I gotta put a lot of blame on the coaching staff for James and Chandler's nagging injuries. Their minute management is awful and a bit irresponsible. James' foot. He sits one game (Sixers) and the staff panics with a loss. Plays him 40min+ the next game. James' defense hits an all-time low (I blame the foot for him incapable of guarding a 1 legged chair). Coach finally lets him sit out 3 games. JLin goes goes down so Coach goes back to playing James 40+min. Chandler's back. Always gets milked for 40+min even with a bad back. Finally goes down and team loses. Expect Chandler to play the next game another 45min. Im not expecting the players to play pain-free, but would cutting their minutes a little hurt the team that much? They are getting run to the ground and its gonna do more damage in the long run.
Also why don't Rockets run the PnR with Dwight/Howard more often, or like, every possession ever? It's always good for a Dwight lob or easy Harden drive to the basket. Jazz announcers were surprised they didn't run it every time since it was successful all of the sorry ass 4 or 5 times they tried it!
We've seen that we can survive without Harden and Lin, and the reason is there are more shot opportunities for the other players! This was evident in the MN, Mem, and Hawks wins. There is no reason why Harden and Parsons should have to play 40+ every game.
rep definitely. harden is not ENOUGH of a superstar to get the kobe/lebron/mj treatment where a coach pretty much gives them carte blanche. but mchale basically lets harden do whatever he wants. he let's him get away with poor EFFORT on defense and getting sticky with the ball. getting sticky is just mchale code for i can't talk bad about our superstar. mchale is also letting D12 dictate his game.
Yes. Unless Utah gets back and stops a quick score we should push the pace off of makes and misses all game long. Harden looks like his conditioning still isn't up to par. I expect Dwight to not be able to run all game, but harden is a guard. There was one time in particular, the team had gotten a rebound and everyone else is running...harden stops right before half court and steps in front of the player pushing the ball and calls for it. Instead of running to see if he could be an option for a quick score he **** blocked us. Is harden too lazy to run off screens? Why does his role on offense consist of initiator or stand around and do nothing? Why does he hold the ball out top directing traffic only to do the same tired old crap? We need to get the ball out of his hands more often. He kills the offensive flow. Guys aren't as involved and they all just stand around and watch and hope harden finds then if their man sags off.
Exactly. I can't help but wonder why mchale doesn't open up the rotations some and force harden to move the damn ball and play defense. Hardens defense is disgusting. Does anyone have the balls to get in his ass and play for the team.
Too much stupid. When the stupid gets too thick you get situations like you described above. Obvious things that anyone can see and yet the folks in the know **** the bed.
This will be Hardens role as we have no one remotely close to his ability who can break the defense down.I can see MOrey being active to get a backup SG who can do what James does when he is sitting. That is to be creative and break the defenses down. On defense he might be putrid, but on offense there are only two better players then him.
I probably know which play you are talking about. We were having like three or four of our guys pushing up. Harden was on the left flank as an attacking option, but he strangely slowed down after crossing the half court line, and asked for the ball to play half court. I wasn't sure what was mcfail reaction to it, but to me, is was a bad decision.
McHale's post-game. http://www.csnhouston.com/rockets/mchale-they-played-better-we-did Long story short : We didn't show up to play and let them take the game.
I think this is an excellent analysis of what happened. I'm not taking this so passionately as many others here. These things happen statistically. However, as Torocan put it so well, Harden has to take some of the slack for slowing the game down. The Rockets do not perform well when the tempo declines (I almost wrote: The Rocket doesn't take off). When Parsons is on the floor, he is able to speed it up with Harden on the court with him. Casspi does not, because Harden seems to have something going on with Casspi all the time. Actually the Rockets play their best BB when Parsons, Casspi and Garcia are on the floor together regardless who is the PG and C. That's the fastest Rocket combination. That's the combination that can swing the result 10-15 points to the Rockets in few minutes. Therefore, I really hope Parsons will be back real soon. With him the ball starts to move again. Otherwise McHale has to have a talk with Harden and convince him to move the ball. Fast ball movement is essential for the Rockets 3pt shooting. I was actually a bit surprised that Casspi and Garcia did this well. The tempo needed for their game was not there at all.
Didn't watch the game due to work, so I obviously don't know how we played but from the box scores Harden did alright- 12/22 shooting, 37 pts, 8 assist, 4 TOs. Ok, his 3pt shot could use some improvement, but overall, not horrible enough to be taking all the ***** that some posters are alleging on. Plus, still injured and playing over 43 min? I mean, damn, that's some hustle. At the same time, can't believe that we beat the top 5 team 2 days ago, but lost to this season's whipping boy.
Not blaming Harden but like Dwight said, if your hurting or cannot put your 100% into the game then go rest. So much for being a deep team. Harden still hurt? Parson's periodic muscle spasms. Lin, a constant target practice. Howard hurting... us shooting free-throws. Our decade long window has just been quartered.
It is a deep team, a very deep I would say. When you have a deep team, you should also use it. When someone like TJones is cold, don't do these drastic moves like taking him out of the game altogether. IMO McHale should have tried Dwight-TJones-Casspi-Garcia-Beverley for some 10 min or so. That would have been a bit faster unit to create for Dwight and TJones in the paint. Also defensively this would have been a stronger unit than the one playing the whole 4th quarter.
The level of knee jerk in this thread is crazy haha This is all part of the growing pains of this team since they are so new. A few clunkers to lesser opposition was to be reasonably expected. Should we have lost this game? No. I understand it though. We grow from this, learn from this, and move on so it doesn't happen again. This is stuff I have been saying from the beginning of the season, there will be games like this early on, and frankly, I think that is actually good news. We haven't scratched the surface of what this team is capable of and the best is yet to come. Let's get through the bumps on the road and then we can set our focus for the near future.
I haven't read through the thread but when it comes to Harden, i doubt its his offense/scoring thats the problem.
