After four games of each playoff series have been played, we have had the chance to evaluate every team in depth.
While a couple of teams have exceeded expectations and have made stellar runs so far, we’ve seen a number of teams let fans down in one way or another.
The following five teams have all the star power in the world but have simply been unable to perform anywhere close to their ceiling. They are all languishing at the floor of their capabilities, and are finding it way too difficult to find a mantra for success.
Much of the blame for such a state of affairs has to be laid on the head coach’s feet in every single case. And thus, we rank the coaches whose teams have played so far below potential this postseason that their management would be better off letting these head coaches go in the offseason.
5 Joe Prunty
A team shooting 54.1 per cent on its field goal attempts (lead the league) should not be tied at 2-2 in a series against a team missing three important players, including two All-Stars.
Joe Prunty, in his tenure as interim coach, has been below-par and is nowhere near capable of filling in for the head coaching job full-time.
As a former assistant for Gregg Popovich, it should be assumed that Prunty is capable of making reads that casual fans are able to. For instance, given that the Bucks have an objectively weak center rotation that has got even weaker after John Henson’s injury, it makes sense to play a 6’11” forward with a 7’4″ wingspan at center.
But instead, Tyler Zeller has been named to the starting line-up and has not made any impact whatsoever. Giannis Antetokoumpo being in the post every possession for a continued stretch is basically a guarantee of an offensive bailout in the worst-case scenario, but such a simple idea does not seem to be good enough for Prunty.
He neglected to place Malcolm Brogdon in the starting line-up for the first two games, opting instead to ease him back into the setup. That was one of the major reasons why the Bucks got outmatched in the backcourt. With all due respect to Terry Rozier and Jaylen Brown, veterans like Snell and Bledsoe shouldn’t be getting cooked as they did in the first two games of the series.
Jabari Parker has not been able to find any rhythm, and it was expected that he would be a featured scorer on their roster. All-in-all, this is not a good look for Prunty on the sidelines.
(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
4 Terry Stotts
The very fact that the Trail Blazers have been blown right out of the water by the Pelicans in four games should be enough to show a disparity in the coaching between the two sides. But the issues with Stotts’ coaching go deeper than that.
The Pelicans aggressively double-teamed Damian Lillard for the length of their series and used Holiday to stifle Lillard’s shooting from deep. It is OK to let things pass by him for one game, but Stotts never got Lillard playing off the ball as he should have, resulting in the All-Star playing the worst playoff series of his career.
Alvin Gentry did not use these tactics on CJ McCollum, and Stotts should have used this opportunity to shift the responsibility of offensive mainstay from one high-scoring guard to another.
Stotts did not run any plays for Lillard to come off screens or shoot threes on drive-and-kicks. Such opportunities that he did get were basically in-game improvisations by the players.
Stotts could also have done a lot better than allowing Holiday and Davis to put up gaudy point totals against his team three times out of four in the series. This Blazers team looks like it has hit a glass ceiling, and the front office might consider blowing up the roster this offseason.
If at all they commit to a rebuild, however, the first move they make should be the firing of the head coach who got swept in the first round despite homecourt advantage.
3 Ty Lue
The Cavaliers are tied with the Pacers at 2-2 after the homestand for both teams ended. But given the roster strength of the Cavs, this feels like a thoroughly weak spot to be in against a team that has neither more depth nor more star power.
Even Nate McMillan has not been at his best – if he hadn’t sat Victor Oladipo out for so long in Game 2, the Pacers would have had an even better chance of taking it, which they didn’t. And that says a lot about Ty Lue’s coaching.
(AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
He messed up big time in Game 1 by moving Jeff Green and Rodney Hood into the starting line-up. Neither of the players played much defence, or indeed contributed any offense at all, as the Cavaliers got blown out 98-80.
While he did make amends for Game 2 by starting JR Smith and Kyle Korver in their places, he tried to keep introducing Tristan Thompson into his rotations in the subsequent games. Thompson has not been himself this season, and the minutes he saw on the floor were essentially inconsequential to the Cavs who would have been better served with Nance taking those minutes and building playoff experience.
The one thing Lue can be credited with getting right is the trapping scheme that he’s set up for Oladipo. But it has left more than one Pacer player wide open, and more often than not Oladipo played through the double-teams without a fuss.
Lue has been unable to find LeBron James any of the rest his 33-year-old body requires, resulting in James playing north of 46 minutes in three of the four games. He has nothing in his playbook, and the Cavs’ offensive schemes stink to the high heavens.
If at all the Cavs are lucky enough to retain LeBron’s services past this summer, they should seriously consider firing a coach who has simply not coached this team to anywhere near their full potential.
2 Tom Thibodeau
To say that the Timberwolves have underperformed through 86 games played this season would be massively underselling the problems that viewers can see from the eye test. The Minnesota franchise has made it to the playoffs and is still alive after four games purely because of the talent they have, and not due to any coaching maneuvers made by Thibs.
In truth, Tom Thibodeau looks like a coach who would have thrived in the 90s era of basketball rather than now. He has run his starters into the ground all season long – three of their starters rank among the top 20 in the league for minutes played per game.
Despite acquiring adequate talent, all Thibodeau has used them as is fodder for extreme garbage time, instead of getting all his players into a rhythm and in readiness to take the floor at any point of time.
On top of that, Karl-Anthony Towns has got hardly any shots at all. Despite being a top-20 3-point shooter over the course of the regular season (percentage-wise), Thibodeau seems to have expressly denied him a green light from downtown, which makes zero basketball sense.
All-in-all, this is a massively messed-up situation at Minnesota as Thibs is both the coach as well as the GM for the franchise, and surprisingly it is his work as a GM that has been better despite his pedigree at the touchline.
(AP Photo/Jim Mone)
1 Billy Donovan
Oh, the travails of coaching a megastar.
Billy Donovan has genuinely tried to make the best of his roster, but his lack of appreciation for the finer points of modern NBA offense have left the Thunder in the wake of their Western Conference rivals in the three years that he’s been in the head coaching role.
He’s left the keys to his offense to Russell Westbrook, who’s one of the most lethargic off-ball players in the entire league. Because of his propensity to stand in the corner instead of doing any kind of off-ball facilitating, Donovan has been unable to get a motion offense going.
But the rest of the Thunder’s issues do arise from bad coaching, and they’re down 3-1 to the Utah Jazz because of this. In Games 3 and 4 Donovan was unable to get his stars the kind of looks they should’ve been getting. His players shot poorly on top of that, compounding his problem.
(Wikipedia Commons)
Losing to the Jazz in blowouts, away from home, in such ignominious fashion must hurt morale a lot, especially that of Westbrook. It is the reality of this season, however, that all 3 stars on the Thunder roster have put in the work defensively, but have been unable to get anything going on offense for the most part.
It’s all down to the coaching and the pick-and-roll offense which the Thunder seem to have resolved to take to their graveyard. It works a few times every game, but they are so predictable these days that practically every team has by now worked out a way around it.
And Donovan has simply been unable to adjust.
express34texas
Guest
Agree. And chemistry is huge. HOU has it, but what will happen to them when they face real adversity? And good point about CLE. James has always been a high-excuse player, and deflects blame away from himself when things go awry. Lue has won an NBA title, too. I'm not sure how much better OKC could be with any coach this season. And it's not like Pop did that great this season either. SA's roster looks pretty comparable, maybe better, than OKC's roster, and SA won one less game. OKC has more talent, but SA was much deeper. If the only solution I'm hearing in here is to replace Melo with Patterson basically, OKC isn't going to do much.
express34texas
Guest
KD isn't better than who? Or what are you saying? All I said was KD has excelled since leaving OKC. KD very well could've won MVP last year if he stayed healthier. He became a defensive beast, too, and was MVP of the playoffs, and meshed well with his teammates. He took over a team who had a 2x reigning MVP and became that team's best player. It's both KD and RW's fault at least partially OKC didn't do better. There often seemed to be friction with those 2 in OKC. Oladipo has matured and has entered his prime more, naturally he'd get better, but this much better in one season? He looked better in ORL than OKC. He led IND to 48 wins, same as RW with OKC, and sure looks like with less. Maybe it's the system a little bit. While Paul/Harden have the ball the most, just like any star player, HOU empowers this players much more than OKC, and they all have the green light. As much as I like RW's demeanor most of the time, he's a bad-decision maker often.
express34texas
Guest
Melo is a much better player than Patterson overall still. Patterson is still getting some run, and doing nothing. You might be right that Melo should play less, but I doubt just replacing Patterson for Melo will work better. For one thing, Patterson isn't used to playing very high minutes. Patterson is marginally a better shooter, though his volume won't be as good as Melo. I didn't say 'everyone,' but when 3 key pieces(Sabonis, Oladipo, and Kanter) who left in the offseason are all performing much better this season, it's hard to see that as a coincidence. Kanter was with UTA 4 seasons ago. If you mean 2015 OKC, he played well, but it was only 26 games, he got more minutes, and KD was still on OKC. 6th man doesn't quite equal MVP. Harden did much better immediately after leaving OKC. You'd think Melo would be able to excel this year, too, at least with shooting pct., but that hasn't happened.
Swampy
Guest
So the logic here is to fire 5 coaches who got their team into the play-offs - that is to say 5 of the top 16 coaches. Including 3 coaches whose teams are still alive at this point in time? Potential massive egg on face if one of these teams advance. I suppose if the Cavs win its all LeBron - but if they lose its Lue's fault... I fear for the job security of the other 16 coaches who didn't make the play-offs under your watchful eye. This is pretty much a reddit fan forum regurgitation of ill-informed uneducated opinions. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Billy Donovan is a fine coach. I'm almost certain no coach could manage the egos he has to. This is more a team construction issue. I'm not convinced Quin Snyder is a genius - he just has a squad who fit together better and play for each other more.
Mushi
Guest
So what is your defensive scheme with this roster to stop their 4th option getting kick out shots when their three best players are great in the pick and roll.
Mushi
Guest
Who is your replacement? Hint: Pop ain't available
Jerry
Guest
The team stinks with Melo on the floor - I can't imagine it's gonna get worse if he's sulking on the bench.
Jerry
Guest
Well no, firing him cause he's leading an underachieving team and doesn't seem to have any idea how to change that. They get beat the same way all the time - how often have they let Joe Ingles have open corner 3's for instance?
mushi
Guest
This is my fundamental problem with fan’s critiquing coaching: the benchmarking doesn’t make sense. Are Pop and Brad Stevens available? To steal Mr Pitino’s line – Greg Popovich isn’t walking through that door. If you are firing Donovan you have to have a risk adjusted view on his replacement being better. Remember that Donovan was hired because Brooks couldn’t get an offense with ball movement. Am I certain that there is a coach waiting in the wings that can install a better offence when that was Donovan’s remit? No I’m not certain of that at all. Firing you’re coach because he isn’t one of the best in the league is like letting Paul George walk because he’s not lebron james. He still might go to placate fans, and to keep a GM employed, but coaching turnover is normally due to pandering than rational thought.
mushi
Guest
By benching I mean in game benching, as in minutes, rather than starter/reserve I've highlighted why
Jerry
Guest
Even if he starts, he's playing too much and they don't do anything when he's playing badly. Game 5 - Melo played 36 minutes (2nd overall) for 11 points (from 18 shots) and 6 rebounds. Patterson & Grant played 30 minutes combined for 6 points (from 8 shots) , 7 rebounds and 3 assists. Even if he starts, why keep him out there when he's stinking out the court?
mushi
Guest
It's easy to say bench Melo - but that is going to come with some serious chemistry backlash. (you have watched Melo's career right? When he doens't like something with a coach that team is d.o.n.e.) Maybe you moth ball him now (because figuring out the backlash is better than the status quo) but if you hled any legitimate hope fo a run it is very risky to make unknown chemsitry decisions in the playoffs. It's the underappreciated part of coaching in pro sport, sometimes you can't just maximise the Xs and Os at the expense of the culture/morale.
Jerry
Guest
I don't doubt that it's harder to get superstar players to adapt to a game plan, but that doesn't excuse OKC's tactics. I'm sure that Westbrook & Anthony in particular are hard to coach, but does anyone have any doubts that OKC would be a better team with Pop or Brad Stevens at the helm?
mushi
Guest
I think that’s incredibly simplistic. Durant isn’t better. He was a completely deserving MVP at OKC beside Russ, if that is not playing well then there’s only three or four guys in the league capable of “playing well” Oladipo: He couldn't do anything like this in Orlando either and prior to this year and was becoming a player almost lifted verbatim off the negatives/downside of his draft scouting report. Harden: It’s not like he was bad it was purely a decision based on luxury tax + waning years of old school roster construction decision (As much as we harpoon the Thunder I think most teams would have picked their 1 and 4 over their combo guard, If that decision point comes 2 to 3 years later then I think they table a max offer to Harden and have a three amigos with plug in big men/Durant at the 4). Of course guys play “better” (ie more noticeable and influential) when they get more ball.
Jerry
Guest
Melo isn't shooting well, so WHY keep playing him so many minutes instead of say Patterson who can defend better, rebound better and shoot the 3 better? In game 4, Carmelo was leading OKC in minutes through 3 quarters despite shooting bricks and not defending. I'm not excusing Westbrook's play, he doesn't do nearly enough off the ball and has many flaws - stat padding, tunnel vision etc. But Donovan has no plan B when things don't work and doesn't seem to design any plays to get easy baskets. As for the 'everyone gets better when they leave OKC', it's a bit simplistic. Oladipo lost a ton of weight and is the focal point of the offence. Sabonis is a 2nd year player who is allowed to play his natural game instead of being shoehorned into a stretch 4 role. KD won an MVP award and two scoring titles with Westbrook, Harden won 6th Man. Kanter's scoring less than last season but rebounding more - but then his scoring & rebounding career years were four years ago with Westbrook. I'm not saying he makes everyone better, but it's too simplistic to say everyone improves when they leave OKC - and even then you can make exactly the same argument about Donovan.
mushi
Guest
I was listening to a podcast the other day that pointed out Donovan had a lot more ball movement incorporated into his college game plans and also laments the lack of movement at OKC. So on the face of it we’ve got to believe either Donovan has completely abandoned his offensive philosophy, had a severe head injury that has resulted in memory loss or he’s had to adjust to his roster.
express34texas
Guest
None of us knows what his game plan is. I'm not saying he's done a good job, but these guys do know something. I have a hard time blaming the coaches when the players aren't playing well. If RW is only the 3rd or 4th best player against UTA(a non-contender), that's not good. It's not Donovan's fault Melo isn't shooting well, for example. For as great as RW is, he doesn't seem like he's capable of leading a team far the in playoffs unless he has another MVP-level candidate beside him, and he's more of a #2 guy. In his 3 seasons as 'the guy'(2015, 2017, 2018), OKC has only made the playoffs 2x, and is 2-7 so far overall. Guys like are KD, Kanter, Sabonis, Oldapio, and Harden for a few examples are excelling after leaving OKC. Donovan certainly didn't coach Harden, though he's partially to blame for not maximizing some of these other players' skills. It doesn't seem guys play very well with RW.
Jerry
Guest
Yeah, but what game plan does Donovan have other than "give ball to RW, hope he plays well"?
express34texas
Guest
MIL isn't that good, and if Giannis had a good game in game 5, MIL would be 3-2, and MIL could've easily have already won this series 4-1. Hard to say Prunty is underachieving though. He doesn't have the roster to do a whole lot. Stotts/Thibodeau actually seem to have overachieved, not sure how they're on this list. Butler missed 23 games, too; otherwise, MIN would've had the 3 seed. Not Stotts' fault, Lillard stunk in the playoffs. CLE/OKC have been a bit of a mess this season, but I blame the star players more than the coaches. This is common theme with James in the regular season, which he's admitted to coasting and hasn't played much defense in years. Lue doesn't have that much to work with anymore either as the team continues to change a lot. Hard to know what to think of Donovan, but while RW continues to put up gaudy stats, they don't translate into as many wins as they might indicate. RW has also only been the 3rd or 4th best player in his series at best. Again, that's not Donovan's fault RW isn't playing well, that's on RW.
Ryan Geer
Roar Pro
Terry Stotts got Portland to third place in the West and made the Trailblazers one of the best defensive teams in the league. Yes, they got swept by Pelicans who boast an MVP candidate in Anthony Davis, an underrated scoring forward in Nikola Mirotic and Rondo who we all know steps it up the playoffs. Getting his team to third place in the West I highly doubt is underperforming. Thibodeau did get the Timberwolves into the playoffs for the first time since the 2003/04 season, that year the Pistons won the NBA title and that feels like ages ago. He's brought in Jimmy Butler who will grow along with Towns and Wiggins and can become a real force in the West.