Raptors Offseason 2022

[DanH]

You can't prove though that Casey wouldn't have won with Kawhi and Marc. It'll just be supposition based on bias. Maybe he would have prepared differently if he had a super star at his disposal instead of a seriously flawed player in DeMar.

I mean, sure, but by that logic I could argue that Nick Nurse is the only coach in NBA history that is excellent enough to win the 2018-19 championship. No way to prove otherwise!

Casey would absolutely not have won with Kawhi and Marc. We've seen him underprepare over and over again. He is simply not a deep playoffs coach.

[A.I]

I mean, sure, but by that logic I could argue that Nick Nurse is the only coach in NBA history that is excellent enough to win the 2018-19 championship. No way to prove otherwise!

Casey would absolutely not have won with Kawhi and Marc. We've seen him underprepare over and over again. He is simply not a deep playoffs coach.

It is speculation of course but you could probably make an educated guess. Casey didn't really adjust in the Playoffs and made decisions like putting Miles on Love.

[TrueTorontoFan]

It is speculation of course but you could probably make an educated guess. Casey didn't really adjust in the Playoffs and made decisions like putting Miles on Love.

he had great overall game plans but within a game he was hard headed...those teams fought hard but damn he did not make good decisions I will never forget him subbing in Bebe to cover Love and the cavs basically went on a 14-0 run in the span of 2 minutes

[golden]

It is speculation of course but you could probably make an educated guess. Casey didn't really adjust in the Playoffs and made decisions like putting Miles on Love.

When you have all-defense vets like Kawhi, Marc and don’t forget Danny Green, how much adjustment do you really need to do? Those guys can figure it own on their own. Like Kawhi telling Nurse the adjustment is: “I’m guarding Giannis”… and that was that.

[planetmars]

I mean, sure, but by that logic I could argue that Nick Nurse is the only coach in NBA history that is excellent enough to win the 2018-19 championship. No way to prove otherwise!

Casey would absolutely not have won with Kawhi and Marc. We've seen him underprepare over and over again. He is simply not a deep playoffs coach.

You seem to have this strange feeling that the most perfect coach would have lead the Raptors from 2018 or 2017 to a championship. Someone might have been able to squeeze out another win or two but that team was seriously flawed. You need super stars to win in the league.. especially when the championship those 2 years had two top 5 super stars in their prime on it.

As for not being prepared.. isn't that the same problem that guys like Bud or Rivers or Vogel had?

[planetmars]

When you have all-defense vets like Kawhi, Marc and don’t forget Danny Green, how much adjustment do you really need to do? Those guys can figure it own on their own. Like Kawhi telling Nurse the adjustment is: “I’m guarding Giannis”… and that was that.

Yeah exactly. Casey had DeMar and JV. 2 of their 5 starters were two of the worst defenders in the league. And could easily be game planned for.

[planetmars]

he had great overall game plans but within a game he was hard headed...those teams fought hard but damn he did not make good decisions I will never forget him subbing in Bebe to cover Love and the cavs basically went on a 14-0 run in the span of 2 minutes

Casey got to the ECF. He won 2 games against the eventual champs. In 2017 he was dealing with an injured Lowry. In 2018 DeMar had a TS% of 51% and allowed JR Smith to look like a super star. Bebe's use wouldn't have mattered in the long term. At the end of the day the team was just too flawed. You thought they had a chance to win a championship that year?

We can nitpick any stretch like that though. Nurse played Boucher for like 9 minutes against Boston in game 2. Chris was not good that season. He was a -9 in 9 minutes and lost by 3. That was a critical game. How about having 5'10 Fred guard Embiid in the dying seconds of the game 3 loss against Phily?

We discussed this before.. no coach is perfect. So why are Casey's imperfections all of a sudden such a big deal? What you need to win are stars in the playoffs. Nurse had them and Casey didn't.

[A.I]

When you have all-defense vets like Kawhi, Marc and don’t forget Danny Green, how much adjustment do you really need to do? Those guys can figure it own on their own. Like Kawhi telling Nurse the adjustment is: “I’m guarding Giannis”… and that was that.

It was easier adjusting with the 2019 team. Creating the wall with Gasol, Kawhi and Ibaka there made it easier, but the Bucks did go up 2-0 in that series before the Raptors properly adjusted.

Problem is Casey rarely tried anything different when something wasn't working. Why did the Cavs players shoot so much better in a series against the Raptors than anyone else? Because the Raptors defense always focused on Lebron and he just made easy passes to the shooters and that never changed througout the series. Nick did the same thing with Harden for the first 2 games of the most recent series, but he dialed down the doubling on Harden and it worked.

[golden]

It was easier adjusting with the 2019 team. Creating the wall with Gasol, Kawhi and Ibaka there made it easier, but the Bucks did go up 2-0 in that series before the Raptors properly adjusted.

Problem is Casey rarely tried anything different when something wasn't working. Why did the Cavs players shoot so much better in a series against the Raptors than anyone else? Because the Raptors defense always focused on Lebron and he just made easy passes to the shooters and that never changed througout the series. Nick did the same thing with Harden for the first 2 games of the most recent series, but he dialed down the doubling on Harden and it worked.

lol. If Kawhi doesn't over-ride Nurse, we probably get swept by the Bucks and Nurse/Masai/Kawhi/Lowry's reputations are a hella lot different today. Kawhi would have also over-ridden Casey.... and Casey would have complied too.

I don't 100% agree with PM, but in this case... coaching didn't matter. It was all about the superstar. This is documented.

And if Nurse is such a great coach, why isn't he coming into series prepared? Why are we getting rocked early in series? Sixers series could have been a lot different if we split in Philly.

[TrueTorontoFan]

Casey got to the ECF. He won 2 games against the eventual champs. In 2017 he was dealing with an injured Lowry. In 2018 DeMar had a TS% of 51% and allowed JR Smith to look like a super star. Bebe's use wouldn't have mattered in the long term. At the end of the day the team was just too flawed. You thought they had a chance to win a championship that year?

We can nitpick any stretch like that though. Nurse played Boucher for like 9 minutes against Boston in game 2. Chris was not good that season. He was a -9 in 9 minutes and lost by 3. That was a critical game. How about having 5'10 Fred guard Embiid in the dying seconds of the game 3 loss against Phily?

We discussed this before.. no coach is perfect. So why are Casey's imperfections all of a sudden such a big deal? What you need to win are stars in the playoffs. Nurse had them and Casey didn't.

that isn't the cavs series I was referring to. I already said casey had good overall game plans for approaching series but was hardheaded within games and you haven't provided any evidence against that. As I suggested before you are continuing to move goal posts and straw man ... which is an invalid form of logic.


The whole point wasn't about casey the whole point was about whether or not coaching matters and whether or not the loss of ime udoka, ESPECIALLY given what he has reportedly/allegedly done, will impact the celtic's ceiling.


You made it sound like it will have zero impact. Casey was not a bad coach but he may not have been the right coach to win a chip. We will never know, but I would argue that having in game adjustments and game to game adjustments that nurse did and experimented with were important. Wasn't it then assistant coach Nurse who wanted them to double lebron at the end of the last cavs series and casey shut him down ... want wanted to try some different things? I remember that being discussed/reported on the Will Lou show and other shows as well.

No one here said Nurse or Casey are perfect. What we are saying is Casey did a good job and was good at galvanizing his team but his in game x's and o's were not the always the best.

I can shift the conversation and derail it to talk about my issues with Nurse if it genuinely makes you feel more comfortable or makes you feel like I am being less biased but it isn't relevant to the initial conversation at hand which was about whether or not coaching matters and the stuff coming out of Boston. BTW 3/4 is going to be tougher for them since Robert Williams is ALSO out for up to 4 months starting this up-and-coming Wednesday.


Now this is just looping around. As I said you are firm in your belief that coaching doesn't matter. Clearly there is no conversation to be had on this point time to move along here. I have stated my case multiple times that Casey, while good at somethings, was bad at others. The things he was bad at potentially cost him his job. If you need me to repeat that here sure. He was hardheaded and stuck to doing one specific gameplan. Once that ran into trouble he didn't shift the game plan often times he would keep doing the game plan.. Kind of like how Bud did until the finals against phx when Bud FINALLY did try Giannis as at center and still allowed him to play make and he dominated from there.



For completeness here are my issues with nurse:
-Defence is good but oftentimes its a high wire act... I know that the idea is its easier to tone down high intensity than ramp it up but still we have many capable defenders and the over aggressive trapping sometimes gets us in trouble (see games 1,2 from the philly series).
-Sometimes can be too trusting of specific guys like FVV ... most coaches have this flaw but it is legit. That said, if people look closely scottie and siakam were correctly given more usage during the season... it was an experiment and it did end up paying some dividends.
-Trusting boucher waaaaay too much although boucher finally toned down when thad yelled at him ... I think he was given too much rope early on in the season.
-Offensively read and react I like but last year we didn't have enough high iq playmakers on for enough of the time to justify only doing that ... as a result you have an offense that slows down and becomes a "iso-heavy" far to easily especially in the playoffs.
-Sometimes his use of time outs although it has gotten better I have no been happy with.
-Sometimes last year held barnes out too much to get some rest before bringing him back for the last 4 minutes of game time... an extra minute or two may have made a difference.




Notice how I said one very specific thing about casey this entire time.. no one here as far as I can tell called casey trash. I just nitpicked the hell out of nurse just to show you yes I have many things I don't like. Look I really liked casey and still do but I think nurse is a better coach. How much better? good question.


time to move on now.

[TrueTorontoFan]

lol. If Kawhi doesn't over-ride Nurse, we probably get swept by the Bucks and Nurse/Masai/Kawhi/Lowry's reputations are a hella lot different today. Kawhi would have also over-ridden Casey.... and Casey would have complied too.

I don't 100% agree with PM, but in this case... coaching didn't matter. It was all about the superstar. This is documented.

And if Nurse is such a great coach, why isn't he coming into series prepared? Why are we getting rocked early in series? Sixers series could have been a lot different if we split in Philly.

which philly series?

[A.I]

lol. If Kawhi doesn't over-ride Nurse, we probably get swept by the Bucks and Nurse/Masai/Kawhi/Lowry's reputations are a hella lot different today. Kawhi would have also over-ridden Casey.... and Casey would have complied too.

I don't 100% agree with PM, but in this case... coaching didn't matter. It was all about the superstar. This is documented.

Well do you think Kawhi would have been successful defending him alone without the wall of Gasol, Pascal and Ibaka? He was limping throughout that series. Do you think that one move decided a whole series and Raptors winning 4 straight against a contender? I don't.

Fred struggled in the Sixers series to the point where he became unplayable, but he was key in the Bucks and Warriors series. Does Casey keep the trust in him or bury him in the bench and we don't get the Bucks and Warriors series Fred?

I don't believe coaching matters more than stars, but there are a lot of small things and questions that go on in Casey winning a championship with the 2019 team that it isn't a question you can answer. Its either you're on one side or the other.

[golden]

Casey made the ECF with a starting lineup of: Lowry, DD, DeMarre Carroll, Scola and Bismack.

Let that sink in. Carroll, Scola and Biz.

And Carroll and Scola were completely washed at that point.

I am 100% certain that if Nurse coaches that starting lineup over a regular season, we are tanking for a top 5 pick, let alone talking about playoffs,

[planetmars]

that isn't the cavs series I was referring to. I already said casey had good overall game plans for approaching series but was hardheaded within games and you haven't provided any evidence against that. As I suggested before you are continuing to move goal posts and straw man ... which is an invalid form of logic.


The whole point wasn't about casey the whole point was about whether or not coaching matters and whether or not the loss of ime udoka, ESPECIALLY given what he has reportedly/allegedly done, will impact the celtic's ceiling.


You made it sound like it will have zero impact. Casey was not a bad coach but he may not have been the right coach to win a chip. We will never know, but I would argue that having in game adjustments and game to game adjustments that nurse did and experimented with were important. Wasn't it then assistant coach Nurse who wanted them to double lebron at the end of the last cavs series and casey shut him down ... want wanted to try some different things? I remember that being discussed/reported on the Will Lou show and other shows as well.

No one here said Nurse or Casey are perfect. What we are saying is Casey did a good job and was good at galvanizing his team but his in game x's and o's were not the always the best.

I can shift the conversation and derail it to talk about my issues with Nurse if it genuinely makes you feel more comfortable or makes you feel like I am being less biased but it isn't relevant to the initial conversation at hand which was about whether or not coaching matters and the stuff coming out of Boston. BTW 3/4 is going to be tougher for them since Robert Williams is ALSO out for up to 4 months starting this up-and-coming Wednesday.


Now this is just looping around. As I said you are firm in your belief that coaching doesn't matter. Clearly there is no conversation to be had on this point time to move along here. I have stated my case multiple times that Casey, while good at somethings, was bad at others. The things he was bad at potentially cost him his job. If you need me to repeat that here sure. He was hardheaded and stuck to doing one specific gameplan. Once that ran into trouble he didn't shift the game plan often times he would keep doing the game plan.. Kind of like how Bud did until the finals against phx when Bud FINALLY did try Giannis as at center and still allowed him to play make and he dominated from there.



For completeness here are my issues with nurse:
-Defence is good but oftentimes its a high wire act... I know that the idea is its easier to tone down high intensity than ramp it up but still we have many capable defenders and the over aggressive trapping sometimes gets us in trouble (see games 1,2 from the philly series).
-Sometimes can be too trusting of specific guys like FVV ... most coaches have this flaw but it is legit. That said, if people look closely scottie and siakam were correctly given more usage during the season... it was an experiment and it did end up paying some dividends.
-Trusting boucher waaaaay too much although boucher finally toned down when thad yelled at him ... I think he was given too much rope early on in the season.
-Offensively read and react I like but last year we didn't have enough high iq playmakers on for enough of the time to justify only doing that ... as a result you have an offense that slows down and becomes a "iso-heavy" far to easily especially in the playoffs.
-Sometimes his use of time outs although it has gotten better I have no been happy with.
-Sometimes last year held barnes out too much to get some rest before bringing him back for the last 4 minutes of game time... an extra minute or two may have made a difference.




Notice how I said one very specific thing about casey this entire time.. no one here as far as I can tell called casey trash. I just nitpicked the hell out of nurse just to show you yes I have many things I don't like. Look I really liked casey and still do but I think nurse is a better coach. How much better? good question.


time to move on now.

I started my rant when you basically said this here:

lol the other thing with planets suggestion that it doesn't matter... we have had this conversation before on this forum we talked about nurse vs casey debate regarding our chip.

I took this to thinking you thought I was out to lunch when I said coaching doesn't really matter. And I wanted to keep explaining why I thought that.

Casey being "hard headed" and then bringing up the Bebe run was exactly what I went on about. How is what I said a strawman? What goal posts did I move? Nurse is hard headed too.. damn all coach's are. Didn't McCaw play a lot for no reason?

As for "trash".. umm.. many posters here don't like Casey. Dan called him unprepared. AI talked about that too. You called him hard headed.. and brought up the fact that you wouldn't forgive him for that Bebe run.. by the way that did happen in 2018. What season were you talking about? And yeah I exaggerate a bit in my posts.. everyone does to make their argument.

You talk about not having in game adjustments.. Casey made those too. Raptors were infamous for losing the first game in series, yet won a lot of them under Casey. You wouldn't think the team would adjust after losing their first game? When you start bringing up specific anecdotes like Bebe, I'll talk about Nurse's decisions as well to be fair. Why is that off base? And you know what.. players adjust themselves. Most players can think for themselves and aren't robots. If they did something and it caused the team to lose, they collectively might try something else to try and win. Why is it all on the coach? DeMar and Lowry always looked so defeated when playing the Cavs. Lowry still looked that way against the 76ers after going down 2-1 in 2019.


Bud maybe did make changes.. although that was likely because of injury (Lopez got hurt). I would imagine Casey would also have a different game plan if he had Gasol instead of JV or Kawhi instead of DeMar.

As for the Boston situation.. sure the off court drama stuff might impact them.. but they also have a room full of vets.. so it might not. We'll see what happens. I'm predicting that all will be fine over there. I already touched on this. What more do you want to talk about on this?

You want to move on, but you keep bringing this stuff up lol.

[golden]

Well do you think Kawhi would have been successful defending him alone without the wall of Gasol, Pascal and Ibaka? He was limping throughout that series. Do you think that one move decided a whole series and Raptors winning 4 straight against a contender? I don't.

Fred struggled in the Sixers series to the point where he became unplayable, but he was key in the Bucks and Warriors series. Does Casey keep the trust in him or bury him in the bench and we don't get the Bucks and Warriors series Fred?

I don't believe coaching matters more than stars, but there are a lot of small things and questions that go on in Casey winning a championship with the 2019 team that it isn't a question you can answer. Its either you're on one side or the other.

Nurse didn't invent the Giannis wall. Brad Stevens tried that the series before, but he had weak defensive links, like Kyrie, Rozier & Hayward. The Raptors had zero weak defensive links. Like I said... it could be the deepest defensive championship team of all time. And with Giannis, since you are protecting the paint... and scrambling to guard open 3-pt shooters... you can't have any weak links.

Adjustments mean diddly squat if you don't have the personnel to execute. And if you have that elite personnel in the first place, you probably won't have to adjust that much anyway. The only thing Nurse has shown is that he can take a deep, stacked defensive/2-way roster over the finish line, when he doesn't have to go through Lebron & KD.

Like PM, I don't see any compelling argument that coaches like: Bud, Vogel, Lue, Casey, McMillan, Kidd, Monty Williams, Udoka, Brad Stevens, etc.., etc... couldn't have done the same with the roster Nurse was gifted.