Let me preface this with saying that I actually do think Mitch Johnson did an overall better job than Tiago. However, I've noticed a lot of comments saying we lost because of "coaching" without much follow up on what exactly that means. I feel like when I see talk about coaching, it always includes a lot of (to me) generalities like "our schemes" or "adjustments" without going into any detail on what exactly those are.
I don't disagree that Tiago and the staff could have been better tonight, there are specific things that I think he could have done differently. But does anyone really think that the coaching was a 22 point difference? And what about the first half? Tiago's coaching was 19 points better than the Spurs? And then in the second half his coaching collapsed to the point that it cost us 37 points? It feels like an oversimplification to me, despite there being some validity to it.
It's cool if you disagree, but to the "this ones on Tiago" people, (and I truly don't mean this sarcastically) what were the bad adjustments he specifically made that you think cost us the game? And in what specific ways were we outcoached? Because it's like saying "we lost because the players played bad." Sure, but what did they do wrong?
There's a few things I really wish Tiago had done differently, but I feel like coaching gets blamed because it's easy to point at without much follow up, because it's much harder to judge from home what was done wrong from a coaching standupoint. Which is why I'd love to hear what people are seeing from Tiago that cost us the game, because I think Tiago is a piece of the puzzle for why we lost, while it seems a lot of others think he's the whole thing. I just don't want coaching to get the blame only because it's easy to point to one single change that could turn everything around.
I feel like what gets overlooked is that when two inexperienced teams are playing against each other, it's almost a small advantage to be down at half time, because only one team needs to make adjustments. So we have to come out and play what's basically a new team after halftime, without any extended time in the second half to counter their halftime adjustments. It's why we did so well in game 2, because the situations were flipped, because there's not really changes to be made when you have the lead, it's more about having the experience of developing the mental fortitude of being to maintain a lead. Which, we just do not have yet, and to be fair, neither do the Spurs, as they showed in game 2.