if the coach hadn't made a bevy of poor decisions leading to the squandering of yet another 11pt 4th Q lead, an omer asik pick at the f'n arc wouldn't even be at issue. this is like a drunk driver blaming the guy he just ran over for walking to close to the edge of the sidewalk
Sad fact is McHale was hired because he was a great player. Given what's happened in his personal life recently, the only way the Rockets and he part is if he quits, his contract runs out, or he moves into the front office.
wow just watched the game, why would you bench your one hot player for so long and lose your lead completely! Surely by the 5 point mark that would be enough!!
not impressed with this coaching staff. horrible substitution patterns. iso, iso, iso. playing harden way too many minutes. benching lin and asik during critical times. not using time-outs wisely. this is a young team that needs guidance and they are not getting it from this coaching staff.
today when McHale pulled Lin out in the 4th when we were up by i think 9 pts WHILE he had the hot hand....is another prime example of coaching at its finest
In the 4 minutes Lin was out, the Rockets scored at an 8-point quarter pace while the Spurs scored at a 40-point quarter pace. Talk about a game-killing substitution at a critical juncture of the game. I think McHale's biggest failure, though, is his apparent sarcastic use of Toney Ouglas to get back at management after not getting the Shaun Livingston as he wanted. I think that, ultimately, is what's going to end McHale's tenure with HOU.
It's not just that. There have been plenty of epic fails on McFail's part this season (the overuse of Harden, the misuse of Lin, the bizarre substitution patterns, the lack of any kind of coherent game strategy, the routinely botched out-of-timeout plays, etc, etc, etc).
A very select few perhaps, but not even remotely close to all. For one thing, Adelman didn't even have Toney "Team Killah" Ouglas to sarcastically overplay.
It's obvious that Rockets are great offensively, considering their youthfulness. Our problem it's in the defense. The more McHale is infatuated with how to run our offense, the more our defense woes. 4th quarter against Mavs a few days ago was a perfect example. How can McHale improve our defense? Accountability! When McHale sees any player lacks the defensive effort, bench him. The same rule should apply for EVERY player on this team. No double standard. All great defensive coaches do it. Pop does it all the time. JVG did it. This is the only way Rockets can play like a team, win like a team, and lose like a team. This will make every player feel like an important part of the team. Why didn't McHale or Sampson apply this simple principle? Actually they did during the latter part of preseason. They best way to solve this is by reducing Harden's minutes. This will also prolong Harden's career. When Harden or anyone else's defense lacks the effort, it usually means he is conserving his energy for offense and understanbly so. Take him out and rest him! There is no excuse whatsoever for any lackluster effort from any of our player. Why hasn't McHale or Sampson figure this out? Only logical answer is they are star-struck ever since we landed Harden. None of them had coached a player like Harden (McHale had Al Jeffereson and rookie Love). They must be feeling like a nerd going on a date with a supermodel. Give our young players the accountability and responsibility, and our players will grow as a team.
Elite coaches like Pop and Phil Jackson have the balls to do this. McHale doesn't. He'll just move Harden to play another man and have a better defender take his place. The best thing about Lin's struggle so far is that he's improving his spot-up shooting. He's been forced to if he wants to play. The same thing needs to happen to Harden. Harden needs to be benched if he's not playing the defense he needs to be instead of being moved off to another man. He'll never learn that way. It's the only way Harden is going to improve his defense and get his status up there with the likes of Kobe and Lebron.
Yeah you have find a lot of mistakes with coaching and understandably so, no coach is free of mistakes they're only human and human makes mistakes all the time... If a player makes 50% of his shoots he s considered a good shooter isnt he? Then why coaching isnt allowed the same % of mistakes? On the other hand the most of the players are developing beautifully under this coaching... i wonder whether that would be case under other coaches?
They do apply accountability, just not consistently: Their accountability is hopelessly skewed by their confirmation bias. Asik is out for 5 minutes for every defensive mistake he makes, while Uglas makes 15 blatant defensive mistakes and plays for 40 minutes. That is the Paul Westphal way and there is no faster way to lose the respect of your players.
Yeah Lin fu**** up the last play in regulation but let's face it if it wasn't for his play all game long we wouldn't have been in positon to win. We probably would have been destroyed. Lot more relevant to point out other things that need to be improved such as defense and Delfino's 2-12 shooting.
