Jeff Van Gundy's Basketball Strategy

I was not planning on posting anything this evening, but I'm watching the end of game five of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals and I heard Jeff Van Gundy say something that was incredibly stupid.  It was so stupid that it deserved a post.

So the situation was that Boston was leading 90-88 with 15.2 seconds left and preparing to inbound the ball.  Ray Allen caught the inbound pass close to the sideline and was quickly fouled by Miami's Shane Battier with 13.8 seconds remaining.  And then the fun started.

Here is the paraphrase from Van Gundy - If I was Miami I would have trapped Allen on the sideline there rather than foul because there's a chance that he may have turned the ball over like what happened last night in the Oklahoma City-San Antonio game.

And if you were Miami, you would have lost faster than they did tonight, Jeff.  Good work.

And just to add to that, here's a bonus one.  With forty or so seconds left, Boston led by I believe four points and had the ball.  Mike Breen asked Van Gundy whether Miami should foul right away.  Van Gundy said that they did not need to foul but just play solid defense.  Hey Jeff, I suppose you could just let the Celtics run off twenty something seconds leaving you with fewer than twenty seconds remaining to score four points.  Oh, that's what Miami did?!  And Miami lost partly by employing this incredibly stupid strategy?!  I am shocked.  It always amazes me that teams use a such a stupid strategy of allowing that much time to tick off the clock, thinking that they are going to be able to play outstanding defense, not foul, grab the rebound, and then make up (in this case especially) two possessions in less than twenty seconds.

Sometimes I sugarcoat things, but I cannot do so in this case.  This was incredibly stupid strategy espoused by Van Gundy.