Harden needs to sit or play better. Mchale needs to get his team in check and demand some ****ing effort.
I'm laughing so hard at those fools going "Trade Lin trade lin Bev and Brooks can replace him we don't need him". When Harden is having a off day like today they have no one to go to. All our starters are pretty much inconsistent so far this season except for Parson and Lin. If Harden doesn't show up in the 2nd half this game is over.
This is just a guess, but I think the reason that Harden is struggling is that he needs a 2nd facilitator on the floor with him to either take advantage of the defense collapsing on him as well as to take pressure off him. Parsons and Lin basically serve multiple roles on the team. They not only score, but more importantly they drive and look to pass which forces the defense to distort to cover them. AB is a good scorer, but he doesn't look to facilitate that often. When he drives, he's usually looking to score. Beverley is a defender, but he's not a high threat scorer, nor does he look to facilitate very often. So what the Phoenix defense is doing, is they're super-loading on Harden, driving him to his weak hand, and forming a wall of 2-3 defenders any time he even thinks of driving. Harden can pass it out, but the other players aren't strong enough in terms of offensive facilitation to really exploit the gaps. Casspi and Garcia can drive and shoot, but they're not so dangerous that defenses can't cover them. Dwight doesn't create for himself. And Tjones is pretty much reliant on others creating looks for him by forcing mismatches or passes for wide open jumpers. Anyway, just some thoughts from Utah and the first half of this game.
We also need an authoritative coach who will stick it to Haren and tell him to play D or bench his ass. McHale is too much of a coward and "players' coach" to make that happen to the detriment of this team
Whadya mean he's not playing hard enough? He's playing too hard but not smart enough. He's getting all out of sorts. Bickerstaff repeated what the coaches told him. Catch the ball and make a decisive move. Coaches are keeping him in so he can learn to adjust. I would want the other players to make plays on their own, but naah, they keep giving it to Harden. So either others step up or we win or lose with Harden. Not too bad of a choice if this will help him and us in the long run.
can someone please tell me when it is OK to be upset? Rockets don't seem to be playing with any effort on both sides of the ball, but there is always an excuse why fans need to "get a grip" yes there are thee valuable players out of the line up BUT Rockets still have 2 of the top players in the league playing.
Is harden the star player or is Lin? Shouldn't harden be doing things to make it easier on other players?
for sure. What's worse is not only is Tucker locking him down, he's still got another left in the tank at the other end to drop 11 points 4 assists!
Brightside is Bev is locking Dragic down Gogi just 3-6 with a two wack steals. Bev doing pretty good. 1-5 2pts but his assists, Rebs and hustle are giving the Phoenix backcourt fits. Bev is killin the glass.
By the way, Morey will treat all these games as data to see what other kinds of players we need on the team.
