Re: Official NBA Season Thread
[ QUOTE ]
5. Personally, I don't think he's horrible. If you want to win a bunch of regular season games, more than expected usually, he's your guy, because he has a very regimented, predictable system that teams have trouble against it pressures them to play defense for a long time, makes it hard (in theory) to get easy buckets, and challenges the opposition physically.
However, once you get to the post season, there are no more surprises, other teams don't mind getting physical with you, and they figure out your 1-dimensional system over the course of a series.
When the Jazz beat the Rockets in the 1st round last year, I think that was the 3rd time a Sloan team had beaten a higher seed (even though they had the same record) in 20 (?) post-seasons. I think that's pretty revealing, and I think that's why there will be no championships in Utah as long as Sloan is coach.
[/rant]
[/ QUOTE ]
Because this interested me, I looked it up. Here is every time a Sloan coached team played a team seeded higher than his(note: I didn't count the Finals when both them and the Bulls were #1 seeds)...
80-81: Bulls beat higher seeded Knicks in the first round. They lose to the #1 seed Celtics in the 2nd round. Boston went on to win title.
90-91: Jazz beat the higher seeded Suns in first round. They lose to the #1 seed Trailblazers in 2nd round.
91-92: Lose to the #1 seed Trailblazers in the WCF.
92-93: Lost to #3 seed Seattle in first round
93-94: Beat higher seeded SA in first round. Lost to #2 seed Houston in WCF. Houston went on to win title.
95-96: Beat higher seed Spurs in 2nd round. Lost to #1 seed Seattle in WCF.
99-00: Lost to #2 seed Portland in 2nd round.
00-01: Lost in first round to Dallas.
01-02: Lost in first round to #1 seed Kings.
02-03: Lost in first round to Kings team that won 59 games.
06--07: Beat Houston in first round. Lost to eventual champs SA in WCF.
So overall they are 5-11 in series in which they are the lower seed. However, 5 of those losses were against #1 seeds and 2 of the other losses were against teams that went on to win the title. So not counting those series they were 5-4 in series against higher ranked teams. All in all, I don't think hes nearly as bad as you seem to think in this regard.
101,300 and counting
|