Local sports fans ALWAYS hate (and I mean severely hate) their head coach during rough times. If McHale won a title the narrative around here probably wouldn't change during any rough times that followed in future years, but the narrative outside of Houston would definitely change... you know why.... because he won. Great coaches are great coaches because they win or have won. Its pretty simple. What good is great strategy, well executed practices, smart substitution patterns, complex play calling, etc. if the team doesn't win? Why would McHale not be considered a good coach if his team wins titles? ... Give me the coach that can't draw up a play but his team wins for him over a coach that can come up with the most elaborate out of bounds play, but never wins a game any day of the week. The Timeline & Texans trajectory (upward, stable, downward) for Kubiak is pretty interesting- -2007 - 2010 - Texans were a rebuilding/mediocre team Kubiak was always brought back -In 2011, the Texans had a record year, make a leap forward (finally) but lost in the Divisional playoffs.... Kubiak was brought back -In 2012, the Texans had a similar year as before, now had Superbowl aspirations(first real year of expected contention), but lost in the divisional playoffs again.... Kubiak was brought back.... -In 2013, the Texans plummeted and Kubiak was fired. ..................... Last year for the Rockets was the first year they made the jump up from being rebuilding/mediocre to legit playoff worthy. The year before we saw a huge upswing in upward trajectory, but it was a complete rebuild year (youngest roster in the NBA). Fortunately for the Rockets, they didn't have to wait 5 years like the Texans did to take an upswing trajectory. -The Problem with Kubiak is the period for which they were bad/rebuilding/mediocre (06 - 10). He had a long time to right the ship, and never was able to get that team into playoff contention until a couple years ago. Its different with NBA basketball, but you can see the parallels in different sports with coaching in relation to trajectories. This next year will be telling for McHale's tenure with the Rockets because now they can be considered an established team (assuming they bring everyone back for the most part & have decent health). Assuming the Rockets continue to improve the roster, this will be similar to the 2012 Texans season where they have now graduated to "expected contention". Professional sports owners are WAAYYY less patient with coaches than fans give them credit for, but they are only slightly more patient than fans. I think its obvious that the progression for the Rockets is on an upward trajectory.... NOT tapering off or declining. Trust me... the moment the Rockets either taper off, or even slightly decline.... its his A#$. Where fans on here are being out of line & delusional is where the Rockets were last year as far as "expected contention" goes. The disappointment of the postseason only came because the Rockets over-performed their expectations at the beginning of the season & fans locally forgot about where they true trajectory is for this team right now. Hell... the way this off-season is going, one might even still classify them as "rebuilding".
Totally not true. The fans had no problem with Adelman here. Our roster was terrible, but the team competed hard every night and played team basketball. It's obvious to everyone Mchale's play calling is terrible. Defensively he's worse. It took 2 playoff games just to make ONE ADJUSTMENT in guarding LMA. He also had no clue on how to guard the last play of the Portland series. The guy is just bad on all levels
It's mixing sports, I know, but... Joe Torre was considered a total buffoon when he was hired by the New York Yankees. The headlines read "Clueless Joe." He was mocked. He was actually a lot like McHale in that players loved him and respected him, but his in game strategy was pretty bad. He was terrible with the bullpen, let his veterans do whatever they wanted, etc. Well he was a terrible manager..and then he wasn't. Why? Because the best team in baseball won 4 world series and Joe Torre was the manager. Suddenly he was a great manager! Then the Yankees didn't win again the rest of his time there, including some pretty bad underachieving seasons, and he was mocked again. He ended in LA and had some of the same problems and two flameouts in the playoffs later he was retired. He has 4 WS rings. Is he a great manager?
Yes, a few fans complained when Adelman was here. Some fans got mad when JVG was here. The current coach led this team with the home HA to a playoff loss of the six game series when all other teams went to the seven game series in the West, it is a pretty embarrassing for me, but others maybe ok, it is really up to them if they think it is ok to lose the first round with the two superstars. But I think Les just wants to keep him for another year because he is a nice person to work with the team GM and owner, then see what will happen in next year.
That's not true. He went to TT in Game 1, but Asik got into immediate foul trouble and had to sit. Dwight was in foul trouble too. That's why Jones was on him most of the game. In Game 2 he went to it really early. This time Asik guarded him the entire game and played pretty solid D, but Aldridge wouldn't miss from midrange. In Game 3 McHale said F it and started Asik since Jones was giving them nothing. So basically, STFU. I would also like to point out that he played a rookie with like 14 seconds of NBA experience in meaningful minutes. That shows an awful lot of trust in his players and willingness to adjust based on how guys are performing. I have issues with the teams performance in end of quarter/game situations and I think McHale is to blame for his fair share of that, but the McHale hate on this site is overblown.
Judging a coach based on regular season record is fool's gold for the most part. You can get by on talent alone in the regular season. Come playoff time, while talent is crucial to winning, so is coaching. You know small things like the right gameplans for each player, right rotations, right player substitutions, right plays etc. These things can be overlooked in the regular season over a span of 82 games where talent will eventually come through. Now let's look at post season. Rockets bombed out in game 6 to Portland in the first round of the playoffs despite adding the best center in the game without having to lose any significant pieces. Was it all due to bad coaching? Not entirely, but for the most part it was a coaching deficiency. Rockets have the 2nd best coach in almost every game that they play. That is zero improvement from bombing out in the first round in 6 games to OKC the year before without Dwight.
I didn't respond to this in the other post. I'm still not sure where to put the brunt of the blame on this. We know that Harden called for Parsons and Bev to switch. Was that what McHale had ordered from the sideline? Did Harden change it on the court? It's either Harden's fault for not listening or McHale's fault for not making it perfectly clear who was on who. I'm inclined to blame both. What I do know is that whatever McHale told them to do they didn't execute.
Judging the regular season alone is fools gold, but compiling the entire year, where they were before, etc. and judging trajectory as a whole is not fools gold. The Rockets are very much in an upward trajectory from where they were 2 years ago. You can't sample out moments in the regular season (IE beating up on the Bucks or Sixers) just as much as you can't sample out one moment in the postseason (Parsons clearly being told "NO THREES", and Bev/Parsons switch late to let a 3 slip) to tell the whole story. If you compile the 2013/14 season as a whole, look at the 2 seasons before, and look at the projected (TBD) expectations for 2014/15, the Rockets are still in a upward trajectory and are going to be expected to take another step forward. If they taper off or decline, that's when you see changes typically in pro sports. Dont kill the messenger please. I dont love McHale anymore than you do, but Im also trying to not be ignorant about how fans want moves to be made based on emotional responses & ignore logic right in front of their faces.
Uh, no. Here's the actual gameflow of minutes on/off the floor. Game 1 (loss) ... http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20140420&game=PORHOU Let's assume Asik had foul trouble and couldn't guard LMA. Game 2 (loss) ... http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20140423&game=PORHOU Asik did not start and did not guard LMA for the 1st half of the first quarter. He rested about the same time as LMA in the 2nd quarter. He did not start the 3rd quarter and did not guard LMA for the first half of the 3rd quarter. And Asik guarded LMA for part of the 4th quarter. Compare those with game 3 (win). http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20140425&game=HOUPOR Asik started and guarded LMA the entire first half of the first quarter. He guarded LMA almost the entire time LMA was on the floor in the 2nd quarter. He guarded LMA the first 7:45 of the 3rd quarter. He sat for most of the 4th quarter (and the team went -9) but still won in overtime. Asik was not guarding LMA nearly as much as he should have in game 2. And clearly should have started in game 1 or been subbed in MUCH earlier to guard LMA (who had 5 rebounds and 4 points before Asik was even put on the floor) as soon as it became apparent that LMA was just shooting OVER TJones and wrecking us on the boards. Acting like McHale suddenly recognized the mismatch and adjusted quickly is revisionist at best.
Exactly. Are we even as Houston Rockets fans going to sit back and say that Rudy T was the games greatest strategist that ever graced an NBA bench? I love Rudy T, and should forever be a legend, but lets not kid ourselves here about how he coached his way to a championship. At the end of the day he was a great fit for Hakeem, Clyde, Horry, etc. I'm not trying to campaign for McHale as much as I'm trying to explain the idea that the Rockets aren't basing his employment with the Rockets on how elaborate his out of bounds plays are, or how well the guy can run shuttle drills in practice. If the Rockets feel like he's a good fit for getting maximum performance out of the stars & supporting players & the team is in an upward trajectory, in that situation you just aren't going to see many coaches in pro sports get fired in that scenario unless there is bad blood.... which in this case with so much support from the players its tough to see that ever being the case (bad blood). By all accounts Rockets fans should be rooting for him to not get fired next year too because that means the Rockets are still in an upward trajectory and didn't taper off/decline in 2014/15.
I never said he started Asik in game 2. I said he went to TT early (5 minutes in, and we led most of the 1st 5 min) and frequently and when Asik was on the floor he was the primary defender on Aldridge. When Asik was not on the floor, Howard was the primary defender on him (actually, thinking on it, those first couple possessions in the 1st quarter he was guarded by someone different each time. I think they were getting crossed on the way down the court. But as the game continued it was obvious they intended to have Howard or Asik on him at all times) There were very few possessions where Jones was the primary defender on him by design. In Game 1 he went to it like 7 minutes in. You can argue till your face turns blue that he should have gone to it earlier, but it's a moot point. We didn't lose because of the 1st quarter. We lost because of the 4th. And that had nothing to do with Asik's substitution patterns. He absolutely recognized the mismatch and went to a lineup, TT, that we seldom used during the season due to it's spacing issues.
They had Mchale mic'd up the whole timeout. He had no clue what he was talking about. In a situation with .09 seconds, you wanna face guard the 3pt shooters to make it harder for the shooter to get to his sweet spot. Also the guy guarding the inbound play (T.Jones) should've been ready to help off on whoever gets the ball. Insread, Jones was playing the inbounder which gave Lillard WAY TOO cushion. It was a fail on all levels. Also the fact Parsons was guarding Lillard speaks for itself. Mchale's possibly the worst coach I've ever seen
Additionally, saying they should have scrapped the game plan from Game 1 is ridiculous. We were in absolute control of that game the entire time up until 3 minutes left. If Howard hits a couple of those free throws or if they don't hit every 3 they take we win that game. Going in with the same strategy, except hoping Asik doesn't pick up 3 fouls in 3 minutes, seemed like a pretty sound idea. Jones continuing to struggle in Game 2 is what made it obvious that he needed a reduced role.
Not to get off on a tangent, but I don't think Rudy gets enough credit as an X's and O's coach. I'm not saying he's Jack Ramsey or John Wooden, but he did basically invent the inside/outside game that won us 2 championships and was pretty much copied by all other teams with decent post players/outside shooters.
I'd like to hear that audio as I've never heard it. I would also point out that those recordings *always* cut out the actual X's and O's. Having Jones on the inbounder wasn't a bad decision. Jones shading towards the paint instead of up top was the issue. I feel pretty certain that his failure there is on him, not McHale. He's not the smartest of players... Ehh..I can take or leave this. Parsons has better length. So in a situation with .9 seconds you wouldn't expect them to get an open look (d'oh), so his length would be useful. That said, I don't think McHale put Parsons on him. I think he put Beverley on him. Harden called them to switch and they did so, seemingly confused. That was what my whole post was about....
Cuban being Cuban. He's so annoying. But I do think he is somewhat targeting McHale by this comment. (just because Cuban knows like everyone else that the Mavs are competing with Rockets and Bulls for Melo and LBJ.)
Fixed Good post. Not to mention NOT ONE effective double team on LMA. How do you not give a player going off like LMA 3-4 different looks until game 3? Even commentators were questioning Mchale lack of adjustments. Mchale's exposed himself that series
They wanted us to double. That's how their team operates. We were trusting that he would come back to earth. He did, just not until Game 3. Honestly, Game 2 was one of the most impressive games I've ever seen. We played mostly solid defense on him the entire time, forcing him into contested mid-range shots. He just nailed them...all of them.
