Just need to get him some help. We need a guy with the confidence to tell him, "Hey Coach, the Terry-Ariza-Brewer-Jones-Howard lineup is great on defense, but won't score a single point as long as the warriors get back on D." We need to improve the Coaching Roster just like we would the player roster. and just has Harden will develop, so will McHale (i hope).
Then why, exactly, are you posting here? What relevance is it to you if you don't watch basketball anymore? How would you know what he's done or hasn't done?
I'm as big of a McHale hater as there is out there, but even I admitted that he did a pretty great job during the playoffs motivating the team and making opportune rotations. He will never be an x's and o's guy, but more of a big picture guy, and maybe that's good enough to win a chip. During the 1st quarter of game 4, the Rockets had an early big lead and Dwight was confused on a defensive assignment. JVG pointed it out of the telecast and it occurred right before Dwight was substituted out. Dwight went straight to McHale to point out his confusion on where he needed to be on defense and it was quite obvious that McHale had no clue and sent him straight to JBB, the Rockets' defensive guru. I lol'd. I mean, everyone knew McHale isn't the D coordinator, but to be clueless as to the details is beyond ignorant imo, but Morey doesn't care. Morey came from the Celtics who had Doc as the head coach and offensive coordinator and Thibs as the assistant coach and defensive coordinator. You guys remember that championship year, where Thibs was often standing and directing everything from the sidelines on defense (it helped that he had KG directing everything on the court too...damn KG was good that year on D). So Morey is pretty much trying to implement the same thing with the Rockets. JBB is often standing up and directing the defense, and they're ok with it. I personally would like the head coach to be less clueless there, but whatever, I'm not getting paid to make those decisions. My main concern moving forward is wondering who the offensive coordinator is for the Rockets. McHale has sold me on his motivational skills, his substitutions (not perfect, but good enough), and his leadership of the team. They seem to respect him, and that's very important. That said, I don't see McHale as being knowledgeable enough on offense to make important strategic adjustments on the fly. Whereas some teams adjust at half-time, the better ones are adjusting even more frequently. The Rockets show signs that their strategic improvements are coming only from one game to the next. Any avid follower of play breakdowns by Lowe can come to this conclusion. When the Rockets are struggling on particular offensive schemes, it will happen the entire game. What can get better for them is their effort or mixing and matching the floor personnel. That's where McHale has succeeded with in-game management. He's just not one who will adjust strategy on the fly. After watching every playoff post-game interview, you can tell that after losses, there is a confusion there with McHale. Besides the canned answers of rebounding and effort (which are legit problems), he doesn't understand why the ball the sticks. Sometimes it's focus, but other times, the defense of the Warriors presented a different scheme to Harden, and there was a lack of confidence by the Rockets on how to exactly attack. The play would break down, and it would become a trend for most of the game. Unfortunately, McHale doesn't adjust schematically in-game other than pep-talks and maybe a substitution pattern. Maybe we need an offensive guy with the same power as JBB, who seems to have complete control of the defense. If not, are y'all completely confident in McHale as the offensive guru? I've stopped blaming McHale on D when I accepted the fact that he has no control over D. He's done great very many things, but I think in-game offensive strategic adjustments is where he lacks skill as a coach. Are there any such assistant coaches who control the offense or is that generally a head coach's job?
hate McHale as a coach. thought he did a good job in the playoffs. he'll never be an x and o guy. need to hire someone who can recognize what adjustments need to be made. Other than that, I can live with McHale
I dont even think the team really listens to mchale. Getting back on defense/rebounding/moving off ball. Mchale talks about this but you hardly see it in the games consistently.
This. I am one of McHale's biggest hater on this site and yet I must give him props for this play-off run, especially in the elimination game against the Clippers. Down 20 and with barely more than one quarter left, he sat down his first option and somehow managed to conjure an Houdini-like great escape. I am more convinced now that the Rox's problem lies with the short-comings of its players: Harden's game is limited, Howard is a negative on offense, Beverly is not a playmaker and Smith is still r****ded.
Will never win what? A championship? We came pretty close this year with a flawed and injured team. A better coach would have helped but Gregg Popovich couldn't have squeezed much more out of this talent.
Of course not --> not really an offense. Needs to add some playmakers, but we don't have offense sometimes.. the biggest droughts.
Some of you are talking like McHale won Game 6 vs the Clippers for us. Yeah, he made a semi-gutsy call (the way Harden was playing and how he was once again checked out, it probably wasn't as gutsy as some of y'all think), but the players were still the ones on the court playing basketball. Now we all know it wasn't some x-o's clinic orchestrated by McHale that brought us back in the game - it was J.Smoove and Brewer who got in some freelance rhythm. The recurring problem is, the team is not ready to play every night. The team unravels and loses poise SO quickly and easily. I have truly never, ever seen anything like it. Most games you know the exact moment when the team quits. I will never forget, in game 6 vs the Clips, when we were only down ELEVEN and we started the quit - it was when Harden shoved Griffin. I was speechless. The team lacks discipline - the same nonchalant turnovers game after game after game. All this, to me, is McHale's responsibility, who does not seem to control the x-o's (which is also a problem). I don't think we ever really felt this way with, say, Adelman. I still wonder what Adelman would be able to do with this team... man.
i think most people are giving McHale a pass for what "he did in the playoffs". The guy really didn't do much other than the obvious. Sure we can give him kudos for sitting Harden, but it's an easy call in that scenario for me. Particularly because guys were playing magical on BOTH ends of the floor. and it was literally everbody on court. It'd be different if it were one end/there was a missing link to that magical run. also, i think one of the greatest blunders in history is to start jason terry and play both he/prigioni so many minutes. The fact that we acquired Brewer/Josh shoudl have put is in the position to flex lineups as needed, even despite the injuries. I believe McHale more or less badly mis-managed the potential lineups. I would have started Harden, Brewer, Ariza, Josh, Dwight Harden is the 1 on offense, Brewer/Ariza guard the 1 on defense. Josh is a defensive cog and DOES NOT isolate against a team's best scorer (Draymond Green). Plus having Brewer/Josh help create transition on defense, and that's where those guys excel. They both can hit the naked wide open 3. Just not the contested skittish-ly shot 3. With Jet/Prig out there, you essentially can never pressure their best player. its like we do everything backwards. There's definitely worse coaches out there than Kev, but with the talent this roster had, he failed miserably imo. The warriors were beatable
That's insane. Pop would have our team IQ increase exponentially. Not really sure what guys are analyzing when they watch these games. We easily have the dumbest team IQ...maybe ever, in the playoffs. We got by off talent and having a ton of bargain deal contracts. As it stands, we won't be able to keep all of the value on our roster. Wait until the books open for free agency and see. Some of these guys might go to another decent team and look like a different player.
How the hell was it an easy call? Had this move back-fired, people would have been on his case again, pointing out his ineptitude and he would probably have been fired on the spot. Also, the Roxs came into the match against GSW greatly overmatched at the guard positions. They are just incapable of defending the GSW 1st and 2nd options. There is not much McSuccess could have done about it since he did not have the requisite personel and would somehow had to have figured out the GSW offense which is something that no one has been able to do this season. The Rockets team is littered with low IQ players who are often forced into situations they are not comfortable with. Also Harden's limited skillset has been once again exposed. Banking on drawing fouls and sinking long step-back twos is not a sustainable strategy. The guy should develop a post-game and try to imitate Curry's off the ball play to make the game esier for himself.
BMD posted this in another thread, and i'm sure a lot of us have seen it before but it might be a good time to review the rockets playbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLXWsHGeAyQD7A5Vk8zLEA-j3oLlJ-4OYH&v=7gMxGTNw3UU These are plays from the last 3 years or so. Some of them are more "Sets" where the ballhandler forces the issue and the Rockets players react to how the defense counters. Some of these are pretty specific plays. I don't remember seeing "Rockets Wheel" much at all this season. I like going through these just to remind myself, Yes we can be an effective offense, because sometimes it really is 4 dudes watching Harden. McHale does have a playbook and it is effective. Somehow he has got to get these guys to execute and trust these plays. For whatever reason, the closer a game gets, the less of these we see. If the other team's defense is playing well, it may make players gun shy. The one thing I will grudgingly give the Warriors credit for is they run their offense no matter what. People talk about needing guys who aren't afraid to take the last shot but this team needs players who aren't afraid to make the last pass. To run a Set with time ticking down and make an accurate pass. So which of these sets do you think is most effective? I'd like to see the Wheel, as it gets Harden moving off the ball.
I am one of McHale's biggest haters on this site and I will never give him props for the playoff run. All the credit goes to the players. The buffoon instills zero team discipline.
McHale will coach Houston for the rest of his career. We aint kickin him, we didn't kick him when he had stretches of horrible coaching, we extended him first time we had a better run.
