possibly, but when he specifically mentions "talent" it seems more of a direct shot at McHale. Many would argue that Thibs actually overachieved with the talent on his team, while McHale did the opposite. teams would love to steal Thibs away from the Bulls
I wouldn't. I'm not a fan of McHale, but Thibs' rotations are even worse. He basically just runs 6 or 7 guys into the ground. Sure he's a good defensive coach, but he's not even competent at everything else that goes into being a head coach.
because McHale couldn't have just NOT assigned T-Jones to defend LMA, or he couldn't have just called the timeout himself instead of LETTING Lin dribble the ball.
Yes, people are right to put a lot of that on the coaches, but some of it is on the players. But for people to say that McHale is not capable of getting out of the first round or we need 5 allstars to advance... C'mon. I'm just saying - tone down the dramatics. We were a few plays away from advancing.
**** Dallas. **** Mark Cuban. **** the McHale-haters. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gpih-qL4oyk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The point is that yes, we were a few plays from advancing BECAUSE of the many, many, MANY plays that came in the previous parts of the game because of poor coaching decisions. You think it's a pure coincidence that LMA wrecked the Rockets for games 1 and 2? And that he suddenly cooled down for the rest of the Rockets series and the entire Spurs series? No, it was because McHale put TJones (WAY too short) on LMA and basically gave LMA the equivalent of gym practice shots over, and over, and over. Compare this to Pops who immediately put long bigs on LMA from the first second of game 1. If LMA scores less, the game never comes down to the last couple of plays. If McHale doesn't have Parsons trying to guard Lillard, it never comes down to the last couple of plays. The Blazers had a terrible half court and PnR defense. Yet what do we do when we face the Blazers? Certainly not the PnR or any kind of real passing. If McHale implements actual PnR offense or multiple actions, we don't have to watch repeated terrible isolation shots from Harden. The Blazers said it in post-game... the Rockets ran a one on one, ISO offense all series and it made it EASY for them to defend because they never had to recover on defense. It's also why the Spurs crushed them. http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/i...o_spurs_take_commanding_3-0_lead_of_trai.html The games we lost on a "few" plays were lost LONG before that point. They were lost because we didn't exploit the weaknesses of the Blazers AND we didn't defend them properly. Morey was right... we let the game get to the last few possessions and it becomes a coin flip. A missed shot, a missed rebound, a bad call, a last second misjudgement and suddenly you're at the mercy of luck. Those can ALWAYS happen on any given play no matter how good, how smart, how skilled you are. Chris Paul made a critical turnover that cost them the series against OKC in the closing seconds. Would anyone say he's a bad player because of that? No, it's because the players are Human and anything can happen when you get down to a handful of possessions. If the coach implements smart Defense the game never comes down to the last possessions. If the coach implements smart Offense the game never comes down to the last possessions. Talent is talent, but when you have the talent it's on the Coaching staff to best utilize it. We clearly didn't utilize it. Asik showed in games 3-6 that he can make life hard for Aldridge. Yet it took McHale 96 minutes and 2 losses to figure that out. Statistics and film told us that the Blazers were a poor defensive team against PnR and passing. Yet McHale and company never figured that out. We don't have to pass or defend like the Spurs to beat a team like the Blazers. We just had to make a few smart decisions about match ups and weaknesses. Instead, we played to their strengths and gave them the BEST possible chance to beat us. The games weren't lost in the closing seconds of the games. They were lost from the minute that the ball went up for the tip off with a bad plan. And they stayed lost when the Coaching staff didn't make sufficient adjustments. That doesn't mean that McHale is incapable of getting out of the first round, but he's not making it any easier on the Rockets either.
Look, until the Rockets win a title - they are going to get that kind of hate. Lack of success/titles will be due to not having enough dead-eye shooters, not having a 3rd star, lack of defense, lack of team play/predictable offense, poor FT shooting and not having respectable coaching. It is up to the Rockets to take care of these issues and prove the haters wrong. We have to be good enough to overcome the refs and Kevin McHale in close games/series.
Rick Carlisle is the reason that the Pistons won in 2004, he did all the work and then they hired Larry Brown. Some good coaches are let go without any real reason other than a dumb GM mistake/pride/scapegoat (Mark J, Lionel Hollins) or the team wants to go in a completely different direction, it doesn't mean they thought he was bad. You can say what you want about Rudy, JVG or Adelman. You can say you didn't like them or their system or they just weren't right for the team at certain times, but you can't actually say they were BAD coaches. Mchale is a BAD coach.
You guys do realize that you are arguing about something said by the guy who paid BIG money to Shawn Bradley, Raef LaFrentz and Eric Dampier...
McHale is only here at this punt because we got Howard and that was important to him imo. Another year without advancing past 1st rd and we will see him replaced.
