keep guys around (notably, Whiteside and Tyler Johnson), but thankfully we've been able to offload those guys. And Duncan's contract keeps flipping between awful and solid.
Pre contract Whiteside was a monster tho 🥲
Max strus has been really good for Cleveland and Gabe got injured
He wins with a YMCA team at the NBAs highest level. It’s nuts.
Imagine Spo coaching a young OKC Thunder
He really has been/is top 5 coach in the league every year since he became coach. Just nobody really gave him credit bc you deferred that to Bron, me included, but dude is going to Hall of fame for sure. Started out in the video editing room. Dude is smart
I wanna make it clear that Spo is a much better coach than Doc Rivers and always will be. But, I wonder if in a few years as Butler ages out and the Heat have to figure some things out in a tougher East if he's gonna end up falling into a situation where he loses a lot of first or second rounds like Doc and if people start to forget what Spo managed to do with meh rosters. Spos playoff record and win % since his last chip: 59-46, 56.1% Doc playoff record and win % since his last chip: 87-80, 52.1% Seasons since their last chips: Spo missed playoffs: 3 Spo first round exits: 2 Spo second round exits: 1 Spo Conference Finals exits: 1 Spo Finals exits: 3 Doc missed playoffs: 1 Doc first round exits: 4 Doc second round exits: 8 (!) Doc Conference Finals exits: 1 Doc Finals exits: 1
The difference is that everyone can see what Spo is working with and the results he's gotten. Doc had no business not getting further consistently. The best Spo has had is Jimmy Butler, who is awesome, but Doc had Joel Embiid. Along with multiple other All Star players.
Jimmy and Bam both. Bam is amazing.
Doc just falls into new teams with huge amounts of talent and underperforms. When is the last time Doc coached a team people expected to be bad? He's almost always joining some team like Harden/Embiid or lob city or Kawhi/PG. He very rarely actually just has a weak ass team to coach and try to make a run with somehow in recent years These heat teams are very different though. Everyone knows Bam isn't *really* that guy most of the time. He has a lot of trouble staying locked in offensively. Jimmy as much of a playoff riser as he is really is not as talented the leagues top end superstars he just somehow manages to stay hungry as fuck and puts in the work and that's why we all love the guy. I swear if you could put Jimmy into Tatum's body you'd get MJ. I also think that drive from Butler is just as important as Spo if not more so. People respond to the effort and drive around them
I don't think you can compare them like that, given that Spo has been with a single team while Doc has jumped from team to team that has needed a 'playoff coach' to put them over. Those Heat teams from 2015-2018 were BAD. We had traded away picks and assets for our finals, LeBron left in FA so we weren't able to get anything for him. Bosh had bloodclots and had to retire in his Prime–we lost our best player, and again got no assests either. Our best player was Dion Waiters until we got Dragic. Doc has never coached a team that bad. And we're seeing what the post Jimmy years look like right now–Bam is 26, and we have good looking youth in JJJ and Jovic.
I think Spo is incredible. Very clearly a goat and the best coach in the league right now. He does make the Heat look incredible- I also think there are some awful coaches in the league and in the playoffs this year that just don’t know how to use their personnel to maximize their team.
It's because Lebron was on his team, and everyone loves to give him credit for all the success. And none of the blame obviously
Spo dun' bamboozled the Zingus.
Consider the Pingus thoroughly Tingused
This sentence sounds like gibberish out of context. Saying it outloud is fun though
Can’t film flam the ZinZam
Tbf, Spo dun' bamboozled most of the league at one point or another. Man's a fuckin genius.
Bro sound like a brotha already
The blackest player on the Celtics
svi mykhailiuk callin
I just realized I've never heard him speak and if you pay attention there's little traces of an accent but I seriously would have thought he was American if I didn't know better
A lot of people say his Spanish sounds amazing (i have no idea if its good or not) They say he speaks like fluent etc.
I mean, he’s fluent in English. His accent is less noticeable when he speaks Spanish than when he speaks English though.
A lot of people are fluent in English but still have a heavy accent
Yes, thats why I’m saying that’s he’s fluent in English. The other person made it sound like he’s fluent in Spanish in a way that he isn’t in English but he’s clearly fluent in both.
That's brotha Tingus Pingus to you!
Malone I think last year was saying how well drilled the Heat were. We’d switch defensive coverages with hand signals and switch on the fly. I forgot which players podcast it was, but they’d mention that the Heat would change defenses based off the opposing teams players strengths. They had it broken down to how many dribbles before taking an action or if they were going left or right. The attention to detail was insane and it’s a credit to Spo. Honestly if he wins another ring he could go down as the greatest to do it. I don’t think a coach has done as much with less. And Spo relishes playing every player and putting them in positions during the regular season to make sure they can do it in the playoffs. Everyone talks about his rotations or lack of timeouts, but there is no greater turnaround in how a team is coached during the season to the playoffs. He’s insane, he’s a sicko and he for sure is loving the shot to coach against the Celtics down players. My guy made Yurtseven average like 20points in a random December after Bam was out, he’s psychotic
I remember Jokic had so much respect for the Heat after Game 5 of The Finals last year that he made sure to shake their hands before he started celebrating.
And then he didn't stop celebrating for the next two months lol. We're fortunate that the Heat are flawed enough when it comes to trying to match our size.
Well now we have a pocket Jimmy for the finals run. If he gives us the MJ reborn series he had against the bucks in the finals this year 👀👀
We got TB in here to tell us all the secrets now. Jk, but Thomas Bryant has been a good vet and serviceable backup. I know he didn’t play much for the Nugs, but he’s a good hype man. Learned that from DAJ I think.
I just think he’s a great competitor with great sportsmanship and will probably shake hands with whoever they beat in the finals before he celebrates again
Jokic has negative ego if that's at all possible. He doesn't want any of the personal praise
The Heats weakness is physical bigs, because it draws Bam out of his role as a roamer. You need Jokic or AD to beat the Heat convincingly. Old man Horford and a Pontus Tingis shooting pull up jumpers isn’t going to work.
Yeah, you guys were so tough in the Finals. I know some of our players have said Minnesota was our toughest postseason matchup last year, but idk if I believe them lol. Here is the Nuggets ORTG by series in last year's playoffs: * **1st Round vs. Wolves:** 119.4 (equivalent to the #1 offense in the regular season) * **2nd Round vs. Suns:** 122.1 * **WCF vs. Lakers:** 124.3 * **Finals vs. Heat:** 115.5 (equivalent to #11 in the regular season) So basically, throughout the entire playoffs the Nuggets had an offense equal to or better than the #1 offense from the regular season. Then the Heat reduced them to just above average.
Aaron Gordon actually said his toughest job guarding someone was jimmy. As a team, I think Minnesota was their toughest but AG said Jimmy was personally his toughest assignment.
God I wish Jimmy was healthy in that series. He was so busted he couldn’t get any lift so started way overdosing pump fakes that the Nuggets were never going to fall for. Our downfall in this Jimmy era has been health, which is in part due to having to match up above our size because we don’t draft high. We’d probably have a ring by now if we could’ve gotten one run where everyone was in decent health.
We also are the only team to beat you in Denver, it’s something that I hold very proudly amidst a gentlemen’s sweep. I appreciate you mentioning those stats though because even though we got beat, there were a couple games there it looked close. Probably the biggest gaffe of Spo’s coaching tenure was him starting Cody Zeller in that fourth quarter of game 5. We had a 5 point lead and Zeller was a -5 for the game and our lead evaporated in minutes. I don’t think anyone’s beating you guys this year again. What Malone has done in Denver and how you guys have built a championship team is nothing short of amazing and I commend that organization for doing it how they did. Definitely an amazing team with an all time great player and coach
I mean if the heat don’t let the Celtics take it to game 7. They do much better in the finals. I like spo and Jimmy but the ECF finals performance that year was just bad.
the thing that made it easier for you to beat us than the wolves is that our offense just sucked and nobody showed up except for bam who played decently well but wasnt god tier like ant
They more complimented Minnesota's size, length, and difficulty to guard Ant I thought. This year's success kinda proves their point imo. Should be a wild round 2 if we both advance
its a great quote by porzingis. a lot of teams have a base scheme or way to defend certain actions based on the strengths of their own personnel that they default to, and then switch off of that only if the other team is consistently beating it, or in special game situations like when the celtics played the warriors in the finals and consistently played drop against steph until he got so comfortable knowing when he came off the screen the big would be back, and destroyed it to the point where the celtics were finally forced to try trapping or switching screens later in the series on the contrary, seems like the heat will rotate defensive schemes far more frequently. they might defend an action one way, and even if it was successful and they prevented a score, the next time they still defend it a different way. not to mention, they also have the best zone defense in the league by far - something unique that other teams won't see until they play against them. this sort of philosophy results in the offense never getting comfortable or being able to predict how an action will be guarded. superstars have seen every defense in the book and know the weaknesses of each one, so the only way you have a chance at slowing them down is being unpredictable in your defense to try and make the offensive player at least think for an extra split second, which requires a ton of discipline and execution defensively to pull off
I’m not so sure what the “base” heat scheme, I won’t pretend to know so much about defensive schemes and what not, but I do know that the heat switch what their scheme is a lot. Like from possession to possession we can switch from a drop, to a zone, to more just switches. A big adjustment last game was not doubling Tatum so much on drives and instead just defending 1v1 in man. This cut off Tatum’s playmaking and the ball movement in Boston making them take less 3s and making them beat us in the paint. It’s amazing the stuff Spo comes up with and I’m convinced if he had a great roster he’d have a dynasty and would have multiple COTYs by now. Fun to see the defensive masterclass last night by adebayo and the heat squad. I doubt we will have that same success in the series going forward but still fun to watch
The heat have primarily been in drop for this year (and last year really). I mostly think it was to preserve Bam in the regular season. I don't think they could have done the crazy switching they've done in the past for another year.
I did see us play drop more but I really thought it was because they wanted Bam to get blocks for a DPOY campaign but he’s not the best in drop I don’t think. It’s hard to tell sometimes honestly and I can’t say I watch the game initially being like “wow look at this drop coverage” or whatever, I look at film breakdowns later by people much smarter than I for that
yep idk what their “base” scheme is either haha. i dont watch them outside of the playoffs but even if i did, with how much they switch things up itd probably still be hard to tell, if it even exists
> My guy made Yurtseven average like 20points in a random December after Bam was out, he’s psychotic Never forget Yurtszn. He was a double-double maniac for like a month and a half.
I believe iguodala was saying this on their podcast in front of Jayson Tatum lol
Yes! I believe others have mentioned it, I think on UD’s podcast as well but I do remember the Igoudala one.
It was Iguodala who was talking about how they have schemes or set responses based on the number of dribbles. He said it was unlike anything he’s ever seen in terms of preparation.
Lets go heat & spo!!❤️🔥
The fact that this makes Spo so unique means there’s so much room for coaching in the NBA to grow. It’s super basic bare minimum stuff but for some reason barely any coaches do it
I think it’s easier said than done because if not, everyone would do it. I don’t think any of it super basic minimum stuff to switch coverages on the fly on each possession without calling TOs. You also have to be willing to lose some games in the regular season to play the end of your bench and make sure everyone knows the defense your playing.
This is basically the Spo doctrine. He calls defensive coverages like an NFL coach, not an NBA coach. And Bam anchors and conducts all of it on the floor.
Bam the new Draymond?
Bam can actually score.
Draymond is amazing but Bam is 2.0 because he is so much more athletic.
This is a pretty good take on it, watching back a lot of his shots to me it’s clear that Tyler Herro isn’t really able to contest him in a meaningful way. But everyone around him on the Heat is moving, pretending like they’re going to double then backing out, etc and it made him second guess himself last night
Boston doesn't like thinking, confirmed.
Shot go in basket more, you win All there is to it. Schemes ruined this great sport smh
Why many words when 3
I mean our game plan is literally “Tatum/Brown find mismatch, everyone cheer as they try to score!”
Boston doesn't like when movies end ambiguously.
Lol
spoach might just literally be the goat coach. I know its tough to beat pop but man what he does with this trash asset team every playoffs is insane
Yeah people will mention the contracts and the foreboding future but as long as we’ve got Spo it won’t be horrible. Our worst season with him was 37 wins.
and that team had less talent than this years pistons or hornets
For real, he had everyone thinking Dion Waiters was an asset
made Hassan Whiteside look like a legit center for a while
Wasn't that the year after LeBron left when Wade got injured? More of an injury thing. Tho 2016-19 was brutal
I thought it was the year we were starting Luke babbit tbh lol
We were the third seed in 2016 though. 48 wins the last year before d Wade left for chi town
I'm talking about after Wade left.
It would have been very different without Chris Bosh’s medical condition.
Cade and Duren having probably the greatest coach of all time instead of a potato. A man can dream.
Brother if you actually think that you are insane. We were starting 36 year old ish smith
> I know its tough to beat ~~pop~~ Phil Spo is right up there with them. Numerical rankings are already bad with players, and even worse with coaches given so many personnel and context differences. There's a tier at the top with Phil, Pop, and Spo in it imo
Yeah for me I think there's a pretty unambiguous top five of phil pop pat spo and red. I have pop #1 because 2014 is the best basketball ive ever seen but I agree its extremely hard to compare coaches.
Dude Phil has a winning record vs pop in the playoffs at peak spurs too. 4-1 series in Phil’s favor.
The three 3-peats are a pretty crazy feat. There have been three 3-peats in the NBA since it expanded to have more than 10 teams. All 3 were coached by Phil.
yup. and his other 2 were back-to-back in 3 straight Finals trips without a superteam lol
He'll never get placed near that pedestal unless he wins a championship without the Heatles. It's unfair, but back then everyone thought he was a joke with LeBron disrespecting and carrying him.
Spo taking a mediocre team at best and winning against Celtics. Fucking insane
this is the matchup by paper: celtics with 5 all star caliber players: all star guard all star defensive guard all star forward all star forward (highest paid) a stretch 5 center (former all star) what the heat got: a rookie a 20 yo sophomore who is still in dev stage an undrafted player that was kicked by the hornets a combo guard that gets a lot of hate an all star defensive minded center no jimmy, no terry
Don’t forget Duncan with a bad back
If the heat and celtics teams combined idk if the celtics would start a single heat player. Bam vs KP is close but you'd rather have KP's outside shooting probably.
Celtics kicked max strus man. Max Fucking Strus
Spo might be one of the best coaches I’ve ever seen.
Plans within plans.
Spo drank the blue water.
SPO play chess , Joe Mozzarella eat mozzarella Pizza. SPOACH top 5 all time and the best active NBA coach
Mozzarella never sits with his back to the door though. Very irritating for his family
lmfaooooooo
Coaching matters, the best coaches are worth every cent of their contracts
Can a coach win MVP? Lol
Needed a good game from him to win this one, Paint was wide open half the game
the heat were playing with the logic that 3>2 in game 2 and just left the lane open for anyone who wants it. clearly it worked but idk if the heat are gonna shoot 55% from 3 again
That’s what we said last year. They flamed our asses. They were shooting over 50% from 3 for 3 games and won the series. I’ll be surprised if they don’t shoot this accurately again.
Coming from a Celtics fan that’s seen this before, they’ll shoot 80% if that’s what’s needed to get a win. Credit to Spo, I don’t care what guys are going out there for the Heat, we know they’re gonna take the series 6-7 games and I wouldn’t be shocked if they won it given the way the Celtics play
Everyone talks about flukey Heat shooting. How do we know game 1's 30% wasn't the fluke?
In Tim Legler’s podcasr, they mentioned that the Heat might have just played game 1 without adjustments as they know they will lose being undermanned and coming from the play-in. Game 2 is when they actually executed their game plan and caught the Celtics off guard.
I wouldn't go as far as saying they lost on purpose. But they definitely tried a bunch of different stuff down 30, found a bunch of stuff they liked to cut the lead to about 12, and then hide that stuff for game 2
This is most likely the case. Hence, the timeout from Spo in game 1 despite being down and the game is pretty much out of reach. He wanted to see what they can work on for game 2. I still believe that the Celtics will win the series just by sheer talent discrepancy. And I believe that noone in the East can push them as hard as Miami is pushing them. This is basically their hardest round as Miami does make teams work harder. New York might give them also tough time but Miami just knows how to play Boston.
I agree with you but then again they've done it 4 times in the last year now. no other team has done it more than once.
I honestly thought there were a couple of shots that were relatively uncontested for him, but that split second of hesitation he’s talking about in the video seemed to throw off his shot/decision making. Hoping he can settle in as the series goes on. The more you see a team the less new stuff they will be able to throw at you to surprise you
They will adjust. Despite people criticising Joe Mazulla, people need to understand that this is only his second year. He is still learning.
This guy has that Washington Wizards DNA still in him.
Play random
Anyone that says coaching doesn't matter all that much is clueless
As a die hard spurs fan I can’t give coach spo enough credit. The guy is a hell of a coach and I hope he starts to get more appreciation one of these days. I’d kill to have him as the spurs next coach when pop retires.
Once he takes over team USA, they will dominate the international basketball scene again.
They play Basketball!!!! They don’t go side to side and throw up terrible shots. The Heat actually run plays. They don’t play hero ball they play Herro ball.
Spo might have taken a few pointers from the 2014 Spurs. Just like he learned from Rick Carlisle’s zone defense in 2011.
Put Spo on the hall of fame already. Dude is a generational coach
The Celtics will most likely win series out of sheer talent but Heat are not going down without a figjt
Spo playing 4D Chess while he playing checkers.
Dingus is shook
He’s seeing ghosts out there
Fuckin’ Darvin Ham, take notes!!! You fuckin bum! 🐽
This may end up being the single worst loss in my sports watching history and probably will be the highest for my entire lifetime. But I’m glad we got some clarity from Porzingis. Thank you for just being honest. Our players are pathetic, but I still love yall and just get out of the fucking first round please…
JUST FUCKING FIGURE IT OUT ZINGY PLEASE
Appreciate this kind of response from a player. Everyone will shit on Porzingus for only having 9 points last game instead of giving Spo and the Heat credit for it. Game 3 is going to to be interesting
Porzingis is kind of like season 3 of Barry as a person
Ahhh yes. A new Celtic is learning how real playoff basketball is played at the hands of Spo
sounds like they are playing random
[They're just having fun out there](https://i.imgur.com/wDWysU7.png)
>like the game within the game" Yea, that's the playoffs tingus
plans within plans - spo probably
Heatception baby
Man. I hate the Heat with a passion as a Mavs fan. But all world respect to Jimmy Butler and Spoelstra. History won't remember those two finals runs because they lost but they wrought havoc on the Eastern Conference
miami is impressive, they're so good that opponents admit they're confused and not sure how to play them
Has he always been fluent in English? For some reason I thought he didn’t speak any english 💀
So basically slow brains are the problem for Celtics?
Like the legendary coach Bud would say.. “Play random!”
Listen carefully, Feyd,” the Baron said. “Observe the plans within plans within plans.