My transciption, CP: X is a problem, how do you fix it? KM: Yes, X is a problem. We need to stop doing X. CP: But how? KM: Just got to player harder and try harder to stop doing X.
Designing plays? Look, if we're spreading the floor with 4 shooters the plays will happen. We don't need play design when we are playing one big and 4 shooters. We do need some play design when we are playing 2 bigs together and I thought the coaching staff did a pretty good job coming up with that short, tight pick-and-roll with Dwight/Harden basically starting at the FT line. That's a good play for the double big lineup with Omer just going to the glass to clean up junk or trailing the play inside and finishing when needed. I don't know if I could come up with anything better than that really with the 2 big lineup. My basic idea was run the PnR with Dwight/Harden and have Omer baseline weakside and if his defender cheated to help the PnR, Omer could just go to the glass and clean up. We're going to be more offensively limited with the TTs. I've never denied that. But I don't see any more offensive limitations with TT than with Jones and one of Howard/Asik. McHale pretty much said it. Portland has and will play Omer and Jones the same way defensively. They'll gladly let them have the ball on the perimeter and let them fire away. But we simply have to have the TTs out there when Portland goes with their TTs. Until Portland dumps one of their bigs. And then as soon as Portland goes small...we've got to go small. No sense in bringing Jones in. That's essentially the same thing as a TT lineup except less effective defense and rebounding. I see 2 things that need to be done as far as matchups go that haven't been done yet that I have felt should have been done by game 1. 1. When we play TTs against Portland's TTs we have to have a short hook on Parsons. Parsons was 4 for 18 the first 3 games of the series from 3. Portland is giving him the 3-ball. If he is off, gotta yank him and go with TroyD early with the TTs. It's more important than normal that we get gunners out there with the TTs, guys that can race up and down the floor and pull the trigger fast from 3. That's Troy D. 2. As soon as Portland pulls one of their starting bigs, we've got to pull one of ours and go with our small-ball lineups, not with Jones. Gotta get 4 shooters out there as soon as possible. Not lollygag around with our TTs or by subbing in Jones. I see one strategic adjustment that we need to make on the perimeter. We've got to guard the 3-point line tight and force their perimeter guys to drive especially when we are in the TTs lineup. Now I realize this creates more pressure on the TTs and puts them at risk for more foul count. But Portland is having it way too easy on the perimeter, getting switches of Harden onto Lillard or Batum and then Lillard and Batum just burning us up. I say overplay the 3-point line and the passing lanes and make those guys drive into the paint and have to face Dwight.
The thing is that it's not an easily guardable thing. It's only a problem because they are able to pack the paint with their bigs. By overplaying Harden to the left they are giving up the right side but even if he goes by Matthews the big guys are sitting right there. OKC did the same type thing by having Ibaka camp in the lane and then as soon as Harden put the ball on the floor another big (Durant or Collinson) dropped down into the lane to help cut him off. The other thing that packing the paint does is allows Harden's defender to mainly concentrate on guarding the 3 point shot. They can press up on him and not really worry about getting beat on a drive because there's so much help behind them. That's exactly how Sefolosha did last year. Sefolosha was always playing Harden to shoot the 3 and when he got beat Ibaka and the 2nd big had the responsibility to stop the drive. If a team is going to dedicate that many players to stopping Harden then unless he gets fast break points or he gets really hot from the outside it's going to be difficult for him to consistently score. The trade off when you skew your defense like that is that you are opening up other opportunities but so far we haven't taken enough advantage of those opportunities to where Portland has to abandon the strategy.
It feels like the answer is Troy Daniels in the TT lineup with Harden/Beverly. And Troy Daniels in the DH+4 smalls lineup with Parsons/Harden/Beverly. MOAR Shooting!
McHale actually praised TJ yesterday on the show with CP. He said G4 is the best game TJ played in the playoff. TJ needs to dominate T-Rob when LMA will go to the bench. And if Asik will be in foul trouble, don't be surprised that McHale will be going back to TJ and just put him on Lopez.
I'm not fundamentally opposed to the idea that good offense comes from the players. I mean it's true. We're not talking about football here. But even with that, there needs to be A LOT more coaching input. Say you have your offense fundamentally bogged down to (i) pick and roll, and (ii) post-ups. Well, for one, there needs to be at least SOME movement off that, which there appears to be little. Second, on PnRs, which Portland has actually done a good job on, I think there are more and better ways to initiate it. I actually saw a play early in the series (I think Game 2) - which may have been just luck since I had never seen it before or since - where effectively you had a mini-triangle run on the wing with Howard/Harden/the point... and the end result was that by the time Harden got the ball on the wing, his defender had already been run off a pick, and was then immediately trying to fight through another quick pick by Dwight, and it was a much more effective pick and roll play. On the whole, the Rockets do none of this. Instead it is do a half-post to James on the high wing, where he is being draped, knowing it will be a clear-out pick and roll with Howard. The defenders know its coming, have made life difficult already, and can communicate easily and be prepared for what is seemingly much slower pick and roll action. It works sometimes, sure... but the coaching staff has done NOTHING to make things easier. I disagree. This is the playoffs. So for one, most teams, at least in the West, will be able to defend you similarly. That's why it's happened twice in a row now. Nobody was claiming the Blazers had great defense, or great big defenders, before this series. or great defensive wings, Batum aside. But they have decent enough bigs, and a GAMEPLAN. The GAMEPLAN is what is hurting Harden's game. Would it help if the Rockets were shooting three's better? Absolutely. Bev missed multiple short corner three's in game 4. Etc. But what would also help is if your superstar was just as capable, or even close, going to the right, as he is to the left. Because in the exact same situation to the left, I know Harden would be scoring more, getting fouled more, etc. Not a ton more, no.. but more, even with Bev and others shooting the same way from three. We saw a play in Game 4 where they were guarding him to the left so much that he finally was able to just do a simple drive right, for a wide open layup from the wing which he actually finished with his right hand. The issue is he's barely getting to go left, because of how they're defending him. Clearly better shooting helps. Clearly he's still creating mini-opportunities when he is getting by a man via pick and roll or otherwise and causing a second defender to pick him up. But clearly he is also more limited to the right than I had hoped, and the Blazers are picking on this, and the fact that the rest of the Rockets squad is what it is, to make life difficult on James. So yes, it can be alleviated. But it hasn't, and that's a credit to the Blazers defensive forcing the Rockets into their weaknesses. They are having the right players taking the shots. It's the NBA, you can't take away everything. I'm just saying I'd like Harden to be a much more willing and confident, and successful scorer and playmaker going right.
Not really saying much, wish they would've asked about Garcia and or Casspi as well. So no D-Mo, there you have it.
Rockets offense is working very well. Portland is not playing good defense against the Rockets. Portland's offense is absolutely destroying the Rockets defense. So far, the Rockets defense has been the worst playoff defense since 2009 in terms of allowing scoring per possession.
Plenty of things that the team can work on. One problem they have had is that they are just missing 3 point shots so Portland doesn't have to worry as much when they were packing the paint. The team should be more decisive in moving the ball to the open man and live with the make or miss and maybe that gives you some better chances but a part of it is just guys missing more of the same shots than they normally do. It seems that the Rockets kept on having possessions where a guy would drive into two defenders in the paint and either would lose the ball or throw up a wild shot. This happened with Harden a lot but also with Lin, Parsons and Beverley. Too often the drives start with stationary 1-on-5 situations or a straight up pick and roll with no action preceding it. Portland, on the other hand, seems to have guys coming free off screens and other actions for open Js often. Maybe it's McHale drawing the plays or players executing or not executing the plays correctly, but it looks like the Rockets ball-handlers are consistently expending more energy trying generate their shots.
Fair point... except it gets seemingly a lot worse in the clutch. And Harden hasn't been effective. But good point. Issues #1-10 should be defensive. But #11 -20 you could argue should be crunch time offense.... when but for some lucky bounces, it's generally been bad.
The starters are playing too many minutes and are gas in the 4th qtr. The defense drops and offense suffers also.
Offense has been fine in the overtimes. 4th quarters have been troubling, but oddly, the really bad defense still drops off more than the offense in the 4th. This series has sent 3 games to overtimes so a small change here or there could have changed the series. It is tough to win 3 straight though.
so basically, the 4Q collapse is due to 1- their ball penetrate and pop and 2- our ball doesn't penetrate and doesn't pop. :grin: I don't know how much we can do about 1, maybe improve our defense a bit there. But we certainly can do something about 2.
Wow i knew the Blazers were scoring a lot and not surprisingly as they were one of the top offensive teams in the league this year and the Rockets one of the worst perimeter defense (amongst playoff teams), but I had no idea it was at record levels. Aside from Hardens struggles offensively, this is the biggest reason they are trailing 3-1. Jalen Rose made an interesting comment last week about how, the Blazers main perimeter player Batum/Mathews/Liliard were able to certain extent either lock down/defend or contain the rockets players, while James, Parsons and Beverly were not. This despite Liliard being one of the worst defensive pgs in the league and Harden being one of the best offensive sg. To prolong the series, the Rockets are either going to need Harden to dominate offensively OR they lock down the Liliard/Mathews and Batum defensively.
Morey maybe but most likely not McHale. But I did this McHale one. Spoiler Biggest takeaway from last couple nights? Happy with most of our play. Ball got stagnant at times, you have a lot of new guys. Trying to figure out our lineup, get everyone out there and trying to keep James and Dwight, at least one of those, on the floor at all times. We worked hard on our defense in camp, trying to improve that area. Overall, it's been good. More positives than negatives all camp long. Lakers & Jazz will be held in low regard around the NBA but beginning with both on the road, do you grade yourself on a curve or 2-0 is 2-0? It's all relative to who you're playing in some aspect. To go on the road, I figured we'd get a good Kobe and a good Lakers effort and we were able to handle them easily. Last night, we were a little tired. Got in at 3:30 after playing LA. Then we had a really good stretch. They didn't score much, we extended the game, got a healthy lead and walked it in. A lot of room to improve. Not a finished product by no means. Big picture from the end of last season to this, was there something that you said we want to do this differently, we want to do this better? We wanted to rebound the ball a lot better. We wanted to get tougher. Those were 2 areas. Last year's team, we played well, won 54 games but when the game got nastier & more physical, I didn't feel we responded well. Trying to get more aggressive in that aspect, a lot more aggressive defensively, trying to get our body on people and playing with more physicality. As the transactions played out, in the area of toughness and digging in to people, at the point of the Ariza acquisition, did you say "Ahh eureka, this is the kind of guy I'm thinking of."? Trevor Ariza will be that type of guy. He doesn't need the ball to help you win games. Shoots it well, understands spacing, plays very hard defensively, gets his hand on a lot of balls. A very good player. There was no guarantee we were getting Trevor. Getting him was huge. Behind getting him being huge was getting Kostas over from Greece. A lot of our young guys will be good players but they're young. ... Trevor knows who he is and is comfortable with who he is. Last year, we had a bunch of guys trying to establish themselves, contract issues, we had a lot of stuff going on. When you have so much stuff going on individually, it's hard to be a great teammate and a great team because you're looking through your own personal lens, not through the huge team's lens, which is the most important if you want to win. Dwight Howard DPOY-caliber guy, now Ariza, Pat Beverley was 2nd team all defense. Elephant in the room James Harden, was there a heart-to-heart conversation with him? Yeah, we talked about it. We talked a lot about it last year. He knows he has to get better. He's been better, he's worked hard at it. Last year we asked him to do a lot. He said that "There were times I was tired". I said "You'll be tired this year too." There's a lot of responsibility. Doesn't mean you don't have to defend or can't be diligent on that end. He understands that. He's up for the challenge. Solid work for Jason Terry the first two nights. How optimistic over the long haul? He'll adjust. Obvious concern is keeping his minutes to a point where he can stay healthy, play back to backs and if he needs time off in season, I hope we give him the time off to rest, not that we've injured him or he's played too long. He's a smart player. Great in the locker room, not afraid to call guys out. That's huge on a team. That shows a young guy you can be a good teammate and disagree with a teammate, you can be a good teammate by calling them out, you can be a better teammate by demanding more of them. I think all those things are real positives. LeBron back with the Cavs. Amused he says the Bulls are way better? They're gonna be very, very good. Any team with LeBron will be a contender. You add Love and Irving and their supporting cast, I'm a big Anderson Varejao fan, plays hard; Tristan Thompson is out there and gets after it. They'll be a very good team. Blatt is a very good coach. When I was GMing in Minnesota, I used to go spend some time with Blatt and watch his teams play and I like a lot of his offense, similar to what we run in Houston, open offense and read and react. As the transactions occurred, was there one or two that you said "Hmm, that's interesting" or "That makes it more challenging."? Western Conference summer, attention grabber for you? LeBron going back, Love, if we couldn't get him, I'm glad he went to the East. For us, I was hoping we were able to land a top guy out there. We gave up Asik and Lin and didn't match Chandler. They played well for us last year. I know 'em, we were comfortable with them. Other teams, the fact Isaiah Thomas got signed to a big contract in Phoenix. There were some different things. In this business, you only really worry about yourself. Very seldom do I care about what other teams are doing. In the moment, when you first caught LeBron was leaving, did you think "Yes, have Bosh, matching Chandler, loaded and ready to roll!" Was the train in the tunnel or until ink is dry... Having been a GM, nothing is done until is done. I thought it sure was shaping up that way. That shaping up thing stopped pretty quickly when I talked to Chris. Nice kid. I talked to him on the phone, after I hung up, I said to Daryl "What's plan B? He's not coming." I could tell by talking to him he was going back to Miami. I was like "Oh boy!" We had Carmelo in. I don't think anyone had a chance to even talk to LeBron. Thought LeBron going back would shake things up but didn't shake things up the way we wanted to. The raw talent of Carmelo is awesome. Would there have been a serious concern fitting another score-first mentality guy? Good problem or a problem? First thing you say is all three guys, if he came, all three would have to change their game some. There still is only one ball. All three would have to change some. You have a guy you can give the ball to late in the clock, get a shot, iso at the elbow, pretty good decision-maker with the ball so he gives you a lot of options offensively. For us, he had played some four, spread the floor. He's strong enough, rebounded well enough. There was a lot of potential to do a lot of different things with him but that never happened either. There's a lot of stuff you can talk about you wished happened but didn't. Terrence Jones, is he leaner or cut or the evolution of a professional? Is he sleeker? He's a little stronger. ... It's the 2nd and 3rd year jump you have. If you don't have a big jump in your 2nd or 3rd year, you are who you are. We talked about a big jump. Part of it was getting stronger. Part of it was what he can and can't do in the NBA. To Terrence's credit, last night he struggled a majority of the game. I was getting ready to go with Pap in the 4th Q but Terrence clicked in the 4th Q. ... Tarik Black, long shot entering, here he is. He's your backup big right now. He's played as well or better than anyone else in camp. As camp went on, you said with his energy, excitement, willingness to learn, ability to rebound , kept catching your eye. He deserves those minutes. He's excited and learning and I think he'll get better. Great attitude about the game and getting better. Happy for him, a dream come true. He's so excited about everything. Fun to be around him. Makes you realize how fun this job is and what a blessing it is to play NBA basketball. Sometimes you take it all for granted. http://www.sports790.com/media/podc...portstalk790-spotlight-kevin-mchale-25503653/ <iframe width="670" height="377" scrolling="no" src="https://media.iheart.com/player/embed.html?autoStart=false&useFullScreen=true&mid=25503653&siteid=589&startButtonColor=0xA33335&share=http://www.sports790.com/media/podcast-sportstalk790-spotlight-790interviews/sportstalk790-spotlight-kevin-mchale-25503653/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" ></iframe>
McHale: He's definitely talking about Parsons here. We heard rumblings of this from Dwight after the Portland series, and now it appears McHale is validating those concerns. McHale is basically saying, in no uncertain terms: Ariza this year >>> Parsons last year Both on the court (i.e. knows who he is) and off the court (i.e. not playing for new contract) perspective. Again, it looks like Cuban's spitefulness played right into Morey's hands.
