Why the loss of the series is on Vinnie

[dunkside.com]

Around here everybody likes to throw some blame at certain players.

I posted on my site a list with the individual mistakes that I noticed at each Bulls player, the small things that might have helped the Bulls end this series in 5 games.

But the real reason the Bulls lost (I think it's over in 6) is Vinnie.

And I'm not talking about not saving time-outs at the end of games 1 and 2. One game was won anyway and from 2 situations (once tied, once down 3) of having the ball at midcourt with 2 seconds left getting one is a pretty good deal.

What's amazing to me is Vinnie's inability to find a way to stop the Pierce iso in the middle of the floor. At the end of OT in game 5 it was the 8th game played against the Celtics this season. I saw the same play not only during this series but even in the regular season, including against the Bulls.

It wasn't something new that the Celtics threw at the Bulls, it was a deja-vu like sequence with a Pierce iso and him taking a step-back 2 over his defender. And it came after Pierce hit 4 consecutive shots (if I'm not mistaking) so he was hot and his confidence was sky high.

Conventional wisdom says that it's best to make a scrub beat you instead of the opposing team's best player. If I know this, Vinnie must know this too. But he didn't do shit about it. Instead of aggressively trapping Pierce and getting the ball out of his hands, he just let him do his thing. They had Tony f***in Allen on the floor and you tell me you can't double of off him ?! He was cold and he's not that good of an offensive player anyway. If he takes a 3 or long 2, that's good D. If he makes it, so be it. But don't allow players that are in a zone to take a game winner.

So forget about individual player's mistakes. Those will happen even on championship teams. It's the coaching (or lack thereof) that killed the Bulls.

Even Bill Simmons noticed it and called Vinnie out:

I don't want to jinx it, but Vinny Del Negro is putting on an anti-coaching clinic for the ages. He ran out of timeouts in both games, never double-teamed Pierce when he was heating up in Game 1, didn't attack a one-legged Rondo in Game 2, put Kirk Hinrich on Allen for the biggest play of Game 2, played Brad Miller too much when the JoakimNoah-Ty Thomas combo was destroying the Celtics, and called two timeouts in the final three minutes of Game 2 to design plays for Ben Gordon, who, again, had an actual fireball shooting out of his butt. You can't just scream "go to Gordon again" from the sidelines, Vinny? Actually, why am I complaining about this? Forget I mentioned it.

 

[sebastian]

Del Negro was the wrong guy from the beginning. Most of us knew that. He'll be here for at least one more year, so hopefully he can use all of this as a learning experience and improve the way a young player might from year 1 to year 2.