What do players and coaches do when things go in the wrong direction?
Take a shot, for one. And I’m not talking about a shot of Jack Daniels.
Be it a coaching decision or a player’s poor play, the natural reaction is to take a shot at someone – directly or subtly – when the results are negative. Some will even take a shot at themselves at times, if it’s called for. The blame game is the theme of the stories around the league from Wednesday, as Blake Griffin, Byron Scott, Kobe Bryant and others shared the negative thoughts in their clouded minds:
Mike D’Antoni regrets his decision to leave Phoenix for New York, from Ramona Shelburne of ESPN Los Angeles: “Enough time has passed now that D’Antoni can admit where he went wrong. It’s not one of those plays he regrets, it’s a decision. His decision to leave. “I shouldn’t have gone to New York,” he says, looking down at the sideline in Memphis, pacing on that unstable right leg. “I should have stuck in there and battled. You don’t get to coach somebody like him [Nash] too many times. It’s pretty sacred and you need to take care of it. I didn’t.” D’Antoni has never told Nash this. It feels good to confess. “I think we got frustrated and I got frustrated. That’s why I left. We were there, it seemed like we deserved it, and then it seemed like something happened all the time. Maybe we weren’t good enough either. We have to understand that. “I probably irrationally made a decision right when the season was over. You should take a month to figure it out. I shouldn’t have left. That was my fault.”
Blake Griffin questioned the tactics of Vinny Del Negro after losing to the Hornets, from Elliott Teaford of Daily News: “Clippers power forward Blake Griffin said he believed some changes made on the fly also were to blame. “I think we tried to change some things, tried to change our schemes and some things we have been successful at and that hurt us,” Griffin said after scoring a career-low four points on 1-for-9 shooting. “I think we should play teams how we play every team. We made adjustments down the stretch when certain guys hurt us and I think we should have stuck with what we had been doing and what has made us successful.” Coach Vinny Del Negro went with a smaller lineup, playing center DeAndre Jordan for only 15 minutes, 23 seconds. Del Negro also used Jordan’s backup, Ryan Hollins, for barely eight minutes.”