You should watch the game before ranting. That same line-up who lost in the 4th quarter was the same one who brought us back in the game after being down big in the first one. Toney Douglas did manage to slow down Mayo after he scored around 16 points in the first qtr alone, if the other team's best player is hot, you better put your best defensive option on him, Douglas was that option. I think Chandler Parsons needs to be called out because he's been a bad defender overall this year. If you look at the open 3 dagger that Mayo hit it was Parsons who was supposed to switch to him because Carter was illegally screening Douglas. Something similar happened earlier when Toney got screened and Parsons was supposed to switch and stop Mayo's momentum, instead, he played matador and Mayo got an easy lay-up. Now I don't want to pick on Chandler in particular because this is a team-wide problem, but with Harden as your designated coasting bad defender, we can't afford to have another one.
fair enough but Mayo dropped 16 again in the 4th so obviously he made adjustments if he did indeed get slowed down by TD, and not fatigue. McHale did not. I seriously doubt TD is our best defender, he runs around a lot but I don't see him being a disruptive force on D. The only offense that he disrupts is ours (more of an indictment on the lazy and inept coaching staff that prefers the "eff it just give it to Harden and pray" offense over anything else, especially when TD is in)
Just to follow up, if our perimeter D is so bad, WHY THE HELL DO WE TAKE OUT OUR BEST INTERIOR DEFENDER?!?!?
I always wondered why did Houston fired Rick Adelman for Mchale? Rick was easily a great coach and his motion offense would really help this current team right now... But so far, our coaching staff only offense is for Harden to bring the ball up, play ISO basketball and everyone else just stands at the 3 point line..
Mayo torched Harden in the first quarter for 16 and he did the same to Douglas in the 4th. McHale's answer was benching his best rebounder and interior defender. Hmmm.... That's some kind of commitment to defense by having Asik defend the bench.
I'm not saying Douglas is a defensive stopper, he made his mistakes, I'm just saying that if you had watched the game, you would have seen that he was the best option because he's the more active perimeter defender and was doing a decent job of staying in front of him while not giving too much in size. Others? You can imagine how Harden would have done on him -he only got him on switches-, Delfino couldn't even make a decent challenge, and Chandler got lit up by pull up jumpers and didn't get any help when he was screened. As for Asik, you have a legit question there. I have a feeling he might be hurting or something because he has not been as effective the last three games. Sampson once said that Omer would play through anything.
I don't have to imagine, he dropped 16 on Harden in the 1st right? and then 16 on Douglas. So exactly what did Douglas contribute that couldn't be replicated by Harden? all I know is that almost every night, there will be a good perimeter scorer on the opposing team. If the coaching staff values Douglas so much for his eyetest D, then just bench Lin and start Toney. I'd rather get the lottery pick anyway
Yes!! Same thing happened last year When our lineup is being effective, the other team adjusts to counter. And we don't react to those changes. On top of that, these guys are already tired, yet they're left in, in hopes that they will somehow regain the effectiveness they had, prior.
Feel the same frustrations as OP. TD is not a great defender. He just looks active because he hitches up his shorts and waves his arms around a lot. He can hit a three from time to time though. For some reason, the coaching staff has decided he's Tony Allen. What disturbing is that McHale decided 6 mins into the game that the only thing he was going to plan around tonight was stubbornly trying to stop Mayo with TD. It completely messed up the rotation, messed up the offense, played to none of our strengths, and eventually lost the war and the battle. Mayo was not slown down by TD. McHale said in his postgame int that they had no ball movement in the fourth and that the offense was stagnant. Could it be because of the two guys that can run the offense, one was exhausted and hobbled and the other was on the bench? TD is not a horrible basketball player, but he is not a good PG. Coach needs to see the bigger picture. Also, the whole team needs to play better defense. Generally, it seems they're being coached to funnel everything to the shot blockers (Asik), but if he's not in there, the defense looks terrible.
Apparently not enough to send a clear message because this team does not play defense. You can never stop a superstar one on one in NBA but you can devise a system to minimize the damage. I am sure our highly paid coaching staff knows that. So let's do this.
