For someone who's so into analytics, it's odd that you only glance at other people's posts. Roxxy and LosPollosHermanos' arguments surround 3 issues: fatigue/minutes played, youth, inexperience. Jeremy Lin is 23 and a 2nd/3rd year point guard playing ~30mpg. It's not exactly a huge list of players who fit the bill for comparison here. In fact, there are so few players who may fit the bill that roxxy himself had to use centers and shooting guards to "rebuff" my list. Yeah, young PGs who play 30+mpg generally are high lottery picks who need to carry their teams' offenses. I mean, do you want me to post players like Patrick Beverley on there?
Hahaha. I'm not following McHale's logic here either. Last game he emptied the warrens with the rationale that the youngins needed experience. Left unstated may be that he was also considering resting our starters because our schedule has gotten quite compact. But then he plays Harden 40 minutes when he's just back from nursing nagging injuries and plays Garcia 13 minutes when he done exceptionally well in the last two games and was doing fine in the court time he did receive.
Last time the Rockets were 9 games over .500 was back in April 2009. Amazing that this team(youngest & most inexperienced in the league) is doing this on their first season together. And already playoff bound! As controversial as coach McHale is, look at his starters.. Jeremy Lin (undrafted) James Harden (6th man last year) Chandler Parsons (2nd rounder) Greg Smith (undrafted) Omer Asik (2nd rounder) That starting 5 and our roster as a whole, being as young as they are, could've easily been a lottery bound team.
Liked McHale's coaching and subs in general tonight, but really, 40 minutes for Harden again? When he went down on the drive mid-game I was thinking we're pretty darn lucky. What happened to limited minutes and easing him back into the line up?
This speaks to the job the G.M. has done not the coach. In my opinion we have a top five player in the league. If we had just an above average coach we would be fighting for the third seed at worst.
Easy there. OKC, Spurs, Clippers, Denver, Memphis have squads that have played with each other for a while now. The Lakers hilariously sour season should be enough evidence that team chemistry is a crucial element and that it isn't built over a single off-season.
another loss due to mchale taking too long to insert some starters back in after the bench did its job of bringing the team back. this was dallas road loss all over again. mchale is the worst at calling a timeout to try to stop momentum. i cant count how many times the rockets are reeling from a huge run by the opposing team yet mchale refuses to call a timeout. whether its losing the lead or the deficit growing larger and larger, mchale takes forever to call a timeout. its the complete opposite of great coaches like pop or rick carlisle who are quick to call a timeout when they dont like how the tide is going. you cant phil jackson the youngest team in the nba. you have to stop the bleeding with a timeout and refocus the team. what worries me is that this type of strategic timeouts are essential in the playoffs and its one of mchale's bigges weaknesses.
McHale has this urge to always match other teams substitutions in order to keep himself from looking like a fool. There was no reason for us to play small ball to match them. We had a lineup of Lin, Harden, Beverly, Parsons and Delfino in the end. Smfh. And then we were struggling to rebound.
Back to back games McHale needs to expand his rotation and give guys rest. Maddening that the Rockets suck so bad on B2B situations, one would think Morey would have informed KM. DD
I agree that McHale hasn't been a perfect coach this season, and has had some growing pains along with the young players. However, you can't put this loss on McHale one bit. You can nit pick all you want but the stats show that the lineup with Delfino at the 4 was one of the Rockets best lineups last night, and every time they made a run to get back in the game, he was a big part of that. Also, the starters were just sucking completely last night. I had no problem staying with Delfino, Beverly, and Jones late in the game since those guys seemed to be giving a decent effort. Even Lin, as good offensively he was last night, was having major issues staying on Dragic. Then there was Harden.... man. As great as he has been this season, this was probably one of if not the worst game of his career. -On a positive note, Asik actually got some decent rest last night. He's logged a ton of minutes this season, and the Rockets can't afford for him to break down at this point of the season. I was sort of glad that McHale went ahead and called a spade a spade and gave him some of the rest he needs. Anyways, last night was just complete suckage any way you look at it. McHale shouldn't shoulder all of the blame, just as he isn't going to get credit for all of their 45 wins this season.
One of the WORST coached game i have seen in quite a while. To have top 2 scoring option sit for majority of the 4th quarter is no excuse.
Interesting you say that. You're one of the few I've seen that actually wanted him out there. It was just an all around bad game. Players and coaches are both to blame. I wouldn't put too much stock into it. Just one of those nights...
I was fine with when I thought he gave up, then at the end when it got close again, he threw them back into the fire and really didn't do anything. The fact that he removed our two most experienced and effective big men to try to match up to the other team's playing style does concern me. But I honestly would fire McHale if he didn't get to game 6 or 7 of the first round so I am not exactly one of his supporters. That being said, sadly even if he got swept, I wouldn't be surprised if he came back for another season short of resigning himself.
