Rick Carlisle on the Five Keys to This Year's Finals

[BillMc]

The last coach to beat the Heat and the only one to take this year's Spurs to 7 gives us his keys to this year's finals:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/68775/rick-carlisles-five-finals-factors?ex_cid=espnapi_public (http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/68775/rick-carlisles-five-finals-factors?ex_cid=espnapi_public)

[SpurPadre]

I look forward to seeing him in Dumb and Dumber 2.

[EVAY]

I agree that the quickness and crispness with which the teams run their offensive sets will be critical. When we looked so bad against Dallas and against OKC in those two games there, it was largely due to us holding onto the ball too long. Three seconds of holding the ball is too long against teams like Miami who are very disciplined on the defensive end and can recover from being out-of-position faster than most any others.

Let's face it…both of these teams are well coached and disciplined. Miami will not make the mental errors that OKC did and LeBron is a more dominant player than Durant (stronger, fewer weaknesses in skill sets, etc. etc. - might not be this year's MVP - but is clearly the better bball player) was, so we will have to play our A game for 48 minutes. It will not be easy, imo.

Miami shares the ball better than they did last year and we shoot better than we did last year. I hope that we win it…but I believe that it is anybody's series.

[Mugen]

#1 is big IMO and something I'm banking on the Spurs take advantage of in Game 1. The Bobcats, Nets, and Pacers all play at a much slower pace than the Spurs and really bail Miami out of a lot of possessions.

If the Spurs can play at a pace similar to what they did in Game 5 against OKC, they have a good chance of running Miami off the court early. There definitely should be an adjustment period for Miami going from playing against one of the worst offensive teams in the league to arguably the best....

[Stabula]

Popovich's keys to winning the Finals:

1) Score more points than the other team.

[AFBlue]

Good nuggets. The way he answered leads me to believe he thinks the Spurs will take it...best coach in the game, superior pacing, no rim protectors for the Heat. Just about everything leaned Spurs except their propensity to be loose with the ball or force things on O. Unfortunately, that is ultimately the key to the series.

[mclinejr]

Popovich's keys to winning the Finals:

1) Score more points than the other team.

:lol

[DarrinS]

I still can't tell whether he likes or hates Pop.

[hommeaetage]

Carlisle needs to replace Boylen on the bench for the rest of the series, tbh

[Spur|n|Austin]

I still can't tell whether he likes or hates Pop.

I think they are actually pretty good friends.

“The league is one challenge after another after another. Pop has become a good friend of mine over the years. It’s obvious what he’s accomplished,” Carlisle said, via the Dallas Morning News (http://fansided.com/2013/12/28/mavericks-rick-carlisle-calls-spurs-gregg-popovich-greatest-ever/). “I think everybody in our profession kind of view him as the guy. When you’re some place for 18 years straight, nobody has done that since Jerry Sloan, and Sloan was there for 21 or 22 years, and everybody said that will never be done again. It will all depend on how Pop wants to go. But he’s the best of the best in my opinion. I think he’s the greatest coach ever, mostly because he’s been able to do it with a system. He’s got great players, but he’s done with a system, and he’s adapted their personnel to his system, and he’s done it with so many different moving parts over the years. It’s just been a phenomenal accomplishment.”

http://fansided.com/2014/04/23/mavericks-rick-carlisle-spurs-gregg-popovich-coach-century/

[KaiRMD1]

Rick Carlisle is the next best coach after Pop, the ol' sport actually coaches and understands X's & O's. All this while looking like Jim Carrey & expecting to be taken seriously

[4down]

Actually would be great if Sloan came and teamed up with pop. Ultimate no BS crew, and hopefully a few good hard foils when needed