The most gut-wrenching stat of these 4 games is:

I keep asking myself that. The staff definitely goes over film, thats what your paid to do. Stats, film replays with your players, going over different situations, set plays...but its like you watch this team and all I can hear in my head is Parsons saying "free-flowing offense", over and over. Even Bill f****** Simmons is getting in on the "Wtf is Mchale doing" bandwagon.

 

shows that Rockets can't turn up their defense up another level when the other team turns it up. they seem lost when a run happens.

 

I just don't understand how it can be this difficult to run standard offensive plays. Is it that hard to run pick-and-rolls with either Dwight or Asik for Harden or Lin or Parsons? They just leave those guys on the perimeter for 20 seconds dribbling the ball. Is it that difficult to drive into the paint, kick it out to the three point line, and find the open man? I never saw that once in the 4th quarter last night. Is it that difficult for Dwight to kick the ball out to a shooter at the three point line when he posts up? Apparently cuz I swear I never saw him do that once. Dude's a black hole when he gets that ball.

 

First principle of basketball: every time the ball moves the defense has to reset. The Rockets don't seem to understand this on either end.

 

Then you hear in post game..."The ball got sticky". I want to throw my remote at Mchale when I hear this crap. Thats his standard response: "play harder, the ball got sticky, not enough movement". After timeouts in close games and we break out with...nothing. No sets...nothing. And we all wonder why Coach Stotts seems like the better coach.

 

Both Mchale and Lin are idiots. Mchale first blames Sampson not being here the excuse he can't get Harden to play hard on D. Now he is saying he told Lin and the rest of the team to call time out on a defensive rebound in a 104 to 102 situation... idiot you call a F - in timeout!!! Run on the F - in floor if you have to!!!

 

Thing about this is...it's been consistent with our team under the McHale era. We are finally seeing it kill us in urgent times. We also blew a lead in the game6 vs okc last year too.

We run end to end our scoring teams, then late in game look clueless in halfcourt offense while the other team turns our misses and turnovers into a run

 

Just sign snipers if you want to shoot threes all day. At least we can set screens to get our shooters open from three and that is a much better shot.

Why don't we set off-ball screens for Daniels to shoot threes? It is not much different than spotting up. Is it really not his game?

 

I think these blown leads can be attributed to pace/style of play/lack of lockdown D/poor coaching and motivation.
One blown late game situation is on the players. Game after game of blown late game situations is on the coach.

 

Most of those games should NEVER have come down to the final minutes.

Lack of a defensive game plan let LMA go off for 40+ points in games 1 and 2.
Lack of accountability let Harden play NO defense for the entire play off series.
Lack of a game plan put the fate of the series in the hands of the role players instead of on the Coach. If McHale wants a time out THEN CALL ONE.

 

Thats another thing that bothers me, Lin screwed up hard. No doubt about it, but your the god**** coach. RUN ON THE COURT AND CALL TIMEOUT IF YOU HAVE TOO. I've seen other coaches do this all the time if their players dont do it. Its seriously unbelievable, and then he mentions jeremys mistake. Its like you didnt get on parsons, harden or even Pbev for making some stupid mistakes but get on Jeremy on that one possession when you saw right in front of the bench with Mo coming up. Run out on the court and call timeout like every other coach in the league. he should have just done it when Jeremy grabbed it.

 

While that is our biggest weakness, it doesn't speak necessarily to this specific issue.

They apparently can play good enough defense to regularly build decent size leads throughout the game.

The question is what happens in the 4th... down the stretch. It should be noted.. The Blazers also seem to have problems "closing out" games, despite their 3-1 lead. So some player nerves are expected. But this isn't just on the players, or even principally, imo.

This is coaching. There is no other way to look at it. Coaching, coaching, coaching. Coaching involves a lot of things. Some of which McHale actually seems to be pretty good at. He is great with the players. He seems to make wise lineup decisions - be it the Asik insertion, going with Daniels, etc.

But we all know his playcalling is horrific... and now we are seeing how it is both offensively and defensively.

I THINK the biggest defensive change they made was having the big really push that Lillard screen high. And it worked... briefly. But the Blazers were able to make the in-game adjustment that ultimately led to basket after basket.

So McHale has maybe one or two adjustments in him, in between games. He can't adjust on the fly.

But there are plenty of other things you can point to, that speak to coaching. Whatever McHale thinks he told them to do, multiple times now Lin has screwed up an end of regulation scenario where a clear instruction should have been made. Multiple times now it appears that the team isn't even capable of calling timeout before doing a mini-pass to ruin a ball advance opportunity (even if they got lucky on that last night). And others...

Granted, MOST of basketball, as it's been forever, falls on the players. But most of an orchestra is the players as well... a better conductor is a better conductor.

I have long been an coach isn't that important type guy. This comes down to having seen what JVG and Adelman did. Nothing too impressive... and for as awesome as Rudy T. was, it was clear it was just something that clicked with his coaching, that group type thing.

But, there are clearly some coaches that are better than others. This is why you see so many harp on Scott Brooks as a coach. At a certain point you just realize you've got to move on to something better...

 

There is a simple fact that got buried in all the Lin bash the last few games due to his boneheaded mistakes one after another,

which there are still a large amount of people failed to understand Lin's ability to run the Rocket's offense is close to minimum, if not negative.

Throwing up couple lobs to Howard occasionally and driving to the lane when Portland was double teaming Harden for a layup (even missed) does not mean you know how to run the offense.

When the ball was on Lin's hands, bad thing happened more than often in this playoff series.

If you do not believe this, check last night's game, there were 3-4 possesions in a row that Lin was dribbling the ball for no ****ing reason and then passed a weak ass soft lazy lob to harden with 5-6 seconds left, and one time he even passed to Troy with less than 2 seconds left for a bail out.

Look, Bev is never a play making PG and he never will be one. But I guarantee you that he will never have 3-4 possesions in a row like these that you just want to smash your TV right away.

Lin's problem is pretty simple, if he will make couple shots early on, he will be pumped and start making TOV on those stupid no look gambling passes or jump up and look for teammates ones. If de doesn't make these shots early on, then it will be even worse, he will be so afraid to make any mistakes and just totally kill the Rocket's offense if the ball will be on his hands.

As a human being, Lin is a good kid. As a basketball player, its just a tragic story for the Rockets.

 

Lillard 25/8 in 40 min. Way over his season avg.

Bev 11/1 in 40 min., where's the elite defender, shooting 33% from 3


Parson in the 4th Quarter and OT

Game 1=1-8

Game 2 = 2=7

Game 3 =1-5

Game 4 = 0-3

 

It's simple OP.

We're a young team that lacks attention to detail.

We lack that killer instinct for whatever reason, and Harden somewhat relaxes once we go up big.

We're the youngest team in the playoffs....this is why you need veterans.

 

That Harden TO on the fast break was the problem in a nutshell.

I knew once he made that awful TO that the Blazers would come back. Like it or not, the moment sometimes gets too big for Harden. He gets frantic and tries to do too much.

 

That's what sucks the most. The potential is there for blowouts in the rockets favor, but they always mess it up. That shows me they are the better team. One game at a time. Gotta somehow win three in a row. Hahaha

 

It's no surprise that we RARELY blew out teams in the regular season.

This team relaxes once they go up by double digits, on defense and on offense.