Good interview....also agree with morey in regards to lowe's comments. He tends to jump to conclusions based upon very small sample size.
Both he and his boss Simmons. Simmons, for example, still can't get over Houston's bad loss vs. the Clippers because he saw that game in person. But to be fair, these guys have content to produce and the first 10, 11 games is all they have to go on with this team as currently constructed. We can't honestly ask ESPN, SI and all the other media to wait at least 30 games into the NBA season before they start writing this kind of pieces. Also, I think Lowe's article specifically put in the caveat that the analysis is based on an early sample and things can change as the season goes on. Besides, it's not like Lowe and other media commentators, and even we fans here, don't do the same with other teams. We are all pretty ready to bury the Knicks, Nets and Jazz, for example even though the season is only 10, 11 games old.
By saying "Lucky me", it sounds like he's saying the meetings weren't that fun so I'd guess that be Asik and Dmo's agents.
On my way to work this morning I was listening to 790, got a chance to catch some guy that works for the rockets joe blanc (probably got name wrong, someone can edit) was on a phone interview to discuss the mavs lost 790 - MANNNNNNNNNNN this one really hurt joe Joe – yes it did rockets played a solid 3 quarters of basketball looked promising and showed what kind of team they could be, I went back and watched film I have a good breakdown on what happened. 790 – Howard looked great in the post went 11-11 to start Joe – yes if you are a rockets fan you should be very happy with what you saw from howard his post moves have really improved, the potential is there for him to be dominate, he tied yao’s record 11-11 to start a game. He was cold in 4th lack of touches and sat for a while early. 790 – So how did things look in the film breakdown? Joe – well we looked like a team coming off a back to back that was gelling right in front of our eyes. We looked great with ball movement and parsons and howard chemistry showed it has developed. Joe – in the 4th we went away from everything we did the first 3 quarters, the ball got sticky we stopped playing hot potatoes, most of this was because of harden ISOs, yes it helps run the clock down but it also gets other players out of there rhythm on offense. We went from looking to push the ball and score to ISOs. Harden would run clock down but pass to someone with a few seconds left. Joe- monta and dirk are some great players they didn’t let up, montas midrange game is great, dirk shot was falling the whole 4th even if it looked like it wouldn’t go in he would get a roll. Joe – rick made adjustments with the zone defense in the 4th but we could’ve still beaten that system. We just stopped moving the ball. No matter how much they practice going against a zone defense in practice, it doesn’t matter if you’re not going to move the ball in the game. Hopefully they will look at things and make adjustments. 790 – I think it should have been more of parsons in the 4th less harden Joe- well I’m not going to say that, I just say we should have kept pushing and kept the ball moving how it was in the first 3 quarters.
"More Parsons, less Harden." "Well, you won't catch those words coming out of my mouth, but..." It's a problem. When you're the station that plays the team's games, you throttle back on your criticism. Blank has a working relationship with these people; and the dudes in the studio don't want to push away the players, coaches, GM who give occasional on-air interviews. It was like that time Morey showed up on 610 right after that station lost / gave up the Rockets. (And why not give up the Rockets? 85% of their audience seems to be Caucasian red-meat-eating football-lovers "what's-basketball?" dudes anyway.) Morey made an offhand joke about the questions not being tough and Innes went full-on lice-ridden pus-ball mode on him, which wouldn't have happened if the Rockets were still on 610. 790 had McHale on yesterday afternoon. I kept aching to hear some less-softball questions but knew it wouldn't happen: "Why do you ride Harden into the ground?" "Why do you enable Harden's hero ball when it clearly isn't working?" "Why do you hate Jeremy Lin so much?" ( That's for you, LOF'ers.) "Why do you only play Terrence Jones or Dmo when someone's holding a sharp knife to your nuts?" "Did you reeeeeeeeaally think Asik and Howard could play well together and, if so, what are you smoking? And if it's good stuff, don't Bogart it; pass it, man, pass it!" "Why don't you hold your players accountable?" "Why isn't Morey holding you accountable?" "Why isn't Les holding Morey accountable for not holding you accountable for not holding the players accountable?" God love him, you could tell from the interview and the don't-upset-him couching of questions that McHale knows a lot of basketball. He just doesn't know how to coach at a high level.
The fact that multiple people starting with McHale keep pointing to the "Ball getting sticky" and "we went away from what we had been doing" as the reason why the lost the game scares me. Are we just going to not pay attention to the fact that they had something like a 10 point lead with 4 minutes to go and they let the Mavs score on 12 CONSECUTIVE possessions? But no, its offense that is the problem. I know this team has mostly offensive minded players, but this is exactly what got Adelman fired essentially... Completely giving up any hope of your team playing defense and just trying to outscore everyone. Its not championship basketball, and is a huge problem if that's the only takeaway the coaches & surrounding people can think of as to why they lost that game, and the Lakers game, and the Clippers game. Have fun winning 45 games again.
Yea, Parsons was on fire in the 2nd half so he definitely should have been getting the ball in the 4th quarter... Lol...
Reading between the lines, he is hinting that the rockets have a poblem with harden's isos as when harden isos the ball doesnt move, and gets sticky. However working for the rockets, i gues he didn't really hammer on the issue as it would taint his relationship with harden.
You should know by now... "Ball got sticky" is Rocketspeak for... James Harden dribbled the ball for 18s before taking a contested jumper with 2 defenders next to him despite 2 other players being open. or James Harden dribbled the ball for 21s before passing the ball to a bewildered Parsons/Lin/Beverley/<insert player here>.
I've been saying for the longest. OUR OFFENSE IS GIMMICK! We will NEVER sniff championship if we don't have a go to shot in close games. Until Harden can develop a reliable mid-range pull-up, expect to lose more close games. Heck, Paul George did it this summer. Why can't you, Harden?
Lol.... i know. He has been Kobe-ish at times, problem is he can't make up for his missed shots.on defense the way a prime kobe could. Harden, i think, could be an even greater player once he realizes that the game should come to him instead of him forcing it. If he does that and starts to play defense insstead of lazy poke steal attempts when his man blows by him i think we will be scary.
I am still perplexed why we are not playing better defense. Before the season started, I was pretty sure we would be a top 8 defense the league. I mean, how hard is it for the perimeters players to stay with their man if you have the best defensive big man in the league??? Those dudes need to understand, Howard needs no help on the defensive side, just worry about the perimeter. I still have high hopes that they will fix this soon.
