Those teams started out playing .500 ball the first month or two. And they weren't getting blown out by 20 points every night.
To me the problem is squarely on Harden's shoulders. This team is built around him. The players and the system are build to fit around what Harden does so when he sucks the team isn't going to be that great. He's playing the worst ball ever. Morey built it this way, no good passers on the team other than he and Lawson. It's all on Harden. If he's in a funk the team can have guys like Bev, Ariza and Jones create.
Also, one thing I've always harped on with McHale. Every game, nearly every game we go around 5 minutes of not scoring AT ALL. Even last year we would rarely blow out teams because that drought would always get the other team back in it. It's also why this team that is supposed to be elite gets blown out. Usually when a team is not scoring they have set money plays to fall back on just to keep the scoreboard moving.
<a href="https://imgflip.com/i/lbzec"><img src="https://i.imgflip.com/lbzec.jpg" title="made at imgflip.com"/></a>
You sure do love McHale. He must be your favorite uncle. Anyone else would be able to see that McHale can't coach. I agree with you a bit on Harden, but neither he nor McHale look like their heart is in it.
you just complained about harden's current performance at length in your previous post. but when someone posts about mchale's coaching here you call it 'b****ing'. bias?
For that to happen Harden needs to change. His entire style has to change. Some personnel have to change. We need better passers.
This!! The Cavs played bad in the beginning of last season, but they were a completely new team (differently from the Rockets, which are basically the same team of last year). Then, the Cavs made changes (read FIRED Mike Brown).
b****ing is meant as an example though I'm not advocating to TRADE James Harden or bench him. People want to fire McHale.
Don't disagree. I'm the biggest Harden homer you'll find on this board, he's been a ******* disgrace. I don't know what the problem is, but if he doesn't turn it around quickly, he will be the laughing stock of the league and the Rockets will be struggling to even make the playoffs in the West. Still...you have to have a fallback option. You have to have a gameplan to help you withstand the bad Harden games. McHale is not doing the team any favors. Yep. And a lot of the time the reason we go so long without scoring is because McHale is too stubborn to make proper adjustments.
The Cavs didn't fire a coach last season last I checked. What do you want changed? I want a healthy Dwight, Dmo, Jones and the real James Harden back. Guess what? I can't just wish it to happen. We have problems that McHale can't control.
Seriously, you are about the last poster on the bbs who still is clinging on to some odd notion that Mchale is a championship level coach.
I never said anything about him being championship caliber. I think he's a coach in training, learning on the fly. Doesn't mean he can't coach because guess what? I haven't seen many coaches bench their best player in an elimination game and come back 1-3 to win a series. That garnered some respect and I'm not going to point my finger at him now when the most important player on the team is playing like a bad d-leaguer, his new point guard is playing like a bad rookie and he doesn't know if the second best player will play at any given moment.
In hindsight it's easy to say that the coach made a mistake, but I bet at the beginning of this game people were calling mchale genius for putting thorton in the starting lineup . Before the game even started how many people thought that a team that essentially only has two bigs , both of whom are rookies , would win this game ? The current " problems " with the rockets are lack of health , lack of shooting , lack of chemistry. Generally over the course of a season those things even out , especially when your roster is as talented as ours . If we won the first 3 games by 20 would it be realistic to call us locks for the title ? Hell no ! Those of you that are defining the general state of the rockets right now are either overreacting or idiots . I mean of course it's frustrating to watch , it's even more frustrating not to watch . I didn't catch the second half of this game so I have no idea what went wrong . I can guess it was this , turnovers and we couldn't shoot . The first half of play was exceptionally encouraging given our inexperience with those lineups . It baffles me that people can see the results the rockets have had the last few seasons and call for change . Things look bad because it's at the beginning of the season , if this stretch happened in the doldrums of early December people would chalk it up to just going through a cold strech . Which is exactly correct . But now that it's happened at the beginning of the year people are calling for heads saying that we are unprepared and lazy , that the coach is a moron and that we lack leadership . It's funny how none of these qualities can be measured . I'm going to watch the second half on replay analytically and see if my theory that turnovers and cold shooting caused us to lose . Probably be user of limited ball movement which is a real issue , but should be improved with more games .
the scoring droughts and huge collapses, the unpreparedness and coming out flat for games, late in-game adjustments, the lack of player movement -- these are all problems that have plagued this team in each of the past 4+ seasons mchale has been here. before harden came and before harden became the end-all focal point. at what point does mchale assume even a bit of culpability?
