Hell no, but I think we could have won this series with better coaching decisions. Of course, with a different coach maybe our defense sucks and we lose in round one anyway or don't even make the playoffs. I don't know who I would rather have that's available, I just wish he was doing a much better job.
The IQ on this board is terrible. Ime is why we are even in the playoffs. Not one ****ing player played above his standards for the post season. I low key never loved this roster man. Wish we got one of Banchero/Wemby/Cade
Jalen Green has been in the NBA now for four seasons and has been the starter and top option on offense for almost all of that time. I don't think it gives Green enough credit to claim that benching him (when she should be benched) has destroyed his confidence. Jalen Green was benched because he was horrendous for the majority of this series. He had one amazing game with nearly 40 points .... but he has also had games where he has scored 8 points.... 9 points...... and 7 points and has shot god awful from the field and didn't even get to the line, and the few times he did get to the line, he missed almost half his free throws. The playoffs are another animal - flaws are openly exposed and strengths emerge. Green is too connected to his three point shot falling at this point to be the top guy on offense - he needs to improve his off hand, he needs to develop a mid range game for the games where he shoots poorly from the perimeter and he needs to get to the line more.
No, but we could be a team that makes the Semifinals or even the Western Conference Finals. The talent is there. No one forced Ime to bench Reed and stick with Fred playing 35 minutes a game this season(which is now up to over 40 in the playoffs). No one forced him to bench Cam and give his minutes all year to Jae'Sean who likely won't be here next season and isn't even available in this series thanks to an ankle injury. No one forced him to wait til their 52nd game of the season to finally try out the double big lineup of Steven and Alpi(which immediately worked). No one forced him to stick with a starting lineup of Alpi, Amen, Dillon, Jalen, and Fred which is statistically a poor combination that even reporters have repeatedly pointed out to him in interviews. And no one forced him to arbitrarily shorten his rotation to 8 players in the playoffs. It reminds me a little of the 2014 season(Dwight's first with the Rockets). Were they gonna win it all that year? Probably not with Jeremy Lin as their 6th man and Terrence Jones as their starting PF plus all the tough competition in the West. But they shouldn't have been knocked out in the first round either. Poor coaching resulted in the team underachieving.
People forget that it is his first Playoffs since the secks scandal.....and he has jitters as well.....why I think he resorted to that conservative 8 man model. The criticism is that he did not mix it up during the whole series.
I don't think it's jitters. He started playing only 8 guys down the stretch in the regular season. It's clearly his philosophy. And if your 8 guys are playing well, that's fine. But he's so hellbent on sticking to that limited rotation that he won't adjust even when half or more of those 8 are stinking up the joint.
Ime is an incredible coach and we are lucky the Celtics fired him and that he fell in our lap. We're not a 50 win team without him. We're getting beat by GS primarily because our best players are failing badly. My only gripe with Ime is that I wish he'd get into the bench more and expand the rotations. I don't know what his reasoning is on this, he even said before Game 4 that he expects to play more bench players depending on how the game went, but when the struggles continued it still didn't happen.
Then we are pretty screwed if that is the truth because that was the model of the last decades. Boston, Cleveland, Thunder all have good benches. Minnesota, Clippers, Indy also have decent benches.
One would hope if the Rockets lose this series(especially if it's in 5 games), that it forces Ime to reconsider that philosophy. He's not gonna be their coach for very long if he keeps making the same mistakes every season. And God help him if Cam gets traded this summer and winds up turning into a star on another team.
This line of thinking applies to the Warriors themselves too. Fired Mark Jackson after a successful 50 win season (after winning 23 and 47 games the seasons before) and hired Kerr.
Believe me, that thought has crossed my mind many times during this series. I've also thought of other examples like Popovich making himself the coach after firing Bob Hill(who had taken the Spurs to the WCF and Semifinals in B2B seasons) and Rick Carlisle getting the Pistons to the Semifinals and ECF in B2B seasons(and winning COTY in the former) only to be replaced by Larry Brown. In all of those cases, it wound up being the right move.
I must say that Kerr's fate was indelibly tethered to the Selection of Curry ....no Curry and Kerr is just another coach. Just as Morey would just be a nerd without ever successfully trading for Harden. Those moves are not necessarily 100% happening.....there was some luck and opportunity involved. Thompson reminds me of Rodman light and Alperen reminds me of Young Tony Parker who could not speak much English when he arrived as well..... but nobody is Duncan......or Curry, or even Harden for that matter. We shall curse Udoka all we want but fact is he doesn't have the Alpha player, we are basically just whining about 1 or 2 games lost which was a contested affair at best, with that Alpha not that contested.
You guys are crazy. This team has massively overachieved this year given the roster, which can largely be attributed to the coaching staff. There is nobody on the roster who is a complete player, it’s a bunch of super role players and young guys who haven’t fully found themselves yet. We’re in this position ahead of schedule, and now we’re attending the school of hard knocks with the Warriors.
Fair enough. Just like Popovich was saved by the Spurs lucking into the #1 pick and Duncan. He wouldn't have lasted very long had they wound up drafting Keith Van Horn instead. But Larry Brown took essentially the same team(with Rasheed Wallace added at midseason) that Carlisle had and got them over the hump. And they were one win away from a second straight title the following year. I suppose another example would be Doug Collins getting replaced by Phil Jackson. Maybe Collins eventually wins a title with that Bulls squad as the Pistons and Celtics got too old, but I doubt he would've had the success Jackson did. The entire system was revamped with the triangle offense.
Curry was drafted 5 years before Kerr even got there though. I use to hate on Kerr, and eff it I still do, but he's a pretty good tactical AND motivational coach. He's like the new-age Phil Jackson tbh.
Yeah - no, I don't think the talent realistically is there as compiled. Fans assume it is there because the Rockets had an exceptional regular season and played beyond their talent level. This team lacks a franchise player - they lack perimeter shooting and they lack creators. They overcame some of that in the regular season through depth, discipline and effort and rebounding. In the post season you need hubs/stars, you need shooting, and you need experience usually. The Rockets have none of that. Even in this first round series - the two best players by far are Curry and Butler and an argument can be made that Green is at worst the 4th best player in this series... so the Warriors have three of the four best players, two players that can carry the offense down the stretch and the Rockets have none other than Green when he gets hot from the perimeter. This Rockets roster is one of the easiest in the league to neutralize on offense. Also - rotations shrink in the playoffs - it is why some were saying this Rockets team isn't built for the playoffs in 2025. As for guys like Cam and Reed - they didn't play well or contributed to winning, which is why they did not play more. Amen Thompson had no problem getting minutes. So far most of the games in this series have been close - and the Rockets have lost down the stretch to a team with WAY more experience and two options on offense vastly more consistent and usually more superior than the Rockets.... and that is why they have lost.
My bad, meant to say he was the one that built around him....I forgot that Curry was in the shadow of Monta.....
