Anyone who wants to blame a meltdown this epic on one person does not understand what they just saw, let alone the game in general. We have 1 DPOY, 2-3 decent defenders, and almost literally no one else With any kind of meaningful defensive presence. This team can play good enough D, when clicking, to take down any team that doesn't have a strong wing presence. But most teams that gave us trouble has dynamic wing play and excellent perimeter players. The makeup of our team got exposed. Gobert shouldn't be expected to be defending the perimeter, we should have perimeter defenders. But we have none. And this has been our biggest problem for 2 years now and the team has done nothing to address it. And when Gobert is expected to bail literally everyone else out on literally every single play how do you expect him to do that? What, no blame for EVERYONE who just let their guy blow by them, over and over again? No blame for everyone who didn't even try to rotate, and when they did, were far too slow and ineffective? Nope, it's just Gobert's fault for literally not being everywhere on the court at once. Why did he allow so many 3s? Well they rotated someone under the rim when they ball went to the weak side and no one else on our team rotated to the rim to help Gobert. So his choice was contest the 3 or allow the uncontested layup. Great choice.
2 things got exposed here: our problem with perimeter D, and our inability to play against different looks without an entire game in between to plan something. We did the same thing over and over and over even when it was clear they had adjusted and that wasn't working anymore. But we didn't adjust anything at all. We need a coach whoop can actually draw up a play to counter what the other team is doing and have his team ready to execute that play. And apparently that ain't Quin.
But hey, we had injuries and the team is loyal to a MOTHER****ING fault, so it is every excuse to just run it back exactly the same next year, a team built for regular season greatness and playoff meltdowns.
Yay.