Rick Carlisle was a better coach in the NBA Finals up to this point, but Draymond Green feels Mark Dane Oust has made him better.
The Indiana Pacers lost a key game 4 to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Despite leading the game’s majority, Pacers blew the lead in the fourth quarter, allowing Pacers to tie the series 2-2 together.
Tailese Halliburton came out after the match and admitted that the responsibility was sitting straight on his shoulder. But the truth is that all pacer players deserve criticism for their efforts.
Shy Gilgaus Alexander was the man on the mission in the fourth quarter. The 15-point outing of the stretch won rave reviews from Mark Daigneault.
After the game, Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle was unhappy with the player and dismissed the notion that Shy was looking for a foul, saying the Pacers needed to do better to contain him.
Carlisle was garnering praise for coaching during this playoff run, especially in the NBA Finals. However, despite proving himself to be a better coach, Carlisle allowed Mark Dean to make him better in Game 4.
Draymond Green spoke on his podcast after Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Green can admit that Rick Carlisle was the better coach of the series, but he believes Mark Daenoo was blinded in Game 4.
He points to the third quarter where the Thunder struggled, and Carlisle couldn’t take advantage of the Pacers. And then Daigneault was forced to protect Andrew Nembhard against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
“For the majority of the game, and for the majority of the series, Rick Carlisle overtook Mark Daenoo. He overtook him. There were no questions asked… I’m going for three minutes to the third quarter – at that point, it was a 10-point game and they couldn’t get a good shot.”
“It was a time when Mark Dean needed to spend time… you need to call something. You don’t have the best players on the floor. They had three four possessions in a row. That’s where Indiana needed to clean up the game. They didn’t clean up the game.”
“In turn, it turned into a bad shot after a bad shot… They let Shy out of the ball, it’s clear as a day. They were dealing with the ball more.
“Now you got Nesmith to Shy, in contrast to Nenbird. They kept switching it and he threw it to Shy… Shy got what he wanted with Nesmith. It’s matchups and matchups in the playoffs… Shy goes to all the buckets he’s got.”
There’s no doubt that the Indiana Pacers will analyze Game 4 footage with the Eagle Eyes. Carlisle is one of the NBA’s most meticulous coaches, and he organizes robust film learning.
If we can see the Pacers’ late game collapse coming while Draymond watches, it’s hard to understand why Carlisle couldn’t do it.
Anyway, Pacer doesn’t have much time to harp at this loss. It’s not a good idea for them to do that either.
The best course of action is for Carlisle to understand what went wrong and try to fix the issue heading towards Game 5 in Oklahoma City.