Eric Spoelstra
 

This guy is so underrated as a coach.

All Miami does is win. They'll usually make the playoffs, tougher get for the finals, yet as an 8 seed they're on the door step tonite. Looking good thus far in the game.

I admit to being surprised at Miami's collapse in the conference finals after a 3-0 start. But I didn't expect the Heat in the finals anyways.

Most impressive is Spoelstra took over after Pat Riley and hasn't missed a beat, dare I say even elevated the team.

HoF coach in the making.

Definitely one of the best coaches in the NBA. I'm looking forward to the finals.

I don't know much about NBA. But I love when new teams appear in the final. I am actually excited about this year's finals because of fresh meat. I will be rooting for The Joker and his Nuggets because every team needs to win once.

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For the general public he might be "unknown" and underappreciated. He is not flashy and does not self boast etc.

But for people that follow basketball we all know how good he is and that he is one of the top coaches in the League.

He has an almost a .590 winning percentage and has won 2 NBA championships.

Wish he was my teams coach

I think Spoelstra is the equivalent to a modern day, Gregg Popovich. He isn't flashy, his players love him, he quietly produces high level, consistent results while getting overshadowed by other coaches around the league. When he approaches the twilight of his coaching career, people will really appreciate how much he has done, for and around the league. I believe this is his fourth finals appearance, which in itself is a testament to how he's able to truly get all out of his players.

LOL had he lost game 7 people would be eviscerating him. But I agree he's a fine coach, his teams often play above their talent level, including the current one.

No disparagement to Spoelstra, but how many think he owes a lot of his success to being under the wings of Pat Riley for all these years, and that he is to some extent an extension of Riley?

Charles Barkley commented that Boston had the better talent, but the cerebral department is where they and their coach fell short.

It's actually his sixth finals appearance. I think he is a top 5 or 6 coach right now, and you can make the case he's #3 after Popovich and Kerr.

Certainly agree with that - also agree that if the team with most amount of talent does not win, the blame should go squarely on the coach. A nice comeback from down 3-0 but what an embarrassment losing a game 7 by 20 on your home floor.

not sure if any of the past 20 championship series, the cerebral department mattered by the coach....Bulls? Lakers? Pistons? Celtics.

This is very unique where basically every time heat win a series the opposing coach is talked about being fired or is fired... i agree this is and about the only time, coaching may of mattered and also you can see the Celtics sort of gave up when down in game 7 giving up many easy buckets they hadnt given up in the prior 3 games..

Coaching pedigrees are in every sport. Football is talked about all the time. Then look at Mark Few with Gonzaga. His assistants have gone to Arizona and Boise St and have garnered respect. Same with GMs, especially people under Epstein during his tenures in Boston and Chicago.

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agreed the Coaching tree is important and does help but it still takes the Coach to take it to the next level. Now all "assistants" and not all trees/pedigree work out.

Look at Bill Belichick and his Tree of assistants and it does not always work out. Considered one of the Greatest NFL coaches and yet his tree has failed

https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/pat...l-head-coaches

I give Spoelstra all props and not to sound contrarian, but I see a bit of recency bias here. The Heat finished slightly over .500. They lost their first play-in game, then beat a sub-.500 team to advance, in a game they trailed at home with 2 1/2 minutes to go. Where was the greatness in all of that?

The greatness is getting the most of his players and having never given up with all the adversity and to get to where they are at now in the Finals.
In addition the 2 championships and all those trips to the finals and sometimes with talent and other times like this year not as much talent and with so many undrafted players and older retreads that others gave up on

with that said i want them to lose and lose bad since they beat my team

My favorite anecdote about the relative roles of a coach and superstar is about KC Jones and Larry Bird.

In a critical game the Celtics were down 1 with a few seconds to go. On the sidelines KC is drawing up a play, and Bird says eff that, give me the effing ball. And of course that's what happened.

I get all of that, and again, I like Spoelstra. But it remains that for 84 games his team was barely above average, and but for a last minute surge against the lowly Bulls a few weeks ago this team is playing golf.

To dovetail into Peter's comment, it was Jimmy Butler who willed that team to win Game 6, including what should have been the game-winning play that led to 3 free throws. One could argue that Spoelstra's decision to then double team the inbounds pass and thereby let the inbounder have a free path to the rim for the game winning put-back at the buzzer contributed significantly to the loss.

EDITED TO ADD: I guess my main beef is not with Spoelstra but with the NBA in general. IMO it is a sham to have an 82 game regular season only to have two-thirds of the teams still make the post-season where they can put together a run. Yes Spoelstra gets a whole lot out of his guys, but he didn't need to in order to finish in the top 10 of his conference, which is all that was required.

Oftentimes, when a coach/manager makes a call for some play or move, and the players execute as expected and they win, the players get most all of the glory. But other times when the same coach/manager makes a call for a particular play or move, and the players don't execute it as they should or were expected to and they end up losing, the coach/manager more often gets blamed for making the bad call/decision.

True but that play was not the fault of any Heat player. It is unrealistic to expect him to chase the inbounds pass and get a hand up on the shooter and then pivot, sprint, find and box out the man who inbounded the ball. The shot was well defended and the player did as he was told. The play backfired, and if there is blame for that, it falls on the coach.

True, but the double-teaming of the inbounds pass, wasn't that supposed to stop the inbounds pass from being made in the first place? If so, there wouldn't be anyone to have the defender have to run back and get a hand in the face of. Also, is it at all possible that one of the other players was supposed to have come up to help defend on such an inbound pass as well?

I did not see the actual play, but understand how that call looks like a dumb idea, especially since it didn't work. My point is that had the call worked, the players who executed it would have been praised for a great job, and virtually no one would really be praising Spoelstra at all for having called to do it. Meanwhile, since the players could not execute the stopping of the inbound pass on the called double-team, many people, just like you, are putting virtually little to no blame on the players, and laying it on Spoelstra. You've just demonstrated exactly what I was saying. LOL

You actually might want to watch the play before making such remarks. The play was designed to deny the ball to Tatum, which in fact happened. The ball went to Smart, whose defender made it tough or impossible to get off a good shot, and an off balance shot was hoisted. There was no one to follow and cover the inbounds passer. It was designed that way. It was executed that way. It failed that way.

EDITED TO ADD: One thing seems certain-- Coach Spoelstra will really be put to the test in this Series. He has shown he has the ability to put together a winning plan, and yes, it would help immensely if his players could execute that plan. Still, this puzzle will be a tough one to solve.

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