Alright, I’ve been on the not trusting MDA yet in the playoffs side for the whole year so this is not a knee-jerk reaction. I actually want to know how people feel about his loyalty and trust in the 8-9 guys he regularly plays? He is obviously a great player’s coach and one of the big positives players mention is how much trust he puts in guys to go out and perform. He lets them shoot, doesn’t get on them for missing or take them out but rather tells them keep shooting and keeps playing them to show faith. So I get why he cannot just yank a guy for shooting poorly after a year or 2 of having a certain relationship with the guys and an understanding that they will have the trust of their coach. That being said, is MDA showing too much faith in a guy like Gordon or even Ryno? At what point do you actually say I’m going to try to play someone else? You think it would hurt the relationship with said player(s)? Would their confidence go down (even more)? How do other coaches do it? In my personal opinion, MDA has every right to try another player if any rotation guy is playing scared or hesitant when they’ve already shown this for a few games in the playoffs already. Of course you talk to them during and after the game and I’m sure Gordon and Ryno have the professionalism and right attitude about it. They’re not feeling good about their contributions and would understand they are playing at the detriment of the team right? They must feel pretty bad about the heir own play and as long as a coach gives them trust for the next game to try again, it couldn’t really hurt to try something else. I remember Rudy T even giving rookies playing time over veterans who were 11-13th guys during the whole season.
What are you actually talking about? Gordon has been great the past 2 years, he was integral all of last season and this regular season too he deserves slack for the off game here and there. Which other guard are you gonna play instead of Gordon? Joe Johnson? Aaron Gray? Even Gerald Green? All of these guys are inferior to Gordon you go with your best players hot or cold. Notice how he couldn't make any shot but was still only -1, he is superior to all our other backups thats why he is on the court. Anderson got all of 9 mins, as a total scrub that is all the mins he deserves. With Luc getting back I wouldn't be surprised and actually hope he falls off the lineup entirely we can't have a hesitant 1 dimensional shooter out there.
Yes, that'll help shooters' confidence. Benching them. We're not beating Golden State without Gordon. Ryno too -- he's our answer to Draymond at C. We need to let these guys work out their issues. This is the team to do it against. Both players you mentioned played like trash and we just smoked the Jazz.
Talk about overreacting, let me put it to you in a straight forward way so you can understand: say MDA pulls Gordon after that little stint there in the 3rd and goes with Green for about 5-6 minutes instead of him. Would that be that bad?? You guys would've not done well during the championship days. Gordon has been stinking the place up for 4/5 out of 6 now.
gotta let EGO play through it. He's a the reigning 6MOTY. I don't agree with continuing to play him during that stretch. I think its worth getting EGO going with 10 as opposed to 20 pt wins doe
Did you check Green's numbers and +- the past two games? He has been playing as bad if not worse than Gordon.
You want to lose or what? The only game the Rox have lost so far is when they played Anderson more than 10 mins. On a night where every big was -7 he was -13 almost twice as bad as everyone was that shows you how many mins he deserves. LOL @ Anderson being the answer to Draymond, check out Draymond's stats in all Houston matchups. He LOVES playing against Anderson because Anderson is a defensive liability. Anderson shouldn't be seeing any PT Capela, Nene, Luc and Tucker should all split mins at PF and C.
This isn't fantasy basketball -- you roll with your strongest lineup and let your stars shoot themselves back into it if they are cold or have the yips.
The problem with some of you guys (including OP) is that you don't want the coach to play anyone who ends up having a bad game. If only it were that easy, to be able to know in advance who's going to be hot one night and who's going to be a little cold.
too much faith in ryno? he barely played. Ryno does seem jaded and ticked off out on the court though.
You have to trust the coach to make the right decisions depending on the game and series situation. Gordon stunk it up today, but they generally had the game in hand for the most part. Who knows what MDA would have done if it were a single digit back and forth game. Kind of like Hinch during the Astros WS run. Giles had a couple of bad outings and Hinch essentially benched him for the rest of the WS. Meanwhile, Springer was awful against the Yankees and struck out 4 times in game 1 of the World Series. Fans were calling for his benching or some lineup switch. Hinch stayed the course and you saw what happened.
You can't bench Gordon, but MDA needs to sit him down and tell him to chill with the long 2's and pull up 3's. That ain't his game.
Dude coached us to 65 wins, the best in the NBA this year, and a 1st-round gentleman's sweep. Yeah, now's the perfect time to want him to change his coaching style.
good coaches make the hard decisions... it shoudnt be anything for MDA (or any coach) to say to a player "you know we highly respect you - but you're not in sync tonight, so I'm gonna change it up and throw this other guy in for a bit..." If you cant do that as a coach... you're a figurehead puppet...
It's plain stupid to suggest benching Gordon because of a few bad games, Gordon is proven. Gerald Green is great in those games where he has it going. That 5/12 against Minny was awesome, the 3/14 (mostly poor shots) while losing his man on defense wasn't very fun to watch in the other games. There's no magic 8 ball for when guys will shoot well.
I disagree about Ryan vs draymond. But not at the 4, and not to start the game. Which does make a difference. Ryan as the small ball 5 against draymond playing the small ball 5 is quite important.
Another way to look at Gordon's streakiness is that he's similar to Harden in that way. If they're both having off-nights, CP3 and some of the others better step up big-time. If EG, Harden and CP3 are all off, we'll probably lose. Then again, if Durant, Curry and Thompson are all having off-nights, the Warriors will probably lose. Good teams can absorb the down phase in a single key player's streak. Bad teams can't.
