Last night was the worst game of the year for JB....too much partying with the guys the night before and it showed. It took him forever to realize that Thorton was hot and he inexplicably took players like Thorton and Brewer out in the first half just when they were hitting their shots. It was like players kept getting penalized for making shots in the first half. Ariza injury is no excuse, coaches were sustituting left and right and players could not get in rythem with all the sustitutions. Bush league coaching, by a coaching staff that has done nothing to deserve coaching what should be an nba championship contender. Players do not respect a newbie coach who goes clubbing with them. Also, it is clear that the off court habits of Harden have caught up to his game.
I agree. Harden does nothing when he doesnt have the ball. He doesnt movr, he doesnt set screens, he doesnt do anything.
The bigger problem is chemistry. There is a real lack of teamwork and cohesion and playing for one another. In a game where all of our starters struggle to score, Dwight just had 5 shots?? 5 freaking shots? Of which he made 4 What happened to the Harden Dwight P n R? What happened to throwing Dwight some oops?
I have no problem with a coach in a game like this where his team simply ISN'T SHOWING UP, and the best players are making bone headed plays, going a little crazy experimenting with lineups off the bench. The Rotations in the first half... other than the D-Mo insertion what else do you want??? Ariza got hurt, and Brewer had to come in earlier. Lawson was only played in the least necessary amount of time to limit his court time with Harden, and Harden played himself out of the game in the second half for JBB to instead turn to Thornton who almost won the game for the Rockets. JBB's experimental rotations in unique situations, are far from the Rockets biggest problems. If anything, in a case like last night, they almost saved the game. Not sure what the hell you guys want a coach to do when 2 of your best 3 players just plain SUCK, and throw the ball away at any given opportunity. McHale (and to an extent the entire coaching staff including JBB) deserve blame for the poor start which IMO had alot to do with a poor Summer and training camp (which is 95% their fault in not taking accountability of), but at this point the stars for this team need to be the ones we talk about in terms of accountability. JBB is doing whatever he can to take this opportunity to make himself into a long term head coach, but at some point Harden, Howard, and Lawson need to take this season on their shoulders and F-ing doing something about it. Harden and Lawson especially can't afford to have nights like they had last night anymore this season with the hole they put themselves in. They need to do better to get this team back in a place to secure a playoff spot, and gain momentum for a playoff run.
Pretty good analogy there, Kev. It's ridiculous that we decide not to get Dwight the ball when he's just proven that when he gets it good things happen. Totally ridiculous. Harden is "friends" with a lot of players. The relationship him and Lawson have is no different than he has with probably 50 or so other players on other teams. Harden is basically wanting to be a one-man superstar and have everybody play around him. He wants this great playmaker to magically appear to spell him for 15 minutes a night and to be on-court with him when the D decides to collapse on him like the Warriors did in the playoffs...so Harden can throw up this crazy pass to the roof of TC and the other playmaker magically jump up there and catch it and run a play after Harden deems he can't get through a triple team. So "friends" doesn't really matter. This is Harden trying to be Lebron/Kobe/McGrady. Yes, serious issue there. We have guys at 6-8 that should be 10-12 or gone. And we have guys starting that should 6-8. But......that still doesn't totally address what I'm talking about...which is jerking guys in and out after 3 or 4 minutes. This all started a few games back when JBB came out and said he was guilty of overworking Harden. So, the answer was to play guys shorter stints and cut back on their minutes slightly. It worked for one game or so against a subpar opponent to coincide with one of Harden's monster games. But.....all that rotation substituting was generated most likely from conversations between Harden and JBB with Harden complaining about being overworked. Why else would JBB state that he had ".....asked James to do too much"? So, the solution to getting minutes down is to run guys in and out every 3 or 4 minutes??? Is it working??? Did JBB possibly see this as a solution to the excuse of "doing too much" and our defensive lapses? Do any of us here really believe that for guys to play defense they've got to be spelled every 3 to 4 minutes???? It's not working. And what irritates me about it is it was most likely a response to James complaining about being overworked and therefore not able to play defense. Guys.....in my opinion....JBB is in way over his head trying to coach James. I don't think JBB has a chance here. We're talking NBA players here. You mean to tell me it's too much to ask them to play 6-8 minutes at full-speed and give their all on the defensive end??? IMO, JBB is a dead coach walking. He doesn't have a prayer of coaching this team next season. He's just a mouse in Harden's jacket pocket. Which brings me to my next point. The dynamic between Morey, his superstar player(s), and his coach is l-a-c-k-i-n-g. If it is true that Morey does not value coaching in the winning formula as much as other GM's do....that is very troublesome to me. When you look at great championship teams they all have several things in common. One of the most primary things they have in common is a great coach who had control of the on-court action backed up by a strong front office that stood with them and behind them in all their coaching decisions even when dealing with their superstar players. Look at the champions coaching list. a. Pops - total control in SAS and all the players (even the superstars) know it. Spurs are in my opinion the greatest basketball organization of maybe the last 20 years. If a player doesn't fit in with Pops program.....he gone. It's as simple as that. b. Doc Rivers - another coach who has complete control and the superstars work with him. They respect him and look up to him. Dude was able to control Rondo and win a championship with him. c. PJax - goes without saying. Total control. He had the moxy to make very combustible combinations produce championships. d. Pat Riley - another guy in Pops mold. It's his way or the highway. Cost him Lebron but Riley has done his share of winning and he is in control. e. Rick Carlisle - absolutely in charge and control in Dallas. Rondo couldn't hang with him. Rondo gone. f. Eric Spoelstra - a good, young coach, but backed up by Riley, who would not let his coach be bullied by their superstar players. And they won. A GM that didn't believe in the effects of coaching, that didn't believe in organization from the top down, would have offered Spoelstra up as a sacrifice, as Morey did McHale, in hopes that a coaching change would jolt the team to play better when they struggled their first year together, and eventually lost in the Finals. I'm very concerned that Morey doesn't understand this factor about coaching. First of all the hiring of McHale was a shock to me to begin with. When I got to thinking about it later, I could see why Morey did it, to recruit other great players. But then they fire McHale after things sour and instead of going and getting a big name coach....they give an assistant to McHale's failed staff the job for the season???? What kind of message does that send to the players and to the fan base?? Very confusing to me. It's telling me Morey either thinks coaching is trivial or he already knows this isn't a championship contender so this season is just going to go to waste. I ain't seeing it and I haven't seen it all season. Even when we string together a few wins they're bad wins where you can simply watch the play and tell that this is not championship level play. Defense sucks. We can't dominate the boards. And the ball movement on offense is dastardly. We're just another team running around out there. Why would you sell the fan base that we are competing for a championship when there's no chance for us to win one with these guys?? Then you fire the coach in a desperate attempt to flip the switch and you hire the assistant?? What's that supposed to do? Right now we are #pursuiting either a first round exit from the playoffs or a lottery pick. This group has NO CHANCE to win a championship. And I'm questioning Morey's valuation of coaching in general and what part coaching plays in his analytics of a championship contender. It sure looks to me like Morey has erroneously far under-weighted the importance of the head coach in his analytics model.
I wouldnt mind shuffling - if they made sense... Harden has 6pts/7 turnovers and we're on a run - why bring him in? Brewer sucks for entire games and is left in for the 4th qtr... Thornton plays well for a stretch, has a poor game, and he's relegated to the bench for a few games... lawson finally got hot a few games back - and got pulled... It's like he has no sense of who has the hot hand... although he did leave Thornton in last night - but brought in an inept Harden... Constantly inserts guys into the game in crunch time that havent seen the floor prior and are ice cold...
This team honestly makes me believe I could coach an nba team. Morey just needs to let 2k16 make the rotations for this team
In all fairness... MAYBE JB did call plays for Thornton... now whether or not Harden felt like running them... thats another matter and a reoccurring issue..
Tonight's rotations were a total disaster. Thornton lost on the bench. Ariza defending Cousins at the 5. Running Donuts and Terrence out there together, two guys that don't rebound. Playing Capela and Terrence together. Another loser. Harden defending McLemore. Donuts defending Gay. What a joke.
