Then why was Hurley asking for the crowd to stand up in the 1st half and slapped the table when he realized they were still sitting in their seats? Crowds can be proactive if there is passion in the fanbase. Every time the crowd got pumped up, we made comebacks.
The crowd got pumped up when we hit big shots. As they should. Like I said... the crowd responds when the team has energy and makes big plays. When there's a terrible product on the court, you can't expect crowd enthusiasm. No one owes Hurley cheers--we're paying to be in the seats for .
Hurley was slapping the table and looking at the crowd because he wants them to have energy...when the product on the floor isn't worthy of crowd energy. We played like garbage for what, 35 minutes? There was nothing for the fans to be excited about.
Hurley is a big fan of sideline antics. He calls himself a zen yogaman or whatever, but he's actually a pretty arrogant, high-strung, anxious dude. I don't really care about it one way or the other... Calhoun had his antics and arrogance too. It's probably a requirement of being a good coach at this level.
What I don't love is the sideline antics being a replacement for coaching the team on game day. I wonder if his emotions on the sideline are keeping him from being as analytical about the game as he needs to be. Calhoun could pull off both intensity and a high-level basketball mind... not sure Hurley can at this stage. Backing off the personal intensity and focusing on in-game adjustments and substitutions might be the cure for some of the crappy game-day coaching we've seen become a pattern. Let Kimani be the hype man.