That's because Strength of Schedule takes opponents into account, and East teams play East teams more than they play West teams. And as a whole, the Eastern Conference is simply not as strong as the Western Conference. There's no conspiracy to make the East easier, if that's what you're hinting at.
McHale is only missing in game adjustments. The key problem I see is he doesn't know how to get the pace back without screwing with the lineup completely. With Pop, you can clearly see that he disrupts the pace with set xs and os to get multiple players going. With McHale, he just substitutes players until he finds the right guys or let players run off on their own and hope for the best. You can clearly see that SPURS players are never affected no matter how far they are behind. But with the Rockets, we start rushing and isos once we fall behind too much. A good set of plays could calm us down and get us back into rhythm. In terms of player relationships and motivation, I'd say he's right up there with them. Hopefully he'll slowly learn to become a coach who knows more than substitution for in game adjustment.
