Doc is going to adjust for the double team. I hope we are ready to switch on the perimeter or Blake is going to get 20 assists next game.
Harden is getting paid the big buckets for a reason. Mchale is only getting a small fraction of what Harden is making. Very small. So your Superstars are paid to bring on the bacon. Every big time Superstar puts their team on their backs and will them to a victory. Dream use to do it all the times remember. Rudy would just feed the big fella and ride him to the finish line. People were killing Mchale for putting Ariza on him in game one. Damn if you do and damn if you don't RIGHT.
During the best of times, we must renew the call for McFail's firing. Rockets will not win a championship with McFail at the helm.
It's not that Ariza stopped him. Ariza cannot stop Blake lol. It's what the team did around Ariza. They would send these late doubles at him and force him to give up the ball. Eventually it would lead up to a Crawford prayer shot or some other nonsense. Dwight on Blake is going to be pretty big. Since Blake can't just muscle over him for when Dwight was on him Blake threw up jumpers. But they were settled for as in "Can't get past this guy, jumper." instead of the confident kind of jumpers he was taking knowing he could get past Jones/Smith any time and he was just having mercy on them by the jumper. Any ways McHale has to adjust here with CP3 likely coming back. Can't double Blake now, guarding the PNR will be key and even at some point just letting CP3 beat you and not get others involved should be the general strategy. Easier said than done.
The Thibodeau obsessions is proof that fans prefer style over substance. Thib's hasn't won ANYTHING as a coach, his teams are routinely battling injuries from overuse, they are routinely gassed in the playoffs, management hates him, etc. yet fans are convinced he's better than McHale based solely on the fact that he's an ugly grumpy troll who slows the game down to lower the scoring. Get a grip.
hes been terrible in both games. as long as smith is playing the way hes been playing he doesn't need to be playing many minutes at all.
All true but there is the fact that a few fans liked JVG and Thibs was seen as a loss once he got away. I think Thibs is a good coach but doubt he'd get this team any further. Coaches really only impact a single game with correct substitutions, timeouts, occassionly a well drawn up play out of timeout. Their biggest impact is on making the players ALL believe in the same thing and McHale by all accounts has been very good at that aspect. The rest just comes down to talent and players winning matchups. Elite talent wins titles not coaching, see Jerry Sloan- Utah Jazz. YUCK! but true. The fact that most Kevin McHale haters don't understand that as a head coach he really has done an amazing job his entire tenure given what he has had to work with. Every year they have over achieved in my book and most prognosticators. This core hasn't played long enough to gel. Don't get me wrong game 1 sucked but I see that as on the players. They let down mentally because they were off for a week and then last minute no CP3. Harden played sloppy and admitted it was his fault. He also credited McHale for pulling him out in game 2 and making him refocus, and that is why he had the great 4th quarter. Harden said "coach did what he always does and he was right". McHale haters won't ever see it even if we pull out an upset over the Warriors. Hate is hate, not logical.
Didn't one of the TNT folks say that McHale told them he "didn't recognize" what his players were doing? As in, they weren't even trying to execute the game plan and what they had been practicing? That's pretty damning. Either he failed to communicate what he wanted effectively, or they ignored him. And this went on for about half a game, as I recall. (I think this was a halftime report.) Can you imagine the Spurs doing that to Popovich? Can you imagine Pop tolerating it? Reminds me of last year, when McHale said the guys didn't do what he told them to do on the last play. Either we have some of the leagues's most obtuse players (which I'm prepared to believe), or our coach doesn't instruct well, or he's an excuse artist who blames others. In any case, there's clearly some dysfunction between the players and the coach. Does anybody else remember exactly what the reported comment was, and when he said it?
TNT may have said something(I missed it) but there were these: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kevin McHale said Rockets' defense on Blake Griffin was "unknown" to him. "I asked (his players) & really didn't get a very good answer."</p>— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkBermanFox26/status/595794131219283968">May 6, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kevin McHale on defense on Blake Griffin:"Try2possibly do 1of the things we asked them2do.We did not play Blake the way we practiced at all"</p>— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkBermanFox26/status/595794232079679488">May 6, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I believe McHale said at halftime that he couldn't make defensive adjustments, such as doubling Griffin, if his players weren't going to put in any effort. His point was "how do we know a defensive gameplan is bad if our players can't execute it due to a lack of effort"? I don't think he said anything about not recognizing what they were doing. He was implying that he didn't know what they were doing just as a criticism of how bad we were playing.
If that's so, that is strange, because effort wasn't the problem. McHale really thought they didn't put in the effort? Perhaps anything anything go wrong, it's all about effort. That could explain much.
To clarify I think he was talking about putting in effort to execute their original game plan. Makes sense with the "do 1 or 2 of the things we talked about" comment.
I thought Finchy is in line to replace McHale?? Wasn't that always the plan. His offenses were amazing. Id like to see him get a shot
Lol, the other funny part is the Bulls are in the east... What if McHale and the Rockets were in the east, lol, #1 seed Easy finals, haha
Oh also.... ****ing McHale was 6 in COY voting... Obviously he's not Pop or something, but he's done an amazing job this year with the amount of injuries/lineup changes he's had to endure. I'm really not sure how much better a coach could do in the West with this amount of changes... I think Les and Morey are on to something, McHale must be doing something especially if the players are happy, I'd rather build a team that can do something in a few years than disrupt the chemistry the team has. McHale has been improving this team yearly, and the players clearly respect him. http://official.nba.com/2015-nba-year-annual-award-voting-results/
