As usual I don’t disagree with you. I feel MDA is in a lame duck season....Rockets waiting to see if his approach will work. Tug-a-war with MDA wanting to go guard predominately while Morey knows bigger Wings are a must. Morey looking for trades of some wings come trade deadline. MDA outdated scheme of running predominantly guards might work against teams of the past; which had bigger PF’s and Centers.........now more teams are featuring SF size wings. More facets to the game than just shooting 3’s; Blocks/Rebounds/Blocking Out/Tip-ins or Put Backs/Jump Balls/Deflections/interior defense. Sucks when our interior defense is so porous and our perimeter defense is having trouble contesting shots. I theory our perimeter defense should be strong since we run out there perimeter players (guards) to defend. Guess they are busy applying help defense to the interior defender. I believe MDA has taken the team as far has he is going to go (WCF’s). It would be different if he was running creative offensive plays. But it’s the same-ol-same-ol.
MDA has some flaws but he did start House over Ego and its not his fault Morey got him an undersized PF and charmin soft center Morey knows bigger wings are a must but haven;t done anything about it these past 2 years?
MDA isn’t the problem and the GM isn’t either. Ownership has sabotaged numerous opportunities with poor decisions, unreasonable stubbornness and cheapness in a very short period of time. Coaching and general managing a team with one arm tied behind your back isn’t easy. We have lost multiple draft picks (Ryan Anderson), the 4/5 we need (Green), contracts to move (Patterson) and a small forward that defends (Ariza)... and others because ownership either was non comittal or cheap... and that doesn’t even address the assistant coach quality being limited because the owner didn’t want to pay the going rate.
Bzdelik left? The Rockets didn’t want him back. His performance in the GSW series was baffling as he made no real adjustments. From ownership down he wasn’t going to be asked back.
then MDA should have been fired first. Jeff B may be the defensive coach but MDA is the overall coach not only the offensive coach.
He is basically fired that's why he is a lame duck coach and Morey replaced all his assistants. This year is basically just a last chance for him to change Morey and Tillman's minds.
You guys dont really understand the talent deficit between us and GS. We were always ALWASY able to hang with them. You have to understand that we get peek offense out of our group.
I like Mike D'Antoni and I'm tired of all the gripes about him. We're doing fine and any action right now by management would be overreaction you'd only expect from fans.
Huh? MDA doesn’t run the defense, Jeff Bzdelik did. The defense made very poor adjustments against GS so he was fired. The arrangement was that Bzdelik had control of the defense... so he was responsible for the defense. If you want to fire MDA just to do so, so be it... but Bzdelik was responsible for the defense good and bad.
When Gerald Green went down, it kinda forced Gordon to second team.....or risk even less offensive punch. Morey has wanted wings; but supply and demand for wings with size is about $15M plus. Tilman had Morey on a strict budget last year where he had to improvise and use scrapes like Ennis and “on his way out of the league” MCW. Everybody knows the Rockets are in the market for a Wing like Iggy or Covington since before the season began. Teams are just not going to give them away; they are asking for the moon and beyond....same as if we had them (SF’s) to trade.
You can’t recognize “Scape Goat”? MDA was the one in charge of ultimate decisions. Not taking out Capela during GSW’s series when his Plus/Minus was horrendous when on court. Harden/Gordon/Green are notorious bad defenders for their careers and CP3 became too small during “enforcement “ of freedom of movement push. MDA benched House for the series without allowing House to get into the flow......at least get some PO experience. Durant averaged more points in the games House did not play in than in the games House played in (GSW series). Manimal was horrendous defensively in the time allowed by MDA (GWS series); but was not allowed to adapt. Where House was a rookie, Manimal was a vet due a chance to adapt. What did he play? 5 minutes only of game one? And his offense showed promise during that short stint. Defense in question (play that killed the Rockets time and time again): *Rockets double Steph Curry at the 3-pt line *Draymond left open Above the break (3-pt line) *Draymond receives ball and then dribble drives to free throw line *Rocket defender in paint rotates to force Dray to pick up dribble *iggy leaves corner (3-pt) along baseline for lob dunk from Dray How do you propose stopping this play? If you don’t double Steph (occasionally)....he kills you If you don’t stop Draymond with a full head of steam headed towards the rim.....he kills (the guard defenders left behind). Capela taken out as he leaves Dray to help double Steph. Only chance would have been to get bigger, because Iggy often gathered the lob and put up a little shot or then dunked it. Problem was size not able to counter that. Gordon/Rivers/CP3/GG failed to block out or contend by blocking his shot. They were too weak and Iggy was too athletic still for even Harden. Conclusion: Fault MDA, Iggy scored little to no points in series before and after Rockets; but scored around 14 pts per game bs Rockets. Smaller lineups emboldened the Warriors to attack the rim like a parade or layup line drill. Trust me, Bzdelik would not want a smallish lineup as defensive coordinator.
Did Morey build an under sized Phoenix Suns team when D’Antoni was there? No because Morey wasn’t there then. I guess D’Antoni always has GM’s that force him to take smaller player......or D’Antoni begs the GM’s to give him smaller players. The old what came first the chicken or the egg. In the 3rd quarter vs the Nets recently D’Antoni played Westbrook/Rivers/Gordon/House/Tucker Yes D’Antoni plays House, but at SF or PF/Center? Out of position? I saw House guarding Jared Allen (started the game at center for the Nets). Capela got 19 minutes while avg 29 minutes in the previous games. After the game Red94 posted how it is funny how the same coach who wouldn’t take Capela out of a series (GSW) and hurt the Rockets is the same coach who has Capela clearly in the doghouse after just 4 games this season. I know it’s Morey’s fault. Even when D’Antoni is clearly the one with the history.
Nook is probably right here cause that's actually what Mike said at least one time lol, can't remember exactly now, but he said something like "i don't deal with defense, ask that to Jeff", and considering his history that might not be a joke.