Not trying to throw logs on the burning fire hot seat Coach McHale is on, but did anyone notice that we threw the ball into the post 4 or 5 times to Howard in the last 5 minutes of crunch time??? He is our worst free throw shooter??? To his credit he drained all but two, but why the heck were we not running that deep pick and roll every possession? Why the heck did we not run it at all in the first 2 games? Also Beverly needs more screens run for him to spell Harden on offense. He is on fire with that floater and no one steps up to defend it.
Yeah and we were lucky we did. If Howard shoots his average on those free throws we are saying what the hell are they doing????
We can play that game all day long buddy. If Harden made one more shot, if Parsons shot around his 3 point average, if they called .......... Hypothetical threads are irrelevant.
Yeah we did play that game and Howard missed his free throws in game 1. The point is that its a poor strategy to post up Howard at the end of the games because he is only a 50 percent foul shooter. Its a better strategy to run the play that worked nearly every time we ran it during that time. Its not negative against Howard? He is playing fantastic and really turning a corner in his leadership these last 3 games.
I think there's something to be said for recognizing a problem even though the end result was positive last night. Our offensive execution was atrocious down the stretch. 4th quarter AND overtime. We were very lucky to win the game. I hope the team is not adopting your attitude of doesn't matter we won the game and instead of working on the problems that made the offense so stagnant at the end of the game. I won't even get started on the defense (Harden). Having said that...VERY happy we won.
What difference does it make if they were feeding him in the post at the 5 minute mark? If Portland wanted to send him to the FT line, they didn't need to wait until he had the ball to foul.
This! They could have fouled Howard anytime with or without the ball before the 2 min mark (hack-a-Howard). To me he was the best option down the line (better than Harden iso); Harden wasn't shooting well, Parson had fouled out, D-leaguer isn't the best option, Lin and Bev aren't likely to draw a double team like Howard so I was fine with posting Howard. Of course if they employed the Hack-a-Howard strategy and Howard was missing the freethrows then I would take him out but that was not the case.
I agree with seeing if he is hitting them each night, but the real point was Portland had not shown they had an answer for the deep Harden Howard Pick and Roll. I think that is our best play in the half court. We should milk that in every key situation.
To be honest, I was wondering the exact same thing. I would have milked that deep pick and roll and I didn't understand why Houston didn't. That pick and roll had to be way more effective than a Harden Iso especially when he wasn't shooting well...
McHale's gonna ride the horses (H & H) that got 'em here. Its ironic though that in the end its the play of other guys that ultimately won them the game.
