I personally believe that the Celtics players overcame Doc’s coaching to win:
– It took a team with 4 current/future hall of famers **26 postseason games** to win the Finals. That is still the most amount of games played by a single team in a postseason all-time.
– In the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Celtics were unable to win a road playoff game. Overall, the 2007-2008 Celtics were **3-9 on the road** in the playoffs.
– In the first round, Doc and the Celtics blew a 2-0 lead against the **37-45 Atlanta Hawks**. Meanwhile **the Celtics had been 66-16** in the regular season. It took Doc and the Celtics 7 games to dispatch the Hawks and avoid the major upset.
– In the second round, Doc and the Celtics once again blew a 2-0 lead; this time to the LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers. It took a Game 7, where Paul Pierce personally had to score 41 points to keep up with Lebron (45 points). With a final score of 97-92, Paul Pierce’s talent was enough to overcome Doc’s coaching.
– In the conference finals, Doc and the Celtics finally were able to win a road game and finally were able to beat a team in less than 7 games. They took the Detroit Pistons down in 6 games.
– In the Finals, Doc and the Celtics won the first two games. They then lost two out of three in Los Angeles, but the one road win was enough. They were able to put away Kobe and the Lakers in 6 games.
This Celtics team was stacked and it should not have taken 26 playoff games. In this playoff run:
– Ray Allen shot nearly 40% from 3 (39.6%)
– Kevin Garnett shot nearly 50% from the field (49.5%). He also averaged 10.5 rebounds and 20.4 points per game
– Paul Pierce shot 36.1% from the three and 44.1% from the field. He averaged 19.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 4.6 assists.
– Rajon Rondo averaged 6.6 assists and 1.7 steals with 40.7% shooting from the field
– Kendrick Perkins shot nearly 60% from the field (58.5%)
– Bench players Eddie House (35.5%) and James Posey (39.8%) had good three point shooting.
With all that talent it still took Doc an all-time 26 postseason games to win the championship. Doc was never able to win with this stacked roster again. In 2008-2008 Kevin Garnet got injured. In 2009-2010, the Lakers got their revenge as Doc blew a 3-2 lead in the Finals. They lost to the Big 3 Heat in 5 games in the second round during the 2010-2011 season, but on the plus side Doc was finally able to have a playoff sweep with this stacked roster (in the 1st round against the Knicks). Ray Allen left for Miami in the offseason and that effectively brought an end to the run.
[Source Wikipedia/Basketball Reference](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_Boston_Celtics_season)
by REQ52767
28 Comments
Doc isn’t great but the narrative that he’s just a bad coach is getting overblown. He still won a championship regardless did what happened most coaches will never get that far and he’s coached good teams outside of that for over a decade. How many years should his team have really gone much further than they did while his players also did their part? Philly had bigger problems than doc and the bucks were already not doing great and then just threw him in. At this point if he’s really such a bad coach it’s on the teams for repeatedly picking him up.
Generational hater
Aye why you gotta bold us out like that chief 😤😂
Glen Davis and Nate Robinson in those finals man 💀
doc has made the playoffs dam near every year hes coached a team, i get that hes not “clutch” but the hate is out of control.
This subs ability to fixate on the hatred flavor of the week is unmatched.
Like *maybe* the Spiderman PS game sub can hold up but I’m not so sure.
I don’t think he’s the worst coach in the world but he’s overhyped. He does great with no expectations but is horrible with them
It’s certainly possible that it was unimpressive from a coaching perspective, but none of what you mentioned at all supports that.
You listed a bunch of points stating how good the players were and how good their stats were. So does that prove that Doc didn’t do anything, or does it actually prove that his coaching allowed his players to excel?
Kind of a doo-doo post.
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The Celtics were also a bum ass team the year prior and had very limited big game experience individually throughout the roster or as a team.
Doesn’t matter how it got done, it got done.
The following years they dealt with injuries and Garnett taking a massive step back due to his. Bad luck had more to do with that team only getting one than docs coaching.
What a useless post. Doc has had his shortcomings for sure, but you’re a bonafide hater. You woke up early and cooked up this nonsense just to hate. I can almost respect this level of mind numbing, senseless, unprovable and unprovoked hating.
Hope you enjoy the sun and fresh air.
Yeah well who’s the most recent coach to win an all-star game? Checkmate Doc Deniers bow down
these observations neither prove or disprove anything about docs coaching or alleged lack thereof…
doc being the right coach as the right time (nearly 20:years ago now mind you) to help us get a championship in an entirely different league than we have today can be good. doc can also be not the right coach for us today (a league almost two generations removed from that time).
both can be true. context is essential.
stats alone are meaningless without context.
we have to be mindful not to over rely upon armchair analysts regurgitating stats like nostradamus prophecies with the confidence they are speaking objective truths. 😂.
almost zero of us in real life have to live up to the expectations of millions of fans who barely understand what it takes to compete and win a championship in anything. if i mess with trade ideas or lineups in NBA2K i’m an expert. if i used historical performance stats to win a parlay i’m an analyst. 😂.
exactly zero players or coaches have this mindset. it’s a grind, an uncertain, intense, anybody can win anything can happen grind.
Your point for doc not being a good coach is that the lebron led cavs took us to 7 games in the playoffs? Yea okay dude, that team just worked whether you want to believe it or not, and doc helped foster and control the energy (aka Garnett)
The question nobody ever seems to ask when it comes to doc is why only like 5 active coaches have better resumes. Nba coaches flame out at an alarming rate these days regardless of how talented the teams look on paper. Over the past few years we’ve seen so many coaches of ‘scary’/high potential teams lose jobs for coming up short early in the playoffs. With a lot of these guys 1 trip to the second round would do wonders for their careers cause so few people actually get it done.
People think of rick carlisle as a better coach but hes got more playoff exits to lower seeded teams than second round appearances.
Would you rather have Glenn or George Karl?
Plenty of other big 3/4s that completely flopped. I think Doc deserves credit for managing the personalities, though Garnett also deserves a lot of credit as well for setting the tone that year.
>It took a team with 4 current/future hall of famers 26 postseason games
Are you not gonna say how they were all past their prime? They meshed well because they had 1 common goal. Not saying Doc was a great coach cuz I believe he’s over-rated but let’s be honest. Those guys were past their prime and that’s why when Miami formed their Big 3 it was insane because they were all in their prime
Ray left after their 2012 ECF run, not 2010
Ya’ll are annoying, we gotta get NBA games going again so you can channel your hate through something at least current and not through incessantly regurgitated narratives like this.
To say they blew a 2-0 lead is kinda idiotic. They won the series. You can say Atlanta evened it out, but Boston won the series
Doc hating at an all time high rn 😭
Saying someone blew a 2-0 lead when they still ended up winning the series is a bit hyperbolic
But point taken
It’s funny because there’s literal players from that team talking about that situation, and the stars of that team, saying that without Doc they never would have figured out how to play together, without Doc Rondo would never happen, without Doc Rondo would never become who he is, without Doc they never have the chemistry, without Doc they would take years to contend, without Doc none of Paul, KG, or Ray ever see eye to eye etc etc.
It’s all out there on the podcasts.
When you assume every failure is because of him and every success is despite him he looks terrible? Crazy.
Okay, I have no problem with you criticizing Doc, he has earned his criticism no doubt.
I DO have an issue with writing an entire post “proving” Doc’s championship was won in spite of him when you don’t make even a single statement about a single play design, a coverage type, an offensive or defensive scheme, his timeout usage, his rotations, literally nothing. You made an entire post just documenting the playoffs factually and didn’t make even one insightful comment about why ANYTHING related to Doc.
Your entire argument is “he had good players and it took too many games to win based on the competition” which certainly can be INDICATIVE of poor coaching, but that’s not enough to say anything definitive.
If you’re not gonna actually break down why his decision making was poor during those playoffs, you have no point to make.
So your argument is that Doc is a bad coach because his players played great on the way to winning a championship?
Wow
Kind’ve disregard anything after OP said after “blew a 2-0 lead” you play 2 home games and then 2 road games. Thats pretty normal