I don't know if this was McHale or not, but taking away the pick and roll with Bev going under the screens was smart, I will say.
I watched the Pick and Rolls today While Paul got open shots. . .they seem to make a conscious effort for the two players to box Jordan out Which seemed to help some decent adjustment Rocket River
That's the obvious difference today. In the first half, it worked perfectly. In the 4th Q, it almost killed us. When you win with strategy like that, you are a great coach. When you lose, you are an ass. But one point worth mention, that Doc River did not make any adjustments to this Rockets defensive tactic the whole game is just amazing. Dude is one of the top 5 coaches in the league right?
Because McHale knows the Rockets rebound is so poor and he wants to keep the lob city out and let him take long shots and let everyone fight for the long rebounds. Remember the sound bite in the game? McHale said : guys we need to fight for every 50/50 stuff.
You want to go back and subtract the best player from each coach's team? This whole thread is fantasy, from armchair coaching wannabes.
^^^The only way to make Kevin Mchale look good is to totally bring up irrelevant and incomplete data. The only other way is to say coaching doesn't matter anyway. Kevin Mchale is not a good coach but he is not the only one to blame for how our teams total reliance on James Harden.
I hope you're not implying that McHale is better than our past three Rocket coaches: Rudy T, JVG, or Adelman.
34-32 or .515 Not bad considering it was his first year and two of our best players in Lowry and Martin missed significant time that season. I don't think either of them played the last 15 or so games that season. First season with Harden was 45-37 or .549 Pretty good with a team that most people picked finishing out of the playoffs, even with the addition of Harden. First season with Harden and Howard was 54-28 or .659 Good season, maybe a tad disappointing given Harden and Howard were fully healthy and we had very good pieces around them. So far, this season is 44-22 or .667 You have to give McHale credit for this season. Sure, a lot more credit should be given to Harden's heroics and McHale has arguably lost us a couple games due to poor game management but overall, he has done a great job this season. Bottom line: He has improved every season so far. He still does a lot of head-scratching things like late timeouts or bad substitutions or makes late adjustments but he has done good to above average. The team has gotten better which helps but he has shown the competence to coach with a talented roster. Players obviously love/respect him. He needs to translate his success in the regular season to the playoffs though, and soon.
PLayoff success is the only thing that matters. I won't consider his first year with Harden as we were the 8th seed and honestly made more of that series than anyone expected with OKC... But that Portland series was lost when we played LMA the exact same way for two home games. No adjustments, lets just let this guy destroy us for two home games.
We absolutely choked away game 1, up 11 with like 4 minutes left and we just choked it away even with LMA going off. Games 4 and 6 were in great position to win late and just made boneheaded plays that cost us. Man what a heartbreaking series.
It doesn't help that out of timeouts, most plays are just DMo or TJ post-ups, or just a series of screens and passes to setup a DMo or TJ post-up.
Mchale gets no credit after Harden because our offense it totally dependent on Hardens playmaking ability and decision making. You can't say it's a system. Sure the Spurs have Tim Duncan and Tony Parker but what made them great is not only the stars but the ability to thrive in their system. GSW is deep but would they be as good without Kerr putting them in the correct positions? I don't think so I think without Kerr they are a 4th to 6th seed. Look at Atlanta, those teams don't just give the ball to the main star and clear out every play. Everyone knows where we are going, straight to Harden and he is still able to score. Harden is genius but he is also getting tired. That's why Harden in the playoffs is different because by the playoffs Mchale has run him into the ground Harden barely has anything left. Meanwhile, Memphis, GSW and other teams are perfectly rested. God help us if we get Popp or Doc in the first round automatically outcoached. Our system is called give the ball to Harden. Mchale gets no credit for that.
Yes that was smart as well as in some situations putting Ariza on Paul. It was interesting that the national announcers, JVG and Mark, were praising the adjustments by McHale (while wondering if they would continue to work) and clutch fans were busy with their bomb throwing:
OK, then I wish some posters could 1) let go of May 2014 already; their complaints have been recorded in this massive thread 2) shut up about this season until the playoffs
We are a product of Harden not McFail, our offense is predictable and based on hitting 3's at a good clip (36%). This works if Bev can hit wide open shots, which lately hasn't happened. In addition, Tjones and Dmo get pushed around under the basket like 12 yr olds. With our speed/quickness, I don't understand why we don't switch the offesnive sets to more off the ball movement and make other teams C or PF, PG, and SF move around. There are at least 3 defenders on every possesion that don't move against our offense. Little energy used on D, which made Barnes a very effective 3 point shooter in the first half. How about getting James the ball on a curl or running the baseline like Curry or Klay etc.. Bottom line our offense is WAY TOO PREDICTABLE, as result, we turned it over in clutch time and thank goodness for Ariza and not yet back Blake Griffin.
we ran this play soo often yesterday lol you do realize harden is doubled and tripled off these screens which leads to open bricks by brick squad
