If there was illness or injury, I think there would be commentary about it either in the postgame or in the paper's write-up. That there's nothing said implies to me he was benched for dogging it. I'd be surprised if he's dropped from the rotation just like that though. We'll see what happens to his minutes in NYC.
This is what the Rockets annoucers speculated. However, it wasn't 100% confirmed. McHale does have a history of inventing line ups on the fly to try and match the other team. He needs to impose his style of game play, instead of trying to catch up to the other teams.
why howard still in? I don't know how many posters on this board have the same view on howard's team defense as mine. I think asik has better team defense than howard.
I'm going to pretend to be McHale for a second. Howard in the game can punish the other team on offense for going small. Asik in the game will only be a liability on defense. That's still no reason to just give up on Asik though. Let him post up a few times. Try and get the offensive boards. At least try to slow the game down instead of giving up and going to small ball to match.
Kind of weird that Asik wasnt in the game when Howard was sitting. He couldve set some screens when we struggled on offense. He screens much better than any one else on the team.
Trades Asik already no use having 2 BIG guys that stuff the lane and get fouled on the other end an miss their free throws, Let jones continue to grow and Trade ( Long shot trade) Asik, Brooks, Brewer for Jeff Green and Draft pick or somtihng... just trade him.
i hope someone can come up data to see how his offense contribution is divided. i wonder what scoring % is from posting him and how many pts were made through not posting him. the good thing about asik is he knows what he can do and can't do. it's reason he focuses on defense and on offense rebound.
I don't get this idea that a coach shouldn't react to what the other team is doing. That's just stubbornness. The TT style of game play has generally sucked. It is clearly a lineup that would only work for particular matchups.
Philly doesn't have any big men outside of the pseudo big man in Hawes so Asik would be ineffective because he doesn't command double teams in the post like Howard. But the writing is on the wall. Asik is going to be trade, especially if T Jones keeps plays so well and could spot some center minutes when we go extra small. If we trade Asik though I would like to get a for sure backup center, along with another piece. We need to keep our size for bigger teams.
I didn't pay attention to their lineup during the game, but if Hawes played the center position, all 5 players of the other team could shoot from beyond the arc.
NYC is a pretty horrible match-up for Asik. They don't really even play a real center. Even under normal circumstances, we might not expect him to have major minutes. Maybe McHale actually chose this back-to-back to let Jones keep getting some burn, because Asik wouldn't get much anyhow. Lowry is a cancer in your dreams!
Obviously guys, he played 4 minutes and demanded a trade from the bench. That is why we did not see him in the game when Howard was out too.
I wonder how Kyle Lowry would work on this team. On one hand, he could be the "Bob Sura" personality that this team can use-- a tough guy who would just take charge when needed. On the other hand, he might tell Dwight and Harden to go **** themselves. Would love to see him on a better team, though. He is rather underused on that Raptors team when all they do is run isos for Gay and DeRozan a million times a game.
