[PShabi]

There will always be second guessers.

You always here announcers talking about "fouling and putting them to the line for 2," but you RARELY EVER see a coach use that strategy. I personally don't like it. I would've played that situation the same. He misses that shot and you say, "good defense." He hits a fadeaway 3 with a hand in his face and you (not YOU, RD) second guess the coach. Meh.

I don't like fouling there because:

a) You give them a chance to add points with the clock stopped. If there's enough time left, they can still foul you and get another possesion out of it. How much time was left? Is it feasible that they could've went to the line, knocked down 2. Then you have to inbound. There have been some CLASSIC situations where players have stolen inbound passes late in the game under the hoop. Or you inbound and get fouled. Miss 1 or both and they come down and hit a game winner at the buzzer.

2) Kid may commit a flagrant/intentional foul. We talk about fouling in end of game situations with my team at the high school level. Hell, we even practice situations where it is needed to simulate game situations. You'd be amazed at how many differnt ways kids can fuck that situation up.

I say play defense (which they did) and make them make a tough, contested shot to beat you. That's basically the premise of man to man defense on every possesion. I tell my kids, work hard, don't let them get to the basket (doesn't apply here), and make them shoot a contested jumpshot. If they knock those down, then they're probably gonna beat us!

As far as the 2nd suggestion, I don't mind not calling a TO. Again, I practice time/score situations at my practices with my kids A LOT. Up 2 with :45 to go. Down 5 with 2 min, etc. If I do it, I'm sure Memphis does. I had a very fast guard and we knew that if it came down to several seconds left and the other team scored, I wanted it in to him ASAP and just fly to the other end. He can get there from baseline to baseline in < 4 secs. I told him don't worry about a timeout, if I want one, I'll call it while he's on the fly.
D. Rose is pretty damn athletic. I'd get it to him and see what happens. Remember, while Calipari is in a timeout setting up an offense, there's a pretty good coach on the other side setting up a defense.

On a tangent: Coaching in some ways is like the different levels of thinking in poker. What is he doing over in that timeout? What does he think I'm doing? What does he think, I think he's doing? etc.

Sorry for the ramble!!!!