Why you don't take out Dwight during hack-a-Dwight

In case you didn't notice...the ball movement and offensive flow DID stop after Hack a Howard and it never returned. He missed 4 straight FTs and killed the momentum at the same time. We were rolling and it stopped. Stotts put Wright on Dwight to get him out of the paint anyway. Bottom line is if Dwight made 2 out of 4 he would have stayed in.

 

You have Howard inbound the ball and stay out of bounce to run down the clock. It's that simple.

 

Here's my counter-intuitive advice:

If McHale doesn't decide to sub out Dwight when the Rockets have a lead and the Blazers start going with hack-a-Howard, then he should go with the twin towers. If Dwight is going to be shooting free throws anyway, then we should have our best defensive and best rebounding team out there. Bev should be out there for sure, as well. I'm pretty convinced that this is the way to go.

The question for me is: Should they go for the absolute best defensive team in these circumstances with Garcia and Parsons, thus putting both Lin and Harden on the bench? It might force Stotts to move away from hack-a-Howard, at which point McHale could put Harden back in.

 

I think that is illegal.

 

God after all season I can't believe people still think Howard avoiding FT's is the right move. We were up 9 points before they started fouling, when Dwight missed his last FT, we were still up 7 points, and had the ball on an offensive rebound.

After we pulled Howard, we only scored 2 total points on our next 4 possessions, had we left Howard in and they continued to foul, we would have won that game.

Portland scored on 8 consecutive possessions, that's why we lost our lead, not fouling Howard. McHale panicked and made a stupid decision.

 

he made 2, then missed 4. Then taken out.

2-6 isn't ideal but if he had merely made one more - I don't think he would have been taken out. And further, after he was taken out, the Rockets kept missing shots.

McHale just panicked plain and simple and now it's going to be an issue until he beats it again.

 

Coudn't Dwight just run behind or next to Aldridge? Forcing them to try and chase around him or make Aldridge foul him?

 

I'm with JBar, if Hack-a-Howard ensues we should throw the TT at them. I've never understood why we don't do this against bigger teams in this situation...Pack the paint with defenders/rebounders and throw our best perimeter defenders out there as well.

 

But most importantly LEAVE HOWARD IN THE GAME.

 

We need to acquire DeAndre Jordan and play a TTT - this will have them hacking all game but not scoring ever.

 

I really reallly like this idea. I mean, the entire point of having hack-a-Howard is to kill their offense completely, so naturally, putting in the best defensive players to stop them would be ideal. I just don't think McHale is quick enough to make such moves.

 

One gives confidence and a clear direction to his players...

The other leaves you scratching your head thinking what's the plan...

Doc Rivers & Kevin McHale