Watched the game at my house with Uncia03. He and his wife are visiting. We both sat there during the last 5 o 6 minutes of the game and asked the same question. Why is Casspi playing PF? Why is Thompson, who was our best player in the first half, sitting on the bench with just one foul. Why isn't he in the game guarding Villanueva? Why was Cousins held out of the game until there was just a little over 3 minutes left in the game. Yeah, he was in foul trouble, but he still had two fouls to give, and Westphal played him the entire fourth quarter in one game with five fouls on him.
You guys can love Westphal to death, but I'm sorry. I can no longer handle his crazy lineups and his in game decisions. Its one thing to pull a player because he has 4 fouls, or because he just got a technical and you want him to cool off. Its quite another to forget about two bigs sitting on the bench while your getting killed by a pee poor PF named Villanueva. There was no way in hell that Casspi is strong enough to keep him off the block..
Good offense and defense is all about continuity,and that comes from playing the same guys together over and over again so that they trust one another on defense, and really know each others games on offense. The key word is trust, and that means the coach has to trust the guys he picks to work it out on the court. They will fail at times and they will succeed at times. And as time goes on, they will succeed more than they fail. Westphal doesn't trust anyone except maybe Tyreke or Beno. Thus he keeps jerking everyone else on the team around.
Camera went to Thompson sitting on the bench with around 2 minutes left in the game. He looked visibly angry, and I couldn't blame him. The one advantage we had over Detriot was size, and we just pissed that advantage away, at the very moment we needed it in the game. Westphal handled the timeouts well too, didn't he. How many did we have left at the end?
Some of you seem to think that its all about the players. If thats the case, then just hire Mickey Mouse to coach the team, and then you can defend him. You know what, Mickey might accidently play Greene.