Bzdelik was in charge of the defense. He did not make adjustments against the Warriors and that is why he is gone. Couple that with ownership not happy he retired right before the season began and only came back after the owner paid him more. Ownership was not happy about that. The defensive issues were the result of a lack of adjustments and not having long wings like they had with Moute and Ariza. The front office wanted to run a more hybrid style defense. Bzdelik is also not known as a big supporter of size for the sake of size. Playing tall players that suck is a stupid strategy, especially when they are so limited that they cannot switch quick enough. The Rockets need wings with a long wingspan that can play the 3/4 and 4/5. MDA has asked for them for over a year. Morey has tried to trade for that type of player for over a year... Bzdelik wanted that type of player as well. It isn’t like the bench is full of swings with long wingspans that can rotate quick enough and hit an open 3. They aren’t there. If you want to complain that 5 years ago Morey let Covington go, go for it.... if you want to complain that ownership wouldn’t pay Ariza, go for it... if you want to blame the owner for being tepid on striking when he could on JaMychal Green, go for it... if you want to complain at ownership for passing on Patterson to play now and trade at the deadline, go for it.... if you want to complain about ownership being too cheap to pay the going rate for top assistants... go ahead. The issues on the defensive end are not the result of MDA or even the front office.
Ultimately the head coach is the one that subs. He doesnt even call timeouts. Bzdelik is gone and MDA still takes out our centers out.
Thank you. All the fire MDA talk is annoying. At some point MDA and the Rockets will part ways, but right now he's the right coach for this group. I almost commented in your "Who do you have on ignore" thread about this very thing, but I haven't been active long and I truthfully have only one person on my list, and it's not because of anything related to the Rockets. BUT... this forum can be a downer. No question about it. I know all the senseless threads about Tilman are equally annoying, but had he simply extended MDA we wouldn't have half the crazy talk we do now. Ultimatums don't work and neither does penny pinching.
Exactly. This is why you can’t have an offensive coach and a defensive coach like the NFL. Blaming Bzdelik for the defensive failures isn’t fair because he didn’t have the power to sub in the guys he wanted or call timeouts when the opponent went in a run. All he could do is react to whatever players MDA wanted in the game. In the NBA, It’s all on the head coach. Defense and offense. He is the one subbing players and everything else is an effect from then on.
https://ibb.co/qr9SBF0 I can't link image but Mike Dan TOny should be fired based on this picture alone. He played 4 guys that are 6'3 and a guy 6'6 in the 2nd quarter of an NBA basketball game.
I don't disagree with this, i'd like to have a coach that even if he's not that deeply involved with defense (which i'm pretty sure happens with a lot of other coaches around the league, big names included), at least keeps the team accountable and is not stubborn as Mike. But with that said i understand that Mike overall might still be almost the perfect coach for this team, because i'm pretty sure you won't get guys like Harden and Westbrook to play in a different way than the one they're used to, and having an harassing (even if good) coach like say, Stan Van Gundy, would probably not work.
I stick with my assessment. Bzdelik asked for clay to build a defense and got watered down mud. If you are defensive coordinator you want bigger players (in a game of height-basketball, not smaller) Head coach D’Antoni outranked Bzdelik. D’Antoni put his smaller players, offensive minded players on the court. Bzdelik had to try to make something of a defense with that short-s—t team. I said it all season.....D’Antoni won in Phoenix with a small lineup of Nash/Marbury/Jim Jackson (6’5”)/ Matrix (6’7”)/ A’Mare Stoudemire (6’9”” Good enough to win in the regular season, but not against the good teams in the playoffs. I said the Rockets could have a good team in the regular season; but struggle with teams with wings in the playoffs. Meet the Hampton-5. Like most coaches D’Antoni has an M.O. (method of operation). And it still continues. This year Morey wants at least another SF by the trading deadline, because meet the Kawhi/PG tandem come playoff time. Capela has stepped up to the front of the line as trade bait since Gordon signed an extension and can’t be traded this season.....and already in the doghouse. The Alamo had a good enough defense vs the local marauding natives; but not vs the Mexican Army. Short-S—t wall on one side of the Alamo.
I find it simply amazing that people blame Bzdelik when everyone knows D’Antoni has never been one for defense. With the Lakers he blew a fuse with them when asked by a reporter. https://www.usatoday.com/story/game...flips-out-los-angeles-lakers-defense/1762781/ D’Antoni always pushes Offense to the point it dwarfs defense. You can’t change history in the present day of the Internet.
are you gonna sit there and blame dantoni for officials being biased and started blowing whistle(actually swallowing it) against his team as soon as it become clear they will win it all?
I noticed Ariza......you missed my point where I said we need wings with size. And yes I’m one of the biggest conspiracy theorist’s out there saying the NBA/Refs/Fans are conniving against the Rockets. You bring up the days when I cared for D’Antoni, but since then he has returned to his old M.O. of smallish teams. Tyson C/Hartenstein/Ryan Anderson/Gary Clark/Nene get little to no rotation time. Keep that in mind when you see team avg height. Starters ht avg are fine but replaced by Rivers/Gordon No those days with Ariza and Luc MaM were good even with an injured Luc and fatigued Ariza. This is why I say we are not too far off.......but D’Antoni staying smallish will doom us in the PO’s. But Morey knows this and will get us help by the trade deadline.....despite D’Antoni. One year of appeasing D’Antoni (last year) was enough.
I cant place the quote... but I had heard Bzdelik didnt want to commit at the moment - and so the team decided to move on... If you look at his body of work with the Rox idk how anybody cant be a fan Bzdelik... has he had shortcomings? sure... but who in our organization hasnt underperformed at one time or another? Bzdelik is an upper level defensive coach... imo...
After this heat game I am on board, get rid of Westbrook as well that’s not what a superstar looks like, I don’t like people who don’t play defende
I really dont like MDA But our roster is Tiny ... and i cant tell if its tiny because of MDA or its tiny because of morey. Morey never minded getting smaller players that were more skilled than their big counterparts , but this is taking it to the extreme. We literally don't have anyone over 6'6" that can shoot. ( im not gonna count ryan) We literally have 1 player over 6'6" that isn't geriatric ( im not gonna count ryan) We just sent the two that are to the G-league lol ... and they were not great hopes Harden better learn to play the 4 quickly, maybe he can learn a post game. But yes MDA also sucks. Its early in the season, but he's a panicker if i ever saw one.
