The obligatory Flip thread...

[Court_vision]

Tonnes of shots all over the forums already re Flip...

Let's be fair to Flip and look at this objectively...

Detroit were a GOOD team two and a half years ago that became a GREAT team with the Sheed trade...

Why? Because they finally had a low post guy. A post guy they desperately needed. No longer was Ben such a liability as they had a post presence next to him + Rip and Billups became much better players as the offense wasn't entirely guard oriented...

Fast forward to the last month and the simple reality is that Rasheed Wallace no longer is that post player that took them over the hump. He hardly played in the paint at all in these playoffs.

You simply can't win at this level without a post guy to get you easy baskets when the guards shots aren't falling.

If the Pistons didn't get Sheed via that lop sided trade with The Blazers...they'd never have got over the hump in the first place. Wouldn't have mattered if it was LB or Flip or Phil or any coach.

The way that team is built with two scoring guards and no offense at all from their C...they need a post player at PF.

Sheed simply wasn't that player anymore. With his demise went their post options and their swagger...

Why'd he drop so fast? Well, it's pretty clear he's playing hurt.

Again, that's not Flips fault.

All this "Flip is to blame" stuff is a bit over the top IMO.

I realise the guy hasn't made The Finals...but had Cassell and co. not been injured two seasons back in the WCF's, the T-Wolves would have beaten the Lakers and likely won the whole thing.

It's a pity to see Detroit go out like this as they've been a great team.

Reality is though that they were NOT a great team pre Sheed...and they're NOT a great team when he's hurt / unwilling to play in the post...

[Vince]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

He was hurt?

[Court_vision]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Sheed? They've said all along he's at 75%...

Whether that justifies him not playing in the paint...i don't know.

[poster]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Great post CV. I feel bad for Flip. He is a class family guy and I liked the job he did. Could he have done better? Yes, when you lose that is always the case though. Sheed is a mystery to me. When he scores they are unbeatable, but he played poorly and the ankle injury didnt help. No excuses though.

[Sarah]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

I've read that the players of DET dislike Saunders methods emphasizing too much on offense. They mention that Flip only listen to what they say but never did something about it. They suggested to Flip how he could used thier skills in the court but Flip did not really listen to them and instead push what he wanted to happen. The Wallaceville did not like it because they felt that Flip did not used thier strength properly which lead them to loss confidence. The Wallaceville and Prince are defense first before offense kind of players. But it seems like Saunders wanted them to adopt the offense before defense, kind of like opposite of what they do best.

If Dumars wanted to kept the current DET team, he must hire a defensive coach that thinks like them. If he will kept Saunders, there is a high probability that DET will start breaking from the inside. They are starting now.

[Streets]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

I've read that the players of DET dislike Saunders methods emphasizing too much on offense. They mention that Flip only listen to what they say but never did something about it. They suggested to Flip how he could used thier skills in the court but Flip did not really listen to them and instead push what he wanted to happen. The Wallaceville did not like it because they felt that Flip did not used thier strength properly which lead them to loss confidence. The Wallaceville and Prince are defense first before offense kind of players. But it seems like Saunders wanted them to adopt the offense before defense, kind of like opposite of what they do best.

If Dumars wanted to kept the current DET team, he must hire a defensive coach that thinks like them. If he will kept Saunders, there is a high probability that DET will start breaking from the inside. They are starting now.

Whats funny about that is, we didnt hear any comments like this when the Pistons were wiping the floor with teams in the regular season. Then, Flip was a great coach (while Larry Brown was tanking in NY, and piston fans were laughing it up). Flip turned the once boring Pistons into a high-scoring offensive machine all while keeping their trademark defense in tact. Then came the all-star game, the "we should have had five people in the all-star game" comments, the constant whining about respect or what day/time their games were aired, the prima donna attitudes, and all of a sudden a team that has been together 4-5 years and played D together everynight forgets how its done? Bull. Theyre still a good defensive team, the fact is, they werent knocking down their wide open shots. It's the coaches job to draw up plays to get you open. he did that. The Pistons were open all night long. It's just that THEY didnt knock them down. Thats not on flip. The Detroit Primadonas dont wanna look in the mirror and blame themselves, so they blame flip. They had no heart, no desire, and only really showed up in spurts. I'm sick of the Flip hate, especially since most people who are doing it were loving him in the regular season... The Detroit Pistons included.

[Sarah]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Whats funny about that is, we didnt hear any comments like this when the Pistons were wiping the floor with teams in the regular season. Then, Flip was a great coach (while Larry Brown was tanking in NY, and piston fans were laughing it up). Flip turned the once boring Pistons into a high-scoring offensive machine all while keeping their trademark defense in tact. Then came the all-star game, the "we should have had five people in the all-star game" comments, the constant whining about respect or what day/time their games were aired, the prima donna attitudes, and all of a sudden a team that has been together 4-5 years and played D together everynight forgets how its done? Bull. Theyre still a good defensive team, the fact is, they werent knocking down their wide open shots. It's the coaches job to draw up plays to get you open. he did that. The Pistons were open all night long. It's just that THEY didnt knock them down. Thats not on flip. The Detroit Primadonas dont wanna look in the mirror and blame themselves, so they blame flip. They had no heart, no desire, and only really showed up in spurts. I'm sick of the Flip hate, especially since most people who are doing it were loving him in the regular season... The Detroit Pistons included.

Well, maybe they are just trying to get along with Flip's gameplan in the regular season where it works. In the playoffs, things are different and stuff that you can do in the regular season may not work in the playoffs. MIA's frontcourt is no slouch. It took them 7 games last year to closed MIA with (they say) a less talented lineup compared to what they have today. I think it was no coincidence that Ben's numbers in PPG drop when Flip came and were close to double degits under Larry. It seems like Flip pretty much exclude him offensively with him being known as an offensive liability.

Anyhow, it is the coach job to make sure his players run the gameplan properly. but then it is another story if the gameplan doesn't work with this kind of players. The coach must adjust his gameplan according to his player's strength instead of insisting what he thinks will work. But if Dumars decides to keep Flip as the coach for a long time, then I would say he made a mistake of letting Darko go. He would have flourish under Flip and will suck under Larry.

[Vince]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Whats funny about that is, we didnt hear any comments like this when the Pistons were wiping the floor with teams in the regular season. Then, Flip was a great coach (while Larry Brown was tanking in NY, and piston fans were laughing it up). Flip turned the once boring Pistons into a high-scoring offensive machine all while keeping their trademark defense in tact. Then came the all-star game, the "we should have had five people in the all-star game" comments, the constant whining about respect or what day/time their games were aired, the prima donna attitudes, and all of a sudden a team that has been together 4-5 years and played D together everynight forgets how its done? Bull. Theyre still a good defensive team, the fact is, they werent knocking down their wide open shots. It's the coaches job to draw up plays to get you open. he did that. The Pistons were open all night long. It's just that THEY didnt knock them down. Thats not on flip. The Detroit Primadonas dont wanna look in the mirror and blame themselves, so they blame flip. They had no heart, no desire, and only really showed up in spurts. I'm sick of the Flip hate, especially since most people who are doing it were loving him in the regular season... The Detroit Pistons included.

[OneBadMutha]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Flip hasn't done a good job in the post season. Does that mean he should be fired? No...mostly because there's really no proven playoff coaches available and I also believe Flip can check his ego enough to change (unlike other coaches this organization had problems with in the past).

There's been signs of problems with Flip's system all year. They've been last in the league in terms of getting outscored in the paint all season. What's even more shocking is how they've gotten killed in the paint on defense.

Sheed has always been a guy who'll float to the perimeter if you don't call plays that force him into the post. Coaches have to recognize the tendancies of players and coach around that. LB wouldn't allow Sheed to float on the perimeter too long. Flip would allow Sheed to go two weeks without ever taking a shot from the post. Some games Sheed would shoot six or seven 3-pointers that missed badly and Flip wouldn't adjust things. It's almost as if he was afraid to tell Sheed what to do or felt he didn't have the control over Sheed that LB had.

Then there was taking Ben out of the offense. We know Ben is terrible on offense. Thing is the previous coaching staff would work with him on a pet play or two to get him a few buckets a game. They also constantly worked with him on his offense. He almost had a double digit scoring average two years in a row under LB. That's a lot better than the four p.p.g. he got under the new regime. It allowed defenses to gameplan for four on five in the offseason which is why Detroit's offense got so much worse once teams adjusted.

Flip is completely responsible for his rotations. He had 82 regular season games and three playoff rounds and never found a rotation. Instead he rode his starters into the ground to keep the best regular season record. Instead he'd keep the starters in the game with a 20 point lead and not pull them out after a time-out at the three minute mark. Detroit's bench was completely undeveloped. Young players were wasted and are either out of the organization (Darko and Arroyo) or will be out of the organization (Delfino) without a chance to show what they could do in this uniform.

Finally, Flip's adjustments and plays out of time-outs were pretty bad. Usually plays out of time-outs consisted of Chauncy, Rip, or Tay dribbling the air out of the ball and then taking a tough shot going one on one. Detroit isn't an isolation team. I feel that Flip kept waiting for a Superstar to emerge throughout the playoffs instead of coachiing better ball movement like LB did.

With that said, nobody will be available that's got any more credibility than Flip and I believe Flip will learn from his mistakes. He deserves one more chance to prove that he can win in the playoffs with this team

[HMcCoy]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Flip hasn't done a good job in the post season. Does that mean he should be fired? No...mostly because there's really no proven playoff coaches available and I also believe Flip can check his ego enough to change (unlike other coaches this organization had problems with in the past).

There's been signs of problems with Flip's system all year. They've been last in the league in terms of getting outscored in the paint all season. What's even more shocking is how they've gotten killed in the paint on defense.

Sheed has always been a guy who'll float to the perimeter if you don't call plays that force him into the post. Coaches have to recognize the tendancies of players and coach around that. LB wouldn't allow Sheed to float on the perimeter too long. Flip would allow Sheed to go two weeks without ever taking a shot from the post. Some games Sheed would shoot six or seven 3-pointers that missed badly and Flip wouldn't adjust things. It's almost as if he was afraid to tell Sheed what to do or felt he didn't have the control over Sheed that LB had.

Then there was taking Ben out of the offense. We know Ben is terrible on offense. Thing is the previous coaching staff would work with him on a pet play or two to get him a few buckets a game. They also constantly worked with him on his offense. He almost had a double digit scoring average two years in a row under LB. That's a lot better than the four p.p.g. he got under the new regime. It allowed defenses to gameplan for four on five in the offseason which is why Detroit's offense got so much worse once teams adjusted.

Flip is completely responsible for his rotations. He had 82 regular season games and three playoff rounds and never found a rotation. Instead he rode his starters into the ground to keep the best regular season record. Instead he'd keep the starters in the game with a 20 point lead and not pull them out after a time-out at the three minute mark. Detroit's bench was completely undeveloped. Young players were wasted and are either out of the organization (Darko and Arroyo) or will be out of the organization (Delfino) without a chance to show what they could do in this uniform.

Finally, Flip's adjustments and plays out of time-outs were pretty bad. Usually plays out of time-outs consisted of Chauncy, Rip, or Tay dribbling the air out of the ball and then taking a tough shot going one on one. Detroit isn't an isolation team. I feel that Flip kept waiting for a Superstar to emerge throughout the playoffs instead of coachiing better ball movement like LB did.

With that said, nobody will be available that's got any more credibility than Flip and I believe Flip will learn from his mistakes. He deserves one more chance to prove that he can win in the playoffs with this team

Co-sign that.

As much as this team chaffed under Brown, at least LB held these guys accountable for 2 things that they now lack. High octane defense for 48 minutes per game, and high % looks when the offense got bogged down...and no, a wide open 20 footer is not a high % look. What happened to Chauncey on the blocks? That used to be a Detroit go-to. What happened to the relentless screens for Rip, or like mentioned, the Sheed post-ups? This offense seemed to be completely predicated on mid-range jumpers, and like OBM just said, Flip just didn't seem to be able to get these guys to play with the same intensity and self-discipline.

Once the Cavs started switching on every pick, it was pretty indicative of Flips poor job that he was really unbable to counter this until the second half of game 7.

Overall, I don't blame Flip though. The Pistons players were complaining about Larry Browns constant preaching, and thought they could hold it down defensively without him on their backs. They were wrong. Like my man Kobe, thay wanted offensive freedom, and they got exactly what they wanted. The Pistons needed to go out and prove they could maintain that stifling presense from buzzer to buzzer, and thay couldn't. That's only partially Flips fault.

[poster]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060604/SPORTS08/606040327/1004/SPORTS

Interesting article. You can look at this anyway you want. The bottom line is that 7 out of their top 8 players played a bad series. You can't win like that. Phil, Red, Larry, Pop, none of them could win a series when 7 out of their top 8 players play like ****.

[OneBadMutha]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs...27/1004/SPORTS

Interesting article. You can look at this anyway you want. The bottom line is that 7 out of their top 8 players played a bad series. You can't win like that. Phil, Red, Larry, Pop, none of them could win a series when 7 out of their top 8 players play like ****.

7 of 8 players played below the level they've played under LB. So what part do you blame on the players and what portion of the blame do you assign to the coach? It would be one thing if one or two key guys were simply off but the entire scheme seemed to be out of whack on both ends of the floor. It was like they were playing without a coach for long stretches.

I wouldn't put too much into that article because McCosky seems to write from the point of view of Dumars or what Dumars wants to say to the players or fans. Dumars doesn't have a choice but to back up this coach because his owner isn't going to eat another contract and allow him to try again. Dumars has to make this coach work one way or the other.

Flip has to take some responsibility if the players don't look sharp running plays. He needs to take some responsibliity for players not getting shots in the paint if those same players could get shots in the paint under the previous regime. Detroit went from a team who was average in the paint offensively and near the top of the league defending the paint to being bad in the paint on both ends. Detroit kept the same seven guys who played nearly every minute in the previous run so who else can you blame?

If they were tired, then that falls on the coach as well. Like I said before, this is a coach who wouldn't take his starters out of games with a 20 point lead and three minutes to go. The players didn't like that and McCoskey (the guy who wrote that article) defended that Flip decision as well. He said the starters needed those minutes to stay in rythem for the following games so they could win best record in the NBA. That might've been one of the stupidest defenses I've ever heard.

[poster]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

7 of 8 players played below the level they've played under LB. So what part do you blame on the players and what portion of the blame do you assign to the coach? It would be one thing if one or two key guys were simply off but the entire scheme seemed to be out of whack on both ends of the floor. It was like they were playing without a coach for long stretches.

I wouldn't put too much into that article because McCosky seems to write from the point of view of Dumars or what Dumars wants to say to the players or fans. Dumars doesn't have a choice but to back up this coach because his owner isn't going to eat another contract and allow him to try again. Dumars has to make this coach work one way or the other.

Flip has to take some responsibility if the players don't look sharp running plays. He needs to take some responsibliity for players not getting shots in the paint if those same players could get shots in the paint under the previous regime. Detroit went from a team who was average in the paint offensively and near the top of the league defending the paint to being bad in the paint on both ends. Detroit kept the same seven guys who played nearly every minute in the previous run so who else can you blame?

If they were tired, then that falls on the coach as well. Like I said before, this is a coach who wouldn't take his starters out of games with a 20 point lead and three minutes to go. The players didn't like that and McCoskey (the guy who wrote that article) defended that Flip decision as well. He said the starters needed those minutes to stay in rythem for the following games so they could win best record in the NBA. That might've been one of the stupidest defenses I've ever heard.

You make some great points OBM. Why don't you come by the Pistons team thread more often? Flip could have done better. When you lose everyone could have done better. You say that they played under the level they played at under LB. That's true in some respects and not true in others. They help Cleveland to 23 second half points on 5 FG's. That is amazing, they didn't do that under Brown. Missed layups left and right, allowing Jason Williams to go 10 -10 through 3 and a half quarters is on the players, not Flip.

Everyone talks about not playing the bench. Larry didn't either last year, because the bench has sunk since 2004. It sucks. Besides Dyess and Hunter you have nothing, and Hunter on offense sucks. I thought Evans might be something, but he is a hustle player who can't play in a half court set. In the playoffs he is useless. I would love to see Delfino get more time, but when he does play he is inconsistent. You can't trust guys like that in the playoffs. Delk provided a nice spark at the end of the year, but he faded too late and was the odd man out once the playoffs started. That's on Joe D. He needs to build a bench.

I can't argue Flip playing these guys during blowouts. I said the same things during the year when they were 20 with 5 minutes left and the starters were still in. I was saying WTF to that as well. Flip does have to adjust, but so do the players. It's an organizational loss. I said it before and I will say it again. The players who jumped on Flip should be ashmed of themselves. They were sick of the bs brought upon by LB, they wanted to coach themselves and it failed. Look in the mirror at your own perfromance(20% FT shooting, disappearing from the paint and just shooting 3's), before you blame the coach.

[Streets]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Okay, I understand where some of this Flip hate is coming from. Simple equation. You have five guys and LB: they win a title. Same five guys and Flip: they lose in the conference finals. What is the X-factor? Obviously you guys say Flip, he's the only thing that's different...duh. But I still maintain my original post in this thread. Flip is not the only change that was made, the Pistons gritty hungry mentality changed to a prissy, self-depricating, "everything is owed to us" mentality. Even when receiving the highest compliment (Bulls comparisons) they still complained about respect. It's so easy to blame the coach, and while alot of good points have been made, I stand by my original post. These guys just didnt want it.

[HMcCoy]

Re: The obligatory Flip thread...

Flip is not the only change that was made, the Pistons gritty hungry mentality changed to a prissy, self-depricating, "everything is owed to us" mentality.

Thats exactly the point. Larry Brown was in no small part responsible for the "gritty hungry mentality" due to the play the right way mantra LB constantly crammed down their throats. They lost that. It was replaced with the "now we're going to show you that it was us and not Larry" mentality, which manifested itself as the "we never get any/enough respect" card always being played.