The Benching of James Harden by the Coach Kevin McHale

battom line is, the clippers play better team defense and the rockets is not.

 

Meh, it was one game, and he was probably hungover after going out in his hometown. Chalk it up to some immaturity, learn from it, and move on. It's a long season, and it's better to have these experiences early in the season rather than later. I'm glad McHale made no bones about the benching, and was up front about the whole thing. Harden is still young, and his prone to mistakes like this. Let's not make it bigger than it needs to be. Luckily for the entire team, there's a game tonight where they can get last night out of their minds quickly.

 

A good decision by Coach Kevin McHale. Everybody needs to earn his minutes.

 

Where is he getting a pass?

 

Yeah harden, played badly but he wasn't the only one on the team that played bad. Rockets gotta get better defensively on the perimeter. But it's a long season Rockets will get better. Rockets were in LA, Harden is from LA, maybe he had too much homecoming fun the night before the game?

But on to harden, this is what pisses me off about harden, this guy is really talented but he doesn't seem apply himself to the fullest of his abilities. He just seems really lazy sometimes, on offense and defense. Not moving on offense, iso's 1v1 showoff (like a pick up game at the park/gym), no hustle, doesn't play defense unless he is match up against a marquee star. (and no im not saying this just because of 1 clipper game, been saying this since last season)

 

The Blazers are playing well. It will not be an easy out.

 

Did McHale criticize Harden's defense, or effort, or anything at all about his terrible play? Harden is the star of the team, the coaches won't dare to say a thing bad about him, that's the life of NBA, a star run league.

So just don't bring up this "coach is fair to everyone" crap.

 

It's more than just lazy. Harden was literally losing his man time and again, without being screened off or being crossed over.

Check this video...

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NIyiEc1741s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

From 0:42 onward, you can literally see Harden completely losing track of his man multiple times. Riddick abused him silly, and it wasn't because Riddick is the 2nd coming of Steph Curry.

This wasn't great Clippers offense on those plays, just fundamental defensive errors.

Not watching his man, poor stance, bad court positional awareness, losing his guy in traffic, cutting the wrong way around other players, standing flat footed and not even attempting to close out on his man.

All the basics they drill into you in High School, but somehow completely absent last night.

This isn't something you fix easily. Some players have a defensive mindset and desire, some don't. And it's not something you can just turn on/off. This is going to take a lot of work both in terms of Harden and the Coaching staff.

I really hope they start addressing this, otherwise we're going to be playing 4 on 5 on the defensive end every time we run into a competent team.

 

No, you do not want to reward a player that is not giving 100% effort, especially one that is 24 years old and capable of getting 30 points a game. This is about something bigger than a game against the Clippers. You have a very talented, young player testing his boundaries and McHale needs to step in and stop it. Luckily McHale tried the same thing as a player, and has worked with a number of talented players and knows when to step in.

 

yeah, its a star run league...who goes first (fired/traded) the coach or stars like howard, harden? the coach.

Last season, I can see Mchale gets really frustrated in Harden's play, especially what he calls "sticky ball" but he knows this is harden's team. Tough position for the coach when he wants the ball to move, and the star of the team is doing the opposite.

 

Does McHale seem like a person that would suck up to anyone? There was an implicit rebuke of Harden in the fourth quarter. I feel sure the explicit rebuke occurred shortly after the game.

 

The moment I saw Harden chucking shots up is the moment I thought McHale wouldn't bring him back in. He just made little boneheaded mistakes. One instance I can recall was chucking up a 3 early in the clock when he should've held the ball for the last shot in the 3rd, instead he missed it and it led to 2 points for the Clips before the end of the period.

 

His ankle was sprained and knee was jerked...and he was still ridden by mchale like crazy...if harden got injured like Rose, our season is pretty much over...I hope him to rest until he is 100 percent. We need him to be healthy!

 

Because the Rockets showed a lack of effort and urgency.

 

Someone mentioned and I have to concur, Harden probably partied too hard last night in his hometown and didn't show up to play. (paraphrasing)

You can see these games where he's lethargic and dead-legged in the first half and later usually rights the listing ship.

Today it didn't happen.

Granted, McHale plays him too many minutes, and Harden had twisted his ankle the game before.

But Harden seriously needs to focus on what is important. The team is trying to build something big. The young-man-have-fun routine will bring down the team.

McHale probably won't say anything to Harden: "Gosh, jeepers, I mean, can I get you a snow cone? Would that help?"

Make pit bull Sampson talk to him: "Maybe J.J. Redick can be on the All Star team instead of you. 26 points. 26 points!"

Pile on, tell me it's just his ankle, that I'm making something out of nothing.

 

Harden was pathetic last night on the defensive end. I have to think it is the ankle.

I am actually surprised that ankle injury didn't keep him out a few games. It looked bad at the time.

I thought Lin and Parsons were also not good last night though. We just have to commit to being a better defensive team than that. I really think Josh Smith could have worked nicely on this team.

 

Credit Coach McHale for sending a message to his star and the rest of the team that bad plays won't be rewarded with playing time. This will be huge to hold each player accountable.

McHale was clearly outcoached by Doc Rivers whose main strategy was to attack Harden's lack of D to rattle him off on the offensive end. McHale should also counter by attacking CP3 aggressively with Lin and AB so he'd also be less comfortable on the offensive end.

That's okay. Hope coaches and players learn from this lesson and devise a counter strategy on the revenge game on Nov 9.

 

Listening to 610 and they just made a good point. You rarely hear about other elite players not giving a full effort, whether they are having an off game or not. To much is given, much is required. If you have been anointed a top ten player in this league, there is no excuse for you to be going out there giving the effort like Harden did. Like they just said on the radio, they'll just be first round fodder if Harden, one of their best players, has issues of effort. I'm thankful Harden is here and he was the catalyst to bring this team back into contention, but his play last night really bothered me. He better come bare minimum with a MUCH better effort tonight. If he doesn't, if I was McHale, Harden wouldn't see the floor for most of the game. Unacceptable.

 

I don't like benching strategy. if really need to bench one of core players, you need to do earlier. at the end, you still need to insert him back to try to win. when within 9 pts in 4th qt, harden should be inserted back.