You're just being ridiculous now 6th man, and clearly trolling. DD has pointed out the 15 point lead with 1:50 left. That should have been enough to shut you up, but you can't hurt yourself. Clearly pulling starters with a 17 point lead with 4 minutes had no bearing on how close it got with 21 seconds left. The decision resulted in Dallas gaining 2 points in a little over a 2 minute stretch. So it appears your new argument is that starters should have been re-inserted with a 15 point lead and a 1:50 left. You're Rgumens has clearly been discredited and this thread should be locked.
It is a pattern of his coaching style. I am not critizing him for deciding to make some substitutions and get our guys some rest for a b2b, but rather that he decision of when to do it, the group that he subbed in not being a fluent group on the floor, and that he has a pattern of bad substitution and rotation patterns from the past two years as well. So it's an ongoing concern for me. I love the Rockets as a team and organization more than I do McHale or the MOF crowd. I am not afraid to debate with you guys.
Man, I can't believe how much time I've wafted in this troll thread. Ok, enough. I'm done, you win 6th man.
Its pretty clear that a 17 point lead with 4 minute remaining is very difficult to come back from. Now, the Mavs did cut it down to 5 with 21 seconds left (which was unlikely in itself), but you have to understand that even at that point the game is still heavily in the favor of the team who is up. Using the NBA comeback difficulty metric described here: comeback difficulty = (LEAD - 3) / sqrt(TIME), where you add 0.5 to LEAD if the team has possession and take away 0.5 if the team does not have possession. So, for a 5 point lead, with the ball, and 21 seconds left, the comeback difficulty is 4.2. That is still a comfortable lead, in terms of likelihood of winning. It is roughly equivalent to a lead of 17-18 points with 12 minutes to go. You may not think that sounds right, because you can remember multiple games where a team was down 5 with less than 24 seconds and came back to win. But such games are obviously more memorable. What about the thousands of games where a team has a 5 point lead with 21 seconds left and wins?
You support my point to me. The complete starters should have not been subbed until under two minutes to go with at least a 15 point lead. If you want to slow the game down with some starters in, you play slow half court ball with your starters, or most of them in, until the game is secured. The point shows that 4 minutes is way to early to sub out all starters completely if they cut 15 points in under two minutes.
So let's look at what went on. Rockets had a big lead with less than 4 minutes in the game. - Harden had played 39 minutes after having back problems earlier; - Dwight's minutes are still monitored (I hope); - Lin looked pretty beat up; - Omer had fouled out; - Parsons had played more than 35 minutes, and wasn't playing that great; - Casspi had rolled his ankle; - first night of a back-to-back. So you could maybe argue about not leaving Lin in, and Garcia, I guess. But overall, it seemed a pretty logical decision to me.
I'm not making a point that you are more likely to lose a game if you are up by 5 points with 21 seconds to go, that would be crazy. Obviously if you are the one with the lead, you have a higher probability of winning the game. The point is that you COULD LOSE the game, so you should do everything possible and reasonable to insure that you win if possible.
Lmao. Ok man. Re-read my post. I can't tell if this is a troll reply or if you seriously lack comprehension abilities.
This is exactly what I have been arguing if you have read the entire thread and not just my opening post.
I guess most us, including the GM's who voted him 3rd best in substitution patterns disagree with your assessment of him. Sometimes, hate will blind you from the truth. You can discuss this issue till it's 500 pages long but if everybody seems to disagree with you, there comes a point that it might be wise to reasses your views to see if your being biased.
You must be Johnnycomelately, because I have clearly stated that that's not what I was suggesting. I have also clearly stated that I AGREED with McHale's decision to pull Howard and Harden for rest for the next game.
I haven't read any GM's views about him being 3rd best in substitution patterns, but I believe there was a thread on here that stated most GMs don't view him as a top coach. I didn't read that one either. Nevertheless, many members on Clutchfans had written about it in numerous threads, stating clearly that his substitution and rotation patterns have not been the best in many of our eyes over the past two years.
Its not simply that you are more likely to win. You are heavily more likely to win (again, its like a team being up by 17-18 points with a quarter to go). But as I said, having Lin and Garcia in there you still could lose the game, so you haven't yet ensured a win. You've merely shifted the probabilities to a very small degree. I mean, when you already have like a 99% chance of winning, there isn't much added benefit to increasing that to 99.4% or whatever. Heck, even if you could ensure a win, there still isn't that much benefit in the grand scheme of things in going from 99% to 100% in a single game. Plus, as others have mentioned, McHale still had the option of putting in some regulars if the lead really was in danger of being lost. We never quite reached that point.
I can only suggest that you do read it. It's not one GM but all of them voted and he was rated 8th best of all the coaches overall and toP 3 in substitutions. Nobody, including me is saying he is one of the best coaches but he is also not as bad as you portray him to be.
Let me sum up my points for those of you who view this thread now and don't want to read through all of the pages to get all the points: 1) Is 3:58 seconds left in a game with a 17 point lead enough of a cushion to sub out all of your starters for your entire bench because you feel comfortable about the win as a coach? (My opinion in today's NBA, NO) 2) Is it a good time to sub out your superstars and give them some rest since they have played high minutes, you have some injuries and you have b2b, plus 4 games in 5 nights schedule? (My opinion is absolutely, as long as you leave in someone to lead the bench players to protect the lead so that the game doesn't get in jeopardy) 3) Was substituting in Brooks, Brewer, DMo, Jones and Smith as a complete unit all at once for Lin, Garcia, Harden, Parsons and Howard a bad decision by McHale because of timing and fit? (IMHO...absolutely yes and it almost cost us a WIN, although it didn't) 4) Does McHale have a history of questionable substitution and rotation patterns? (IMHO, yes. Many on this forum think so as well as evidenced by the number of threads and posts discussing this over the last 2 years.) 5) Are many in this thread butt hurt over my questioning of McHale's substitution pattern, especially since we won the game anyway? (Yes, seems like a new crowd of MOFs have developed so that he can't even be questioned as long as we win the game)
