Evaluation of Adjustments made , plus some comments on the series

This is an overview of the adjustments made by our coaching staff during the series. I’m sure I will forget some and you may not agree with my evaluations of the adjustments. They will be grouped as Good, Neutral, or Bad

Good
1. I think this might seriously be the best adjustment we made the entire series…. Switching Harden on to Batum and Parsons on to Matthews. Hardens best defensive attribute is his strength which partially eliminates Batum’s height advantage as his post ups will be from further out. Maybe it was just due to the extra effort tonight but I thought Harden and Parsons did incredible jobs on Matthews and Batum…guarding them much more effectively than in previous games. I think this should have been tried earlier.

2. When Portland went small with Williams and Lillard, we countered with Lin/Daniels or Lin/Bev. Lin did an OK job on Lillard in the series but Williams was too quick for him and staying with Williams consumed too much energy. Putting Daniels or Beverly on Williams neutralized him these last two games. Again I thought after a one game sample size they should have tried putting a quicker defender on Williams.



Neutral
1. Putting in Troy Daniels. Ballsy.. but perhaps more desperate than ballsy. We knew we neded 3 point shooting and that no one was currently hitting. It worked. He is a pure shooter and he happened to be fairly hot. Luck turns this into a neutral decision as it could easily have backfired especially on the defensive side where he did not have many practices and therefore knowledge of the team D. Playing him only short minutes was a good choice.

2. Twin Towers. On the surface this is a good adjustment. However, the fact that it didn’t show up until Aldridge went for about 90 in the first two games meant that it was too late. Obviously something had to be done about Aldridge and none of our PF’s can stop him. In reality though, no one can truly stop him. He can be slowed and you can force him to take jumpers .. but stop him no. The real reason the twin towers adjustment was made was because we don’t have a power forward, who when Dwight switches on to L.A. can body up Lopez. They are both undersized. Wait no they aren’t…. this brings me to the bad.

Bad
1. Where the F&#% was D-MO. It was abundantly clear that T-jones was overmatched the entire series. We could have easily tried him some in the first two games with Dwight or Omer to see if he could body up Lopez and let D/O guard L.A. It literally could not have been any worse. Who knows he might have succeeded. He might have gotten hot from 3. He might have improved our ball movement. The thing that irks me the most about the lack of D-Mo was when McHale was asked about it in the interview and said playing Motiejunas was something “ we are not comfortable with.” Are you kidding me ? Were you comfortable playing a rookie in Daniels….. in crucial minutes ? Hugely hypocritical .. and the guy deserved a shot. Defensively he has been far more consistent than Jones the entire season. At least give him some minutes and he might be an ex factor.

2. Not splitting Lin and Bev’s minutes earlier. The fever forced Mchale’s hand and he actually could not play Bev more. Lin was playing well this post season. Yes, he had some extremely boneheaded plays but everyone has those. He just had the misfortune of those plays coming in crucial times. More evenly distributing their minutes keeps a fresh defender on Lillard who has destroyed us.

In all, I feel now more than ever that this team has the potential to win a championship. Howard stepped up hugely this Playoffs and was a truly dominant force. I feel the officiating this series was overwhelmingly in favor of Portland. It seemed like the last 3 games, whenever we threatened to pull away, a call or two would go to Portland and would spark some momentum for them. Tonight’s 1st Quarter is a prime example of this even though it was early in the game. Naturally some credit goes to Portland and their apparently unending supply of circus and miracle shots, but that’s what you get when you face a hot jump-shooting team.

I’m willing to chalk up Harden’s bad games to small sample size and cold shooting PLUS lack of calls by refs for his drives. His game 5 was not bad. I though he played within the flow of the offense well and distributed the ball. Game 6 I thought he didn’t shoot enough. This is his second series as being the man, and it takes time to figure these things out. In addition his defense has been above average. I felt like our play improved game to game even if the score may not have indicated it and that game 7 would be a lock for us. Sometimes **** just happens.

I would be in favor of a new coaching staff as I feel that along with the previously mentioned adjustments, McHale’s in game management left something to be desired and I feel like perhaps he doesn’t have the skills and creativeness to lead us to the Title. However, as far as the players are concerned I wouldn’t change a thing. Right now, after our players get over being shocked and sad.. they will be angry and hungry. They have spent the entire season building chemistry and I feel like some of the most rapid growth had been in the last couple of games. I feel like there are players like D-mo, Cov, Cannan , and Daniels that can grow leaps and bounds and become valuable role players next season. I think the youth of T Jones, Lin, Harden, Parsons, and Bev predicts improvement as players. Dwight will be one more year removed from surgery and has looked destructive this post season.

The ingredients are there and trading away pieces that played large parts this year sets us back from a chemistry standpoint. When we signed Dwight , most people said it would take time to get the chemistry level to win a Chip but that the pieces were there. We achieved our goal of HCA in the first round and even though we lost, I feel like we were on the verge of dominating the series. I for one don’t think the talent or chemistry is lacking. Most people here would agree that coaching and officiating were the main factors in our loss.

When I got to bed tonight ( after beating off) I know that I won’t be filled with anger at how we blew the series. Yes, I’m sad, but I’m also hopeful and excited for next year. Though the sting of defeat is fresh in our minds, I would ask Clutchfans to remember that we have a damn good team. A damn good YOUNG team which history says will improve as it matures. As much as we all want change ( and some change may be warranted) the individual growth of some players during this series and especially the growth of our team play during the series, has me more convinced than ever that this rockets team has the potential to win a championship and a long window in which to do so. Now how many teams can you say that about ?

 

Also I wanted to say that I think McHales main issue was the the adjustments made were defensive or reactionary in nature . Outside of going to Howard in the post more , there were no adjustments made to take advantages of weaknesses of Portland. Even Howard's success I attribute more to Howard than to Lopez being a weak defender .. He is a really good defender. I feel like there was a lack of concentrated attack on certain players. We could have run action to get Howard on Aldridge . Also we never attacked Lillard like Portland did harden . We never tried to get their better players in foul trouble.