Red is just so confounding as a coach. He might improve but we need a proven, high level winner, not a guy still learning on the job. I do like the amount of instructions and teaching that’s coming from Red lately on the sidelines. He’s engaged and encouraging to the players but also starting to call them out for mistakes, without going on a JB tirade. But he’s still learning to perform in high pressure situations. A couple examples of stupid mistakes: Wasting that timeout at the 10 minute mark when the team was stinking it up even though there was a TV timeout coming at the next dead ball. And egregiously, in a timeout in the last minute when we were down 2, he wasted most of the timeout consulting with the assistants instead of having a quick convo with them and then huddling with your team and draw up the play and get them ready. The refs were already pulling them away from the huddle and Red had just sat down. I think I also saw him mouth “what’s the score?” The whole thing was unacceptable. How did you have a whole conversation with the assistants and not know the score?
Also, his substitution patterns need big improvement. He took Betsey out of the last game when he was playing really well and then took JJ out in the first half after he went on his scoring spree. Stop taking the hot hand out of the game just when they get going.
