So McHale thinks our bench can overcome a 17 point deficit against Memphis' starters?

Perhaps he never had the team to begin with? Funny picture nevertheless..:grin:

 

I thought the cheerleaders performed hard and were full of energy too.

 

This game was lost no matter what. We have a game tomorrow and the starters needed the rest.

McHale has many shortcomings and has made countless mistakes, but playing the bench in the 4th was not one of them.

 

Anyone who saw the 1st quarter or half would support Mchale's decision with not playing the starters. They played so bad that it was embarrasing to watch. Everyone except Parsons played horrible among them. Plus, Mchale wanted to rest the starters for tomorrows game. I respect Mchale for doing it. Also , considering how talented Harden is, he is a slacker on defense or he lacks some defensive basketball IQ at this point in his career. I was expecting more from him considering he has more experience than the rest and is our star.

 

McHale's message to his starters ... "You FAILED, You SUCK, I have no confidence in your basketball abilities. I tell you to follow my game plan and lose, because you were dumb enough to follow me ... Next time coach yourself to the victory, OK? I have no answers or plans for this young team. I'm just a Morey Yes-Man. Now I will just sit back and collect my paycheck for doing nothing for this team."

 

I don't like mchale, but I thought he made the right decision this time.

 

Honestly this decision doesn't mean anything. But if McHale is discovering that the starters are lacking energy then he is as clueless as a random fan.

 

Actually, the start of the 1st look bad but it was actually a good quarter with Memphis up by only 2 points. Lin and Parsons kept Rockets close. The big killer was in the 3rd quarter.....just got messy from there.

 

You're right, the score wasn't as bad in the first half but one can see and feel that the game was about to slip away even then. It felt exactly like the Indiana game. The starters played horrible horrible defense whenever they were on the court, from the very beginning till the end. Hence, our bench was chosen to close out really because of their defense and rebounds. Also, defense leads to offense most of the time.

 

Did you even see what I said?


I said rest the starters and followed it up by, "in a game the starters did not show up to play."

The starters have only themselves to blame for the lackadaisical effort tonight.

 

What's the point of having a coach. If getting his players motivated to put out their best effort is not his job that what is it?

I said this in another thread but I think it is worth repeating here. There are a lot of things about coaching that are hard to measure but one thing that I have always thought was something a coach owned was how they started. If you watch teams that start off well and then finish off poorly that always came across to me as a team that was well coached in the beginning but lacked the talent to finish. Rudy T’s teams were like that. He started most seasons with great records and then the other teams caught up. Adelman’s team seemed to fall short at the end of games when they were finally exposed by more talented teams.

One of the things that reflect how coaching works is how the team starts. How they start games, how they start a season, how they start a playoff series. If a coach has prepared his team properly they should start off well. If they just don’t have the talent to carry the load throughout a game a series a season, so be it but how they start should reflect a little of how they are coached.

Even Sampson has shown more skill in that area. During his stretch the team played better. Yeah they lost but they mostly started better and only loss to teams that deserved to beat them… not to Phoenix or Sac or blowouts to the Warriors. Yes any team can beat any team on any given night but consistently losing to teams after you have had more coaching is not a good sign. The Rockets just finished a long home stretch with plenty of days of practices and they seem worse for the wear. Nothing has helped and it seems the Rockets play better with less coaching.

All that being said, the Grizzlies are better than us and I am not sure you can blame this loss on us but still you got to at least put Harden back in. He is the guy that got you this far and to not include him in the race especially down the stretch. It's always been my opinion players win games coaches just help not to lose them. It's why you pay the big bicks for stars. They show up more often than not and more consistently than non stars. Harden has fit that mold all season but it seems he is has lost his swagger. Maybe Harden is a bad seed and the blame falls on him but if so he never showed that under Scotty Brooks where he was asked to take a backseat to Durant and Westbrook.

Not blaming Mchale for Hardens poor performances... just stating the obvious, the Rockets have chosen him to be our star and it is just stupid to not play him over Delfino down the stretch if he is not injured. he is the guy you roll the dice on every game. he has proven to be a god bet mostly and delfino has proven to be role player. That is not Rocket science and all the Rockets now that.

Strictly an opinion but as a player I always thought McHale was dirty and dishonest. Since his career ended I thought there was more to him. He is well spoken as an analyst and seemed to gracious. So I thought well he is not the jerk he seemed to be. Mostly irrelevant. Until he grabbed Lowry. You can't do that to NBA players and then Parsons shoves him away. And I see him screaming at DMo and players don't look like they are having fun anymore.

Of course losing does that to you but they were winning a little bit. Even after they beat the spurs he b****ed about how they lost the lead. Not a big thing but where is the confidence building. Your team wants to know you got their back. They respect that. Yeah you can b**** in the locker room from time to time. Especially when you have shown you've had their back from time to time. Call out Lin in the locker room. Tell the team they need play smarter. Quit saying they are rookies and they don't know how to win. They will move forward and then take two steps back. Yeah it's true but it's his job to fix that. Not to whine about it.

What player pushes their coach away like Parsons did. He's no superstar, not even an all star just a role player. That is a sign of no respect. Why doesn't he respect his coach. My theory is because mcHale hasn't earned it. he wants to act all buddy, buddy with the guys like he is an ex player who understands them and then he wants to scream at them like he is a top 50 all time player who knows better than them. That's not leading. And the reality he has never been a leader. he was always a follower of Bird on the Celts he road Larry's coattails.

That might seem trivial but the Celts were nothing without Larry. McHale was there Pippen. And that seems to carry over to his coaching. Yeah I was a top 50 star and that makes me a great coach. It doesn't. It's not a question of intelligence. it's a question of trust. You have to build your players trust in you. Trust that you have their backs and trust that you believe in them. McHale has proven that he does not have faith in Harden at least after tonight.

When Adelman was about to be released all of the players came out on his behalf. There is the possibility I have this wrong and there is more to it than meets the eye. But I suspect if McHale was releasd tomorrow you wouldn't here that vote of confidence. here is to hoping he figures a better way, a more positive way to coach these guys down the stretch.

 

I have to firmly believe that there was some voodoo strategy behind losing this game. So we're only 8 points down in the 3rd; with three of our starters on the bench? I think they may have given tonight away. McHale fail.

 

McHale has no rhythm or reason to his rotation switches
Earlier in the season when we had tough BtB games in January he was pushing the starters on games that was not winnable
Saying stuff like " their young and it's not like they are laying bricks in hot sun"
Resting the starters for the next game is bull
He's not Pop and never will be

The was sitting the starters out cause they played bad
I think Parsons was playing well
Harden wasn't playing well ar all, but he could just sit out Harden so all the starters sat for the 4th
McHale has no clue , he puts out rand

 

bs this guy doesnt no wut hell hes doin

 

I respect the argument minus the part in bold. Parsons and McHale weren't serious on that exchange.

 

Guys this is what we've all been missing. McHale is just like Pippen. He does no work and blames everyone else.

 

What's funny is that when Pop did the same exact thing with the Spurs last year I wonder how many people came out and said that he didn't know what he was doing or that he should be fired for it......I'm guessing not many.

 

I liked the decision. I didn't want a repeat of the 2nd spurs game or whatever. It looked they they had a shot to come back and win and they used a ton of energy playing to the Spurs defense and then they came out flat footed the next game which was the 2nd of a back to back. The 2nd game being OKC, and we lost by 30 and it wasn't even that close.

 

......they got close -_-