If the Kings can fire Mike Brown before New Year’s following the franchise’s best two-season success in two decades …
And if the Nuggets can terminate Michael Malone 18 months removed from a championship with his team, in a loaded Western Conference, sitting in a position that would allow it to take dead aim at two in three …
And the Knicks can wave goodbye to Tom Thibodeau following a Garden-rejuvenating run that ended the dreaded Celtics’ season …
All, mind you, without any influence from LeBron.
Then, yes, Mark Daigneault might be wise to get his résumé ready.
Well, is today too early?
Say what you want about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shooting way too much in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night. He did.
And, yes, as feared, the NBA’s brightest lights proved to be too powerful for West Coast Conference-tested Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams.
But that’s not why the Thunder find themselves in a 1-0 pothole against the overmatched Pacers. This inexcusable setback falls squarely on the shoulders of Daigneault.
Let’s take a magnifying glass to four particularly credentials-questioning blunders …
— He started the wrong lineup.
Hard to believe, but before the first second of the state of Oklahoma’s biggest sporting event ever, the coach had messed up. Talk about a sign of things to come.
We all saw the headlines, the social media predictions, the series odds. This was going to be the most lopsided championship game since, well, the last time the Rockies were in a World Series.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle had to be concerned. Only he wasn’t.
Daigneault had to feel pretty good about his chances. Only apparently he didn’t.
It was Daigneault, not Carlisle, who blinked first, deciding he needed to change his starting lineup from the one that had rolled through the Western playoffs.
The message: We’re so unsure of ourselves, we need to make changes.
In the end, he was right — but for all the wrong reasons.
— He scripted the wrong game plan.
Sure, it’s possible Gilgeous-Alexander went Jayson Tatum on his team all by himself. And if that’s the case, shame on Daigneault for not calling an early timeout to scold him.
More likely, the coach decided he wanted to win or lose with the ball in the hands of the league MVP, and that’s not what had made the Thunder successful.
If OKC had a small vulnerability in the first three rounds of the playoffs, it was Gilgeous-Alexander shooting too much.
When SGA averaged 21.8 shots per game during the regular season, he connected 51.9% of the time. That’s how a guard wins MVP.
But in the Western playoffs, he jacked up more than 25 shots five times and went 13-for-30, 10-for-29, 10-for-27, 12-for-26 and 10-for-26 on those nights. That’s 55-for-138 if you’re counting — a 39.9% clip that did more damage than good.
Did Daigneault warn his star, performing on the biggest stage of his life, to scale it down a bit? Ha. SGA went crazy, firing up 30 shots again and helping the Pacers outshoot the Thunder by nearly eight percentage points.
From general manager Sam Presti’s seat, it’s testimony to the superiority of his roster that it could almost overcome BOTH Daigneault and Gilgeous-Alexander.
— Wasted his coach’s challenge.
OK, it wasn’t costly in the end, but nothing says “I’m clueless” more than throwing your only coach’s challenge at a meaningless third-quarter foul.
Forget for a minute that the call was obviously correct in the first place. The negligent treatment of a potentially valuable late-game asset smacked of: We’re so far ahead, it doesn’t matter.
It’s the kind of thing that gets a GM thinking: Does this guy really know much about basketball?
— His team was totally unprepared for a tight finish.
OK, Presti gets the blame for this. He put together such a strong roster, the Thunder had only six games decided by fewer than six points in the regular season, and then only three with a margin under five points in the playoffs.
So, yes, they hadn’t had a lot of game experience on what to do when the opponent, down by one, comes jogging up the court in the final 10 seconds of a game.
But that doesn’t mean they never practiced it. Or at least it shouldn’t mean that.
With millions of viewers screaming “double Haliburton,” Daigneault not only watched his guys try to deal with him with one man, but did so with their ace defender, Lu Dort, standing in the corner attached to Andrew Nembhard.
That’s right: Even though the retreating defenders had plenty of time to pick their opponent, it was Cason Wallace who took the Haliburton challenge. And it was Wallace, all by himself, who watched the NBA’s new Mr. Clutch shoot the game-winner over him.
Should Dort have been on Haliburton? Should the Thunder have doubled him? You make the call. There is no wrong answer.
Should Wallace be taking him one-on-one? If he gets a call from Presti this weekend, assistant coach Mike Wilks would be wise to respond: “I’d have doubled him, Boss.”
It just might earn him a promotion by Sunday.
