The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune tracked down Flip Saunders for his NBA Finals prediction, in what I believe are his first public comments since the Pistons lost Game 6 last Friday:
“In games that Miami has lost, Shaq has gotten in foul trouble,” the former Timberwolves coach said. “If Shaq can stay out of foul trouble and he’s able to play, then I think they might be tough to beat. Dallas does have home court [advantage].
Was anyone else not surprised to see him hedge at the last second? Sigh. Saunders also went on to address his situation with the Pistons.
Joe Dumars, Pistons president of basketball operations, made it clear that Saunders will be back for his second year of a four-year contract. The Pistons finished with the best regular-season record in the league.
“Yeah, it’s like Joe said. We won 64 games and we played bad for two weeks,” Saunders said. “We did still get to the conference finals. We played against a team, that I said from Day 1, I mean a lot of people were picking Miami to win this thing even before the season started.
“So it’s not like they weren’t supposed to be good. Shaquille is still the most dominating player in the game, and Wade right now has become the most dynamic player in the game. So they’ve got two guys that are first-team and second-team all-NBA. We had an opportunity, and we let an opportunity slip.
“We gotta do some things. Every year you got to do things to get better. We’ll get better. You know, get our bench better, develop our bench more. We’ll be ready and make another run at it.”
I’m excited, because he’s making this sound pretty easy. I’m just curious when exactly it was during the past week he had the moment of insight, because he certainly didn’t think it was worth pursuing all year long.
Shaq’s play will decide NBA title [Star-Tribune]
I keep hearing this criticism of Flip that he didn’t develop the bench. There are several problems with this.
One is that the team had set the goal of securing home court in the Finals. Although Detroit started out white hot, they eventually cooled down a bit, and two thirds of the way through the season, they had only the slimmest of margins over not just one, but two teams, Dallas and San Antonio. They didn’t really secure home court until about two weeks left in the season. Thus, they never really got to the point where developing the bench was a priority.
A second issue is that two of their key players weren’t available. Tony Delk was acquired late and Lindsay was hurt. Also, Carlos Arroyo and Darko Milicic were competing for playing time as well. So that is a shift of four players, total, basically 2/3rds of the bench.
Third, players did not really step up and earn more time. Had Delfino, for example, shot better when he was on the floor, it would have been easier to justify playing him. As it was, the bench could not be relied on not to blow games and put the home court at risk.
Fourth, the starters did not average an unusual large number of minutes. As it was, their time was dramatically reduced over the last two weeks. That’s not enough time really to develop a bench, given the amount of turn-over, but the starters were plenty rested.
Finally, I’m not sure the short bench had anything to do with why Detroit lost to Miami. Two of the four players who drive the offense were playing on sprained ankles. How many teams could overcome that? What is Dallas with Dirk injured, or Miami with Shaq hurting? Bench or no bench, would it have made a difference. Yes, Arnie Kandar works miracles, but a sprained ankle will still mess with your mechanics and affect your consistency and ultimately your confidence.
Detroit got to the Finals with home court guaranteed and two solid, experienced players coming off the bench who understood their roles. Under the circumstances (first year in Detroit, high turn-over), I think Flip did fine.
That’s why Flip may appear confident. He knows what he was dealing with. So does Dumars. It is a tough trade-off - home court versus your bench. Dallas and Miami emphasized bench development, and they’re in the Finals. And, curiously, Detroit’s title came in a year they didn’t have home court. So maybe it was over-valued in the aftermath of the loss to the Spurs. But there is no question that was the priority.
Next year, given a more stable bench and the freedom to play them more, even if it means losing home court, Flip should do even better.
Dan, here’s where I disagree: it’s true the Pistons didn’t secure the best record in the league until the very end, but they won the East by a whooping 12 games. They had home court in the Conference Finals wrapped up with a month to go, but they promptly lost it after just one game when the starters were flat-out gassed in Game 1 following a grueling series with the Cavs. You know what could have helped them? Fresh legs from the bench, both against the Cavs and Miami.
As for Delfino’s shooting, he shot better than Lindsey Hunter all year, and is certainly more effective in the open floor. Plus, he does more than just shoot — he played some pretty tough defense in spurts against the likes of Paul Pierce and Dwyane Wade during the regular season. Why not at least give him a shot in the playoffs, even if only for his defense? It’s obvious that what Detroit was doing against Wade wasn’t working.
Delk looked like Vinnie Johnson at times toward the end of the regular season, but his playing time was cut in half in the playoffs. And even if they didn’t want to play Davis or Cato in the regular season, what’s wrong with dusting them a few minutes against Shaq in the playoffs, a la Elden Campbell? Cato is 275 pounds, about 35 more than Ben Wallace — I don’t think it would have hurt too much to give him five minutes a game, just to keep Ben fresh. He wouldn’t have had to even move — just clog up space in the paint.
Dallas and San Antonio did rely on the bench, but it’s not like it cost them much — they still both finished with at least 60 wins, which in most seasons is enough to secure the best record in the league. It’s rare for three teams to finish with 60-plus wins, but I’d rather have 60 wins and a reliable bench over 64 wins and some serious question marks anytime.
Two more quick points:
1) other teams frequently deal with injuries — Tim Duncan was hobbling for most of the year, and Dallas had almost everybody except for Dirk miss significant time this year. But you’re right, two sprained ankles to a couple of your top guys is just plain untimely, and it had absolutely nothing to do with any amount of minutes logged by the starters in the regular season. It was just one of those things.
2) Even though I’m countering a lot of your points, I actually agree with your overall theme — you can’t pin the blame on any one thing, bad luck factored heavily into the equation, and the team will likely be better prepared next year. Thanks for posting, I’ve been greatly impressed lately by the amount of thought so many readers put into their responses lately.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
On Delfino, it appears Dumars is still a big believer and it may well be that with more minutes his confidence will improve. I agree about Delk - that was one area where I didn’t quite understand Flip’s thinking. Given the degree to which the offense was struggling, there’s a point where maybe you stop worrying about team chemistry and just get some offense on the floor.
All in all, though, I believe that the Detroit team as a whole embraced the whole home-court thing fully. It wasn’t just Flip. Now, perhaps had they known that they would have to win 64 games to get it, they might have decided it wasn’t worth it. In fact, at one point, it seemed like the thinking started to change in that direction. I recall a comment by Flip to that effect.
I admire the Detroit organization for refusing to make excuses. But after hearing for a year about Wade’s rib injury (and then during Game 6, ad nauseum about his flu), I am a little surprised the media - the Detroit media included - didn’t pick up more on the potential impact of the injuries.
Hubie kept wondering aloud about why Rip didn’t run more curls, but he WAS running them - he just wasn’t quick enough off the screens. Why it didn’t occur to anyone to wonder if perhaps his ankle was affecting his ability to make cuts is a mystery to me, given the tendency in the media to dramatize injuires as a matter of course.
Anyway … I enjoy the blog. It takes a lot more work than folks realize. I tried to start one - on Detroit sports in general - but the need to do almost daily posts was too much for me. So now I can just comment on yours.
I still believe it’s Flip who is to blame,personally,and I’m surprised that Joe said he had done a good job.
It is said that Flip is famous for his kindness to everybody,trying his best to fulfill anyone’s require.
If it is true,I think we’d better make him go away,or let him know the Pistons need a lion head.