Reply With Quote
I am all for Rasho playing as many minutes as possible, but Humphries did have a couple of great plays....
And for Angel- see Rasho is actually there:
I am all for Rasho playing as many minutes as possible, but Humphries did have a couple of great plays....
Holy Cow! How fantastic!
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...c24125&k=76522
Raptors' Mitc to be named NBA's Coach of the Year
Bruce Arthur, National Post
Published: Monday, April 23, 2007
TORONTO — It was a little more than a year ago that a Sports Illustrated poll of 248 NBA players named Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitc the worst coach in the league. But Tuesday, National Basketball Association sources have confirmed Mitc will be named the NBA's coach of the year.
The Post has learned that Mitc has edged other strong contenders such as Utah's Jerry Sloan and Dallas's Avery Johnson for the league's top coaching honour.
The Raptors posted the biggest single-season improvement of any NBA team this season, going from 27 to 47 wins. Mitc seamlessly blended nine new players, overcame numerous injuries, and steered the Raptors to the first Atlantic Division le in franchise history.
Mitc came into this season with a 60-104 record over two campaigns and was seen to be in serious jeopardy when new general manager Bryan Colangelo took over. But Mitc overcame a 2-8 start with his group of international players, rookies, and just one established star and tied Toronto's all-time record for victories in a season.
"We had a lot of [new] guys, we had a language barrier at the beginning of the year, we had so many obstacles that we had to overcome," Toronto's lone All-Star, Chris Bosh, said Monday before the results of the vote were revealed.
"We had to gel quickly as a team. And for Sam to put us in an environment where we could function, and create an offence where everybody can touch the ball and share the ball and get open shots, that was tough on his part."
Mitc 's three-year contract expires at the end of this season, and he will be a sought-after free agent in the coaching market. Both Charlotte, which employed Mitc as an assistant before be was hired by Toronto in 2004, and Indiana have been mentioned as possible destinations should Mitc decide to leave Toronto.
Colangelo, meanwhile, has indicated that he intends to try to sign Mitc to a multi-year extension.
When contacted last night, Colangelo could not comment until the official announcement. "Like I've said, I hope he gets it, and I'll be disappointed if he doesn't."
––
Read Bruce Arthur’s column on Sam Mitc ’s award-winning season, as well as his preview of Game 2 of the playoff series with the New Jersey Nets in Tuesday’s National Post.
Apr 24, 2007 10:41 AM
Doug Smith
Sports Reporter
Sam Mitc has completed a shocking three-year rise from rookie head coach to the best in his profession in the NBA.
After helping engineer a startling turnaround in the fortunes of the Raptors, Mitc has been named the league's coach of the year in balloting by a 128-member panel of sportswriters and broadcasters.
Mitc earned 49 first place votes to easily out-distance Utah's Jerry Sloan and become the first Raptor coach to earn the honour.
In this third year in Toronto, Mitc took a team coming off a 27-win 2005-06 season with nine new players and helped guide it to the first Atlantic Division le in franchise history with a 47-35 record.
Toronto's 20-game improvement from last year to this was the best in the NBA this season.
Mitc totalled 389 points, Sloan received 301 points (39 first-place votes) and the Dallas Mavericks' Avery Johnson was third with 268 points (28 first-place votes). Coaches were awarded five points for each first-place vote, three points for each second-place vote and one point for each third-place vote received.
In January, Mitc became only the second coach in Raptors history to earn Eastern Conference Coach of the Month honours after leading the team to a 10-5 record.
Preview - Box Score - Recap - Series Breakdown
Game Info: 7:00 pm EDT Tue Apr 24, 2007
TV: NBA Add to Calendar
Buy Tickets
TORONTO (AP)-- The Raptors understand adversity all too well.
They started the season 2-8 and survived. They lost forward Chris Bosh to a knee injury and survived.
So they see no cause for alarm after losing Game 1 of their playoff series with the New Jersey Nets.
"When we take a step back we always take two or three steps forward," Bosh said Monday, leading to Game 2 Tuesday night. "We pick up our intensity in the next game, we don't make the same mistakes we did before. We're a fast-learning team, and in Game 2 we're going to need that."
ADVERTISEMENT
The players credit their resolve to Sam Mitc , who will learn Tuesday whether he's been honored as NBA coach of the year. Utah's Jerry Sloan and Dallas' Avery Johnson also are in the running.
"He's done a great job with the ball club," forward Morris Peterson said. "He's really grown a lot over his first couple of years coaching. If anybody in the NBA deserves it, it's him. He's proved a lot of people wrong."
Like Bosh, Peterson said Mitc 's leadership has helped Toronto become a team that can bounce back.
"Our coaching staff has done a great job this year in making adjustments after we've had tough losses," Peterson said. "One of the biggest things is that we've been ready to play after a loss."
Guard T.J. Ford said Mitc puts his faith in the players.
"He's going to give us the structure offensively and defensively, but it's up to us to go out there execute," he said. "He puts it in our hands and lets us control it. He's been great in that aspect."
Bosh said Mitc is "constantly teaching the game."
"He always pulls guys to the side to tell them what they have to do or where they need to be and he gets on guys when they don't take open shots or don't play their game," Bosh said.
Mitc , who is reluctant to talk about possible coaching honors, knows how to keep basketball in perspective.
"I don't have an aunt or an uncle," he said. "I never met my grandparents. My brother died at 24. So I've been through a lot tougher things in life. I've learned I can't go home and worry, cry and complain."
With the nervous energy of the 96-91 loss in Game 1 behind, Mitc wants his Raptors to attack more.
"We need to be aggressive within our offense with ball movement," he said. "We need to run the break and run the lanes better, be more aggressive that way."
New Jersey will try to counter by changing its defense.
"Toronto is one of the best offensive teams in the league and a great jump shooting team," Nets coach Lawrence Frank said. "We have to continue to give them different looks defensively during the course of the game. A team like that can get in a great rhythm and they've put up some great numbers against us in the past."
New Jersey will hope for another big night from Richard Jefferson, who scored 28 points in Game 1.
"He brings out the best in all of us," Vince Carter said. "He was aggressive and a step quicker than he has been. He's a great player and when he gets out in the open, he gets everyone going. His confidence is really soaring right now."
Frank called Jefferson "instrumental to our success."
"We're a better team with Richard," Frank said. "His game is attacking the rim and finishing and he's improved his perimeter jumper. But his strength and power is getting to the rim."
A big edge in fast-break points helped the Nets withstand a fourth-quarter rally. Ford said the Raptors won't let that happen again.
"We've really got to stop the transition baskets," he said. "If we prevent those little bitty things that we didn't do in the first game, I think we're going to be fine."
i'M SOOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY
I've always thought he was a great coach, even when Raps were struggling during his first seasons in TO.
Hard-working coach, a winner.
Also likes to challenge his key players, and doesn't hesitate to congratulate them when they show some cojones in clutch situations.
I am going to be out watching the game tonight. I'm wearing Raptors red for good luck.
Dajmo Raptors!
Great press conference with Sam today. He had a lot of wonderful things to say about the entire organization and team-- and about his wife and children and the sacrifices they have made for him.
It's slow to load.
http://www.nba.com/playoffs2007/index.html
Hope they dont blow it again, TJ needs more minutes. And the Nets are wearing red again Angel, so maybe you dont want to wear red
Once a grinder, always a grinder
Once a grinderFrustrated with his team's bottom-of-the-league defence late last season, Sam Mitc interrupted an otherwise unmemorable practice to demonstrate the art.
The coach, more than four seasons removed from his 13-year playing career, shooed away the human sieve who'd been guarding Mike James, the resident high-scoring guard, and assumed the best defensive stance his then-43-year-old legs could muster. When play resumed, James, a speedster in his prime, blew past his coach like the wind. And the team broke out in laughter.
But the moment wasn't over. As James waltzed in for what he thought would be an uncontested layup, Mitc rose from the dust and exacted vengeance.
"Sure enough, Sam tackled him," said Darrick Martin, the Raptors guard, having a good chuckle at the memory yesterday. "I said, `Guys ... do you understand the point he's showing us there? That (basketball) has to mean that much to you, that it's life or death when you step on that floor.'"
It's a fitting anecdote to unspool today, what with Mitc expected to be crowned the NBA's coach of the year in the hours before the Raptors attempt to even their best-of-seven first-round playoff series with the New Jersey Nets. Mitc established his name in the league as a self-made grinder; the only statistical category in which he ever led the league was personal fouls. And his three-year head-coaching career, all of which has unfolded in Toronto, has often been a back-alley struggle for survival.
But there was Mitc yesterday – the guy who once, as a rookie, projected his listless squad as likely impersonators of the Washington Generals – holding court for a crowd of reporters on the Raptors' practice floor, piecing together the hows and the whys of an unlikely turnaround. Mitc talked and talked; as a player he was nicknamed "CNN" for his penchant for delivering 24 hours of news and information.
Chris Bosh said that the coach hasn't yet been tuned out.
"He says things that are relevant – that's what's easy to listen to," said Bosh. "It's not like he's just being repe ive and saying old clichés. He gives some good information, and when he talks, there's substance."
Whether he'll be back as Toronto's coach next season, even Bosh isn't sure.
"Most likely," Bosh said yesterday. "I mean, I don't have any sense (of the situation). Only the future can tell. But in my opinion, everything's going well. He'll probably be back."
But don't cry for Mitc , whose contract expires at season's end and who'll almost certainly find work, and a healthy raise from his NBA-low salary of $1.6 million (U.S.). Bryan Colangelo, the Toronto general manager, has said he wants to re-sign Mitc . Surely the Raptors' success or failure in these playoffs will have an impact on the coach's asking price when other expected suitors, from Charlotte to Indiana, come knocking.
The in-house endorsements are many. Juan Dixon, the trade-deadline arrival from Portland, has marvelled that he has never felt so free as a player as he does in Mitc 's system – and his stats were taking a pleasant upswing until a recent wrist injury. Rasho Nesterovic, the starting centre who played with Mitc in Minnesota, has nodded assuredly: "Sam understands the game like you need to."
In a league still rife with football-style micromanagers, Mitc has given his players room to prosper. "No one's handcuffed," said T.J. Ford, the point guard. The coach likes to point out that basketball's not rocket science; that counterparts around the league who tell tales of spending endless days dissecting game video are engaged in make-work projects "trying to impress somebody."
There are, Mitc said, but four established ways to defend a pick-and-roll.
"You're going to tell me you've discovered the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth way that Red Auerbach never thought of?" he said, laughing.
Surely the fifth way is the high tackle. Martin shook his head at the recollection of Mitc 's takedown of James a season ago. James, according to Martin, absorbed the contact with a laugh, if not a touch of disbelief.
"I said, `Mike, I told you he was going to tackle you. Just shoot the jump shot and you would have been okay,'" said Martin. "Sam is the same as the coach as he was as a player. He wants to win ... He's very loyal. He's a good person ... He's up-front and honest ... and he's going to work hard. That's why he played 13 years in the NBA and that's why I believe he's going to coach until he doesn't want to coach anymore."
With the way Jose was playing, I can't fault Sam for leaving him in. Obviously, Bosh needs to play more, and Parker need more touches in the first quarter.
Parker was the key-- like I have said all along. Raptors win 89-83. Rasho with 6 points and 8 rebounds in 23 minutes-- for a total of 18 rebounds in 41 minutes these 2 games.
Vince needs to grow a pair.
Raptors win! Raptors win! Raptors win!
I missed blogging with you guys.
I think the red is lucky. Last time I had on a red necklace but my shirt was not red.
This time it was and we won.
Also the seat cushions at the pub I watched the game were red. I was hoping that was a good sign.
I really loved how Sam called the players out to share in his award tonight. He said today that you need players that allow you to coach them.
Note to Angel- see the top of Rasho's head.
Rasho is the highest paid scrub in the league.I really loved how Sam called the players out to share in his award tonight. He said today that you need players that allow you to coach them.
Note to Angel- see the top of Rasho's head.
Tell that to his 18 rebounds in 2 games.
I really loved how Sam called the players out to share in his award tonight. He said today that you need players that allow you to coach them.
Note to Angel- see the top of Rasho's head.
I saw this on television and was scolding Sho for staying so much out of the shot.
I think it was so sweet and telling as to what a caring coach he is, that Coach Mitc called all his guys to be in his Coach of the Year picture with him.
Better photos:
Nice win by the Raptors.
The nets still have HCA, so raptors will have to dig hard.
My point is,
Rasho = scrub.
Rasho = earning a lot of money
Rasho = one of the highest paid scrubs in NBA
Your point is wrong.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
