On Friday, he paid the price for that lack of unity.
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David Blatt is out has been fired as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
David Blatt (R) is out as coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, just a season after leading LeBron James (L) and the rest of the Cavs to the NBA Finals.
“Sometimes you can win games in this league in the regular season and get worse”, said Griffin. “We were regressing over a period of time”.
There have also been published reports citing dwindling support of Blatt in the locker room. But it would also be naïve to believe Griffin didn’t know how James would feel about the move. Obviously, we talked about it when Lionel (Hollins) got fired last week, there’s a lot of really good coaches in this league. The Cavs confirmed the firing later, installing associate head coach Tyronn Lue as his replacement.
“For me, I can’t get caught up and anxious about what other people are thinking”, James said.
“He has the pulse of our team”, he said. This is our basketball staff’s decision. LeBron doesn’t run this organization. “I didn’t ask anybody’s opinion on my decision”.
Blatt never recovered from that in the locker room. “I stopped doing that a long time ago in my career….”
“Blatt’s a heck of a coach and is doing a heck of a job”, Rivers said Friday night.
Less than a week removed from an absolute embarrassment of a home loss to the Golden State Warriors in an NBA Finals rematch, Griffin was adamant the loss had very little to do with his decision to move on from Blatt and hand the keys to the franchise to Tyronn Lue.
Blatt was dismissed Friday, said the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the team has not yet announced the move.
National Basketball Association coaching sources told ESPN’s Marc Stein that Blatt is intent on coaching in the league again as opposed to immediately returning to the European game, where he was one of the most successful coaches in its history. However, there was a discord he couldn’t seem to fix. However, the two worked through their differences and won the Eastern Conference title. The pair shared a smile, an innocent exchange without any hint of forthcoming change.
Moments earlier, Blatt was on the defensive given the Golden State blowout.
James reportedly was not a supporter of Blatt from the outset and team officials were aware of his sentiments.
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Instead, he felt that while the Cavaliers had coped well with adversity – including injuries sidelining Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert for the first two months of the season – they were not dealing as well with “prosperity” now that they are largely healthy and on top of the East. “And what I see is we need to build a collective spirit, strength of spirit and a collective will”. Orlando Magic coach Scott Sklies said, “Back in my day, you used to have to at least lose games before you got fired”, via the Orlando Sentinel’s Brian Schmitz.
