00:00If there's a guy in town who knows basketball better than anybody else, this is the man.
00:04He's former Cavs head coach, former Hawks head coach, Grizzlies head coach, Mr. Mike Fratello.
00:10Hello, sir.
00:11Hey, Coach.
00:12Good morning, guys.
00:14It's a difficult morning in Cleveland, a little gray outside,
00:19and that's probably the mood of all the Cavs fans after last night's game.
00:24Yes.
00:25Mike, you're up 22.
00:2822 with 740 to go.
00:31Very few things would need to go right from that point on to win the basketball game, correct?
00:38But very few things, nothing really went right.
00:42How did that happen?
00:45I don't want to call it a perfect storm for the Knicks franchise,
00:50but just about everything had to go a certain way for New York.
00:58To wind up pulling that out with 720 remaining in the game, 22-point difference.
01:04And all of those things happen.
01:07Examples, we had to miss free throws when we went to the line.
01:11We did that.
01:12I remember Harden won for two.
01:14Allen missed both free throw attempts at one time.
01:17He stepped up to the foul line.
01:18Then we had to have turnovers.
01:20That happened down the stretch of the game.
01:23Then we had to take bad shots.
01:25That happened down the stretch.
01:27We forgot about the big guys who had been so good to us in the beginning of the game and
01:32through the third quarter.
01:33We got away from that.
01:34We settled for 21, 22-foot jump shots that weren't going in at that time.
01:40We shot 40% for the game, which is not a good number, 32 from the three-point line.
01:47But the fact that we were up by 22 with seven-plus remaining in the game is astonishing when you
01:55look at the final stats.
01:56But the 21 turnovers we had for 28 points, look, it was something that hurt us in the Detroit series,
02:04hurt us in the Toronto series.
02:06It came back to bite us last night.
02:09You know, at the end of the Detroit series, the top free throw shooting team, meaning taking the most free
02:18throw attempts in the NBA playoffs of the 16 teams were the Cleveland Cavaliers.
02:23They had 405 free throw attempts.
02:25The second closest team, Detroit.
02:28Well, it makes sense because those two teams played the most playoff games, 14 going into round number three.
02:36Well, last night, what happens?
02:38Cavs shoot just 23 free throws.
02:41New York winds up shooting 32 free throw attempts for the game.
02:45Two guys come off the bench for New York.
02:47Alvarado takes three shots and makes two.
02:50Shamick comes off the bench for the Knicks, takes four shots, three of them, threes all go in, three for
02:57three on three-point shots.
02:59I mean, those were parts of that perfect storm that had to happen, and it did for New York to
03:05get to overtime.
03:06And Merrill's shot, we should get at least one point off of his shot that rolled around in and out.
03:14Unfortunately, if you look at any and you go to overtime, and then, you know, overtime, I look at the
03:21number, you know, 14-3 advantage.
03:24I think our group was so disheartened at that point, having lost that 22-point lead.
03:30Now you go to overtime in the Garden, and that was just too much for them to overcome.
03:35But there's another game coming up tomorrow, gang.
03:38So we saw this group bounce back before.
03:41They did it against Toronto.
03:44They did it against Detroit, who won that game six in our building, you know, convincingly.
03:50And then we go back and win game seven.
03:53Why can't it happen again?
03:55Mike, you've got to help me, because you're the only former NBA head coach I'm going to talk to today,
03:59and you're the only guy I'm going to believe.
04:00Dave, you're sitting there on the bench with timeouts in your pocket, and you're watching the world explode.
04:08When do you put your top hand on your other hand and just say timeout?
04:13Like, I don't understand why the bleeding didn't get controlled, at least.
04:18Hey, they may not have been stopped it, but I'm watching this team that has played two very tough seven
04:23-game series
04:24in a game one where they had a 22-point lead, and I'm trying to figure out why Kenny didn't
04:29want to stop the game.
04:30to try to stop the bleeding.
04:32You know what?
04:33It's not just Kenny.
04:34It's the staff.
04:36There's a lot of guys that are assistant coaches there.
04:39So did anybody, you know, without being there, sitting there, listening to what's going on,
04:44did anybody else bring up and suggest to Kenny, let's grab a timeout now.
04:50Let's take a timeout now.
04:51Like, how far do you let it go before?
04:54You know, there's the old, I remember, I remember Ty Lue when he was our head coach.
05:01And look, Ty Lue stepped into a very difficult situation, okay, when David Blatt was replaced,
05:08you know, during the season.
05:10And then Ty Lue, you know, goes on to guide the team to an NBA championship.
05:15But in one of his first, I'll say 10 games, when he took over as the head coach,
05:21there was a run by the other team.
05:24And Ty let it go, let it go, let it go.
05:28And they must have run off 16, 17, 18.
05:31And after the game, reporters said to Ty, you know, what were you doing about the run that they made?
05:40And he said, well, I kind of thought about Phil Jackson, how he used to say,
05:46I'm going to let the players figure it out.
05:49And they'll figure it out.
05:50You know what?
05:51I do Ty Lue's games now for the Clippers.
05:54Ty Lue takes timeouts quicker than anybody else does.
06:01Because that was his first time stepping in as a head coach in the NBA.
06:05And, you know, he followed Phil Jackson, obviously, in the league.
06:09But Phil can do that when you've got a Michael Jordan, a Scottie Pippen, a Horace Grant.
06:15You know, the veteran guys that they had, or the Rodmans later on,
06:19and the veteran guys that they had, Phil could let them figure it out.
06:24And you have maybe the greatest leader, you know, in the game,
06:28and Michael Jordan, who could bring you back.
06:30But you have to coach your team.
06:32And you can't worry about what Phil Jackson did with the Chicago Bulls.
06:36And Ty is a quick learner, because Ty didn't do that ever again that I saw.
06:41You know, he takes quick timeouts.
06:44So there's a philosophy there first of when are you going to do it, how are you going to do
06:48it,
06:48how many do you have left.
06:50But he did have ample timeouts left.
06:53What I want to know is did somebody else on the staff step up and say,
06:57Coach, maybe we need one now.
06:59Well, let's take one now.
07:00And, you know, at that point in a head coach's head, there's so many things going on.
07:05Am I substituting?
07:07Am I getting guys out?
07:08Am I putting guys in?
07:09Am I changing my defense?
07:11How Brunson's getting in the lane every time he comes down the court.
07:15So what are we doing to change that?
07:17All that's going on.
07:18And maybe an assistant, you know,
07:20I realized how blessed I was in my career to have the assistants that I had who were all great.
07:28I think 11 of them went on to become head coaches.
07:31Wow.
07:32And they're the ones that wind up helping you so often and, you know, maybe bail you out of a
07:38difficult situation.
07:39Mike Fratello joining us, former Cavs head coach.
07:42It was real clear to anybody who's watched the game at all,
07:47Jalen Brunson and the Knicks were hunting James Harden late in the game, trying to get him in an ISO
07:53situation.
07:54If you're Kenny Atkinson, Mike, what should you do there?
07:58How did that go on and on and on and on?
08:01And the same thing just kept happening over and over.
08:04There's a couple of things you could do.
08:06One is change personnel, meaning you substitute, you put somebody else in the game and you have that person play
08:12him the same way.
08:14Whatever your defensive game plan was, you have that guy try to do a better job.
08:20Getting over screens and staying with your own people as opposed to automatically looking for the switch.
08:26Second thing is double team him, get the ball out of his hands.
08:29And you're going to live with the fact that other guys, if they're making threes, are going to hurt you.
08:35Because if they pass the ball two times, you're going to have an open body if you double team him
08:39and take it out of his hands.
08:41But you say to yourself, hey, I'd rather live with somebody else having to make the shot than have Brunson
08:46making the shot.
08:47Because in the game, on the stat sheet, Brunson had 29 field goal attempts, plus he shot 10 free throws.
08:55So if that's another five fouls, okay, so let's just say another five shots.
09:02He shot 34 field goal attempts during the game, got fouled on five of them, went to the line.
09:08So that's an awful lot of shots, 34.
09:12So maybe you live with somebody else having to make those tough shots instead of letting Brunson continue on that
09:19role.
09:20So you can do that. You can change up how you're playing the defense.
09:26You don't want to make a substitution. You want to keep the same guy on the floor.
09:30But change up, take the pressure off of him, give him a little more help.
09:34You can pack your defense in to get him out of the lane.
09:38In other words, bring those guys in tight, close together.
09:41Don't let Brunson split you and get in the lane.
09:44You're going to make him make a pass to the wing.
09:46Then you close out on the guys on the wing and hope that they're not making their perimeter shots.
09:52So there are different things you can do depending on what the situation is.
09:56How do you pick up the pieces and try to move forward here?
10:00What do you even say to your guys after that last night?
10:03You just got to turn the page? I don't even know.
10:06And how do you figure out how not to do that again?
10:09The first thing a coach should do, you know, what I would do is the first thing is you own
10:14up to what your mistakes were in the game last night.
10:16Whether it would be the preparation, the adjustments that you made or did not make, the adjustments you're going to
10:23make for the next game.
10:25So you put yourself out there to make them understand, yeah, you're part of this whole team and you didn't
10:30exactly have a great night last night.
10:32And so you bring that up right away and then you go to your film session and the clips of
10:36we've got to play this differently.
10:38This is an adjustment we're making in this.
10:40We're going to do this differently.
10:42Remember, they went back to starting Dean Wade last night.
10:45After Game 7, they had started Strews against Detroit.
10:49I don't remember anybody saying that during the broadcast.
10:52Like, to me, that was a pretty interesting point in the game that Wade was playing and they wanted Wade's
10:59size.
11:00I'm guessing they thought Wade would affect, you know, Brunson because of the size difference.
11:06But in Game 7 with the chips on the line against Detroit, they started Strews to try and get that
11:11energy back into the team that they needed.
11:14They started last night with Wade, who, you know, hit a couple big threes for him along the way.
11:19Did a good job in the beginning on Brunson before Brunson got going.
11:24But then once they had Wade off of Brunson, and then he turned the corner on Wade as well.
11:30It wasn't just one guy he was turning the corner on all the time.
11:33He was getting past Wade the same way.
11:37But you have to have tough-minded people.
11:39So you make your adjustments after you own up to what, you know, maybe you can do differently or better
11:45for the team.
11:46Then you point out these things can't happen.
11:49We can't have 28 points off of 21 turnovers.
11:52We've got to go to the line.
11:53Hey, guys, we've got to make our foul shots.
11:55You know, we can't be shooting 69% from the foul line in the playoffs and expect to win a
12:00lot of games.
12:00And, you know, New York wasn't exactly great.
12:03They missed 11 free throws.
12:05You had one team shooting 69, the other team shooting 65 from the free throw line last night.
12:10That is not good in the NBA.
12:12But that's what happens sometimes when there's fatigue or there's rust or whatever you want to put it on.
12:18Mike Fratello joining us.
12:20I was thrilled to have Coach looking at game one as the Cavaliers losing to the Knicks.
12:25What happened with Donovan Mitchell in the fourth and in the overtime, Mike?
12:29Did he look gassed to you?
12:32What was going on?
12:33Well, the ball wasn't in his hands a lot of the times.
12:36That's one thing.
12:37And then the couple times it did get in his hands, if you remember, he threw one pass that was
12:44a wild, high, crazy pass.
12:46And then he came the one time and attacked the rim and shot like a floater.
12:52But it was almost like it was off to the left and it was short.
12:56And that wasn't the norm for Donovan Mitchell.
13:00Then he settled for a couple 20, 21 footers.
13:05But outside of that, the ball was out of his hands a lot.
13:09You know, whereas the times and think back to that Detroit game.
13:13Okay, the ball was in Donovan Mitchell's hands a lot in that Detroit game.
13:18Now, is he okay?
13:20Does he have any kind of physical problems as hamstring, ankle, foot, whatever?
13:25I don't know that.
13:27But there's a difference in how many times the ball was in his hands in the Detroit game to start
13:32out game seven.
13:33And the things he created off the dribble versus last night in the fourth quarter when the 22-point lead
13:42disappeared.
13:43Mike, as the guy on the team, does he have to demand the ball?
13:47How does that play between a coach, a star player, and the other guys on the floor?
13:53I think that's a line of communication that you develop over the season.
13:57The star player and the coach have to have a great relationship.
14:00They have to be on the same page.
14:02And Donovan can't be afraid to go to Kenny and say, look, coach, give me the ball right now.
14:08Or I can remember a story way back.
14:12I had two timeouts left at the end of a game.
14:15And we were at Los Angeles playing the Clippers in the old sports arena.
14:20And I called the timeout.
14:22Now I had one timeout left.
14:24And as I came in the huddle, I drew the play up for a player on the team.
14:30And as we walked out of the huddle, I was looking at Terrell Brandon's face.
14:35And I called him and I said, T, come here.
14:38And I said, what's the problem?
14:40And he said, I can make that shot.
14:42But I didn't draw the play up for him.
14:44I drew the play up for somebody else.
14:46So I had another timeout left, fortunately.
14:49So as the team was walking on the floor, I called the next timeout.
14:53I came back in.
14:54I redrew the play up for Terrell.
14:56Because he convinced me, and I believed in him enough, that he was going to make that shot.
15:03So we drew a different play up.
15:05We got him about a 17-foot jump shot on the baseline.
15:08He knocked it down.
15:09We won the game.
15:10Nice job, Norman Dale.
15:12Drew it up for Jimmy Chitwood.
15:15There you go.
15:16The old days.
15:17The old days.
15:19But that's what I'm getting at.
15:21The coach and that star player have to be able to tell each other, you know, no, no, no.
15:27That's not.
15:28Do this.
15:28Or do that.
15:29Or you remember there was an incident with LeBron where they asked him to be the passer,
15:35to pass the ball inbounds way back when.
15:38And he said he wanted to be the guy that caught the ball on the court, not pass the ball
15:43on the court.
15:44Because he felt he could make that shot.
15:46So he's got to have that line of communication.
15:48Like, look, I can make that pass for you, but I think I can do a better job at making
15:53the shot and winning the game for you.
15:55So that's where it goes, I think.
15:58We can't thank you enough for your time today and your analysis.
16:01It's the best in the business.
16:02Thank you, sir.
16:04Guys, thank you.
16:04Appreciate it.
16:05Talk to you soon.
16:06Mike Fratello, former Cavs head coach.
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