Good analogy! Yea, yesterday wasn't small ball, it was smurflike lilliputian ball. It was, IMO, Mchale's way of completely giving up on D and just focusing on Offense, hoping that it would save them. sigh.. mistakes happen.... and they happen again and again
Which is why it really isn't used nearly as often as people might think to close out games. Its typically used when the team is trying to overcome a nasty deficit, the coaching staff is trying to throw a hail mary pass, and the fans are pissed cause naturally the team almost always loses games when they are playing like crap and trailing late in games. When fans are pissed... they naturally start nit picking the coach's gameplan that past night as if its something that happens every game. If you look up the amount of minutes that those small ball lineups that everyone hates so bad have played, its clearly obvious that it really isn't used as frequently as one would think. One of either Asik or Smith are almost always on the floor with any lineup McHale is throwing out there, and Morris & Patterson were almost always on the floor with either them on the frontline before the trade. -to clarify, I was originally was not referring to +/-. I was looking at team lineup offensive efficiency ratings. The +/- was only referring to the lineup used late in games of Lin/Harden/Parsons/Delfino/Smith having the highest rating late in games. To me, what this tells me is that the Rockets are a much more STABLE team when Asik is on the floor. No high highs or low lows. Just Stable. Stable is a positive thing. However, if the team is down and needs a boost, it cant hurt to go small at times to throw a hail mary pass. Didn't work last night, but it was hardly the coaches fault, or have anything to do with the rotations. The team overall just had zero energy, and simply looked like they did not want to play the game of basketball. They did not deserve to win that game either way.
small ball makes our rebounding go to **** since no one besides asik can grab one. that's the most detrimental thing about it.
Small ball lineups can help get you back in games but it shouldnt be the final solution. Rockets got the lead down to 3 at one point. They then let up and the Suns went on a little run of their own. At some point McHale should have switched it up instead of just hoping a miracle would happen. Instead he played Delfino at the 5 and you saw how pathetic they looked.
No hail mary was needed when they took Asik off the floor for the whole 4th quarter of a competitive game against Denver and proceeded to get blown off the court, largely because Denver's small ball is way more athletic than ours and can do what we do AND rebound. Looking forward to more of that great strategy in the play-offs.
The only upside of a small lineup, is 3-point shooting. So we're basically giving up defense and rebounding for the chance to hit a slightly higher percentage of 3's. We can either catch up, or shoot ourselves out of the game.
The small ball +/- could do with some context. It is derived from all the instances of small ball, not related to end of game small ball experience. Any difference? Players play harder, pound the boards harder, are more tired hence the natural height advantage becomes more apparent, defense is tighter, refs swallow their whistles more and Harden takes a disproportionally higher number of ISO-derived shots (including drives to the rim to draw fouls), so the advantages of small ball may be diminished. I think most opponents know Harden is likely going to ISO in the final three minutes hence how much advantage is having a higher offensive output team out there when it isn't utilized, but yet have poor defense?
I can agree some of your argument but I don’t remember many small lineup won us close games. Maybe that hack-o-Howard in the 2nd LAL game but Smith was still in the game. However I can think of many times we lost close games because there was no one could rebound. I wasn’t saying McHale playing small was wrong Monday night. I’m saying he kept the lineup for too freaking long and late in the game it went even smaller. We didn’t need hail marry pass in the last 5 min. They were only up by 4 or 5. Then McHale proceeded to play Delfino at 5? It didn’t matter if we scored every possession, they would score at the other end with 2nd, 3rd chance points. That was the smallest I’ve seen all season and I don’t how McHale even come up with lineup like this.
Maybe in the Phoenix game he would have been staying small too long under normal circumstances. Look, Im not advocating for the guy to be coach of the decade or anything. He made a judgement call to keep pressing for more offense in response to the lack-luster(putting it nicely) performance from his starters. My point is under normal circumstances, its obvious that Asik has been relied on significantly thoughout the season, and the small ball lineup is almost always used to try and come back from a huge deficit. Also, despite what some might think, true small ball(like a good amount of playoff teams are utilizing extensively), isn't being used as frequently as you might think with this Rockets team. If you hate small ball so much, go watch the Knicks play a game, and you will forever be greatful that the Rockets are LUCKY enough to have 2 adequate centers on their team, and some nice size at the 3/4 positions. I would be willing to argue that their horrid defense this season has much more to do with A. discipline and B. style of play than their size at the 4/5 spot. The deficit wasn't huge the other night against Phoenix, but the way they were playing, that 5 point lead was like pulling teeth to overcome. I saw the move as a hail mary pass despite only being down a few points. He obviously was pissed at his starters (rightfully so) for not showing up in a very important game, and probably didn't even want to bring Harden back in the game late in the 4th if he didn't have to. The way the team was playing against Phoenix, was it really going to make that big of a difference anyways to bring back in your starting center who was having one of his worst games of the season at least defensively? I personally think the Rockets were lucky to even be close in that game with the way they were playing... which was one of the worst performances of the season. Hopefully they bounce back tonight, and they will be ahead enough to run with their more "Stable" lineups.
Watch some games with your own eyes and you might be shocked to find out that we lost momentum tonight when we went small.
Watching Delfino frantically trying to guard Gasol is just pathetic. Even Jeff Van Gundy couldn't believe it.
Asik and Smith were working their asses off to contain Howard and Gasol ... only to watch them feast on the inside presence of Delfino in the 4th. Seriously McHale ... I thought he was a former All Star big man.
Whats the constant small line-up starting the 4th all about? I have been wanting to post this for awhile but I guess I will do it now. Why does Mchale always begin the 4th with our complete no real PF/C small line-up?? It just makes no sense, use them in the 2nd.. use them towards the end of the 3rd (I am a fan of that line-up) but dammit please don't begin the 4th with it. All it does is constantly put us in a position to draw alot of fouls down low defensively. The last thing we need is foul trouble early in the 4th quarter. I mean, play the small line-up mid 4th if you have to but I'm sick and tired of always having 3 team fouls before the 8 minute marker because our small guys are straining so hard down low off a mid-quarter rested big which seems to happen 2 out of every 3 games.. and I'm being considerate to averaging it out to 3 by the 8 minute marker because it's probably more like 3 by 9 or 10 On another rant, we do have some set plays believe it or not... I did not see one play the entire overtime period.. (I guess the very last possession where we threw it to Asik and he gave it to Delfino was planned and a play) Aside from that it was 4 minutes and 50 seconds of complete ISO ball..ahhhhhhh
You can go Small Ball when the opposing bigs are not skilled offensively, and won't punish your size disadvantage....too bad Pau is highly skilled and Dwight is an offensive force when he's goes up against smaller defenders...very poor recognition by McFail
