ESPN NBA Insider Brian Windhorst: Why the Bucks Fired HC Adrian Griffin | The Rich Eisen Show

ESPN NBA Insider Brian Windhorst: Why the Bucks Fired HC Adrian Griffin | The Rich Eisen Show

Why did the Bucks do what they did with Adrian Griffin yeah they just kind of got to a point where they felt that they he wasn’t going to get into a position to give them the best chance to win that sounds like a uh I even hate saying it

That way but it was I think just that simple I I think really if I could get down to Brass tax they realized pretty quick that maybe Adrien was in a little bit over his head and look if he had three years maybe he would end up being

A really good head coach um they didn’t have three years this team is built to win now especially with Dame Lillard’s age and the pressures on the organization in terms of just you know in the NBA right now it’s hard to maintain your level with the rules are

In place they just didn’t have time and it was really apparent to you know anybody in the league who was paying attention that that team was floundering a little bit I know their record is very good but nobody looked at them and said that is a serious Contender for a title

Because you can’t be a serious cont Contender the way that they were playing and so I think they they were hoping that he would get into the season and he would sort of grow into the job and instead the opposite was happening Rich they were getting worse on defense I

Just you can’t take a team seriously I know we’re in the modern era where everybody scores 130 points and you know you’re not supposed to worry about your defensive numbers but you you’re an unserious Contender if you’re a bottom 10 defensive team it just history says

It you can’t you can’t fight that and they’ve been a bottom three defensive team over the last three or so weeks it was getting worse and not better and so um the move that this reminds me of is uh well God it’s eight years ago now

When the Cavs fired David blat and I even looked it up the Cals fired David BL on January 22nd uh Griffin was let go January 23rd wow the Cavs were 11 and or 30 and 11 the Bucks are 30 and 13 and at the time it seemed a little bit crazy

But if you were around that Cavs team you would know that BL just wasn’t the guy for the for the job and not to this is not a personal situation on Adrien Griffin he was not the guy for the job and when they fired Mike buholzer they

Had the option of going with a more proven coach they elected not to they elected to go with a firsttime head coach that was a gamble that gamble didn’t work and so they’ve pivoted pretty hard they sure did they sure have so before we get to the doc part of it

Um what what so the symptoms you’re saying that were that made it up to the suite of the governorship is just the defense or or how much came from the players in your estimation there was there was a couple things going on number one they completely lost their

Defensive identity and one of the reasons was was because they didn’t have a a system in place now Mike bolzer was the definition of a system coach he he almost sort of come H high water was like we’re going to play my system no matter what he taught it in October he

Taught it in may he played the exact same system with very little variance it was annoying at times because he was one of these guys who believed in protecting the middle at all costs and giving up threes and there would be games where they’d get toasted from the outside

Teams would make 35 threes against them and they’d be sitting there protecting the inside and you’d be like what are you doing over there bud um but his he had they had great fundamental defense they won a championship uh playing great fundamental defense and so when Adrien

Griffin came in he didn’t have a system and not only that like he literally like six or seven games of the system publicly announced he was changing the way they played defense because the players didn’t like it and whether the players like it or not you either

Believe in your system or not and he didn’t have a system he believed in because he was he was flopping around on it and um Giannis repeatedly I I think three or four times talked about the lack of organization and question the strategy and when you’re doing that

Publicly you know you can debate whether or not a player should be doing that but it was very clear that they didn’t feel like they had that organization and to me you know the thing about it was it was a red flag when Terry stots who was

A longtime NBA coach longtime NBA head coach he resigned as uh as lead assistant before the start of the season and I’m not saying that’s why it didn’t work like I’m not saying if Terry stots had been there that they would all of a sudden be a much better team but when

That happens when you’re looking at a team that could be a championship winner it’s just a huge red flag you know you know that there’s something going on there so um it’s uncomfortable but the Bucks you know in a lot of ways rich I respect it because it’s them saying look

Status quo isn’t going to get it done and if we’re going to go down we’re not going to go down without taking action and that’s what they did so how does doc fix it why why doc well the first thing he’s got to do is he’s got to get them an identity

Defensively and one of the big challenges is when they hired Adrien Griffin and this actually again reminds me of David blat when they hired David blat the Cavs didn’t have LeBron James or Kevin Love and then a month after he was hired they had LeBron James and

Kevin Love and it was like oh this is a different team that when they hired Adrien Griffin they still had a lot of really good defensive pieces and parts and they had a good defensive concept then they make the Dame Willard trade and that the and the result of that

Trade they get frankly one of the weaker perimeter defenders in the league now he’s an unbelievable offensive player one of the great uh scorers we’ve ever seen But like they he was already replacing a really good defensive coach under some pressure and they replace him with they they replace the roster a lot

And so he just didn’t have the defensive tool so now doc has got to try to figure out how they can play defense with what they’ve got because they have a they have a team that is designed very poor in the perimeter right now in the NBA

Rich if you don’t have size on their perimeter you’re in trouble because you go down and look at how big the NBA is and how the lead scores of each team I mean if you’re in the Eastern Conference you’re thinking how do we deal with Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown how do we

Deal with that size how do we deal with the size of Joel embiid um how do we deal with you know the size and physicality of you know some of the great players um you know with the great Wing scores you know even in the west if

You make it all the way to the finals again they are not equipped to do that so doc you know he definitely brings more experience and will command respect in the room but that’s going to be a challenge and it’s also going to be a question about will they look to try to

Figure out a way to do something with the roster to get some more defense in because even though they’re 30 and 13 they don’t win games by outplaying opponents they win games by outscoring opponents and that’s what going to take you so far and everybody is very well

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ESPN NBA Insider Brian Windhorst and Rich Eisen discuss the Bucks firing head coach Adrian Griffin despite being 2nd in the Eastern Conference standings, and if Doc Rivers gives Milwaukee a better shot to win an NBA title this season.

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