Analysis: McHale and his negative impact on our players' confidence

Today's game, Mchale benched our starters because they were playing bad. It was a legitimate move, and after our bench brought back our team back by a little, he decided to stick with them. But after seeing that it clearly wasn't going to work, and after seeing how our bench started to get exhausted, he did not bring the starters back in. We were losing by 9~11 points in the 4th quarter, there was still a good chance to come back. Mchale's refusal to put our starters back in caused even the opposing team's Grizzly commentators to say things like "I'm curious what Mchale has to say in his post-game interview...I'm not in the business of criticizing coaches...but..."


You could argue that Mchale did this to rest our starters for tomorrow's game, or to "teach" a lesson to the starters for playing bad. Regardless of justification, you could see the terrible expression on the starters' faces. Their confidence has been shot down by Mchale, who was unwilling to trust them to finish the game that was still within reach.


But this wasn't the first time our players' confidence was shut down by Mchale. Mchale has been notorious for blaming our players in post-game loss interviews where he points out what they weren't doing. Additionally, he has never taken responsibility as a coach for the game losses. A total contrast from coaches like Woodson who took blame even for his player's injury (http://www.cbssports.com/nba/blog/e...oodson-takes-blame-for-carmelo-anthony-injury)


And we thought Mchale had gone low. To make matters worse than calling out his players to the media, he called out a specific player. Jeremy Lin, who scored 29 points with 3 turnovers post-OKC game, was criticized by Mchale for being selfish. Mchale made-up an imaginary 9 turnover stat to bad-mouth his starting PG in front of the media.


Some of our "raw" players, like Terrence Jones or D-Mo, has never been able to get enough playing time because our coach never really trusted them. It has only been through the absence of the PF spot that D-Mo finally received a chance to play - something that would have never happened if Mchale had a choice.


Tonight's game revealed Mchale's lack of trust in his players. Our players were just dead on court tonight..not from exhaustion, but because they knew that their coach gave up on the game before them. Their faces revealed everything. We knew Mchale was a cowardly coach who stomped on his player's confidence, but tonight was a new low - a coach who gave up on the game before his players did.


Regardless of whether you think Mchale's sub patterns are bad or good, or whether his plays are dumbed down or ingenious, we can all agree that Mchale is NOT a coach that instills confidence in his players. And because the Rockets are the youngest team in the league, this is especially alarming because young players tend to get shaken up mentally much easier than veteran players.


I have joined the boat to petition to get Mchale out of Houston. I may be a 2012-er but I can see simple logic and common sense, and I know Mchale will just destroy our team sooner or later as he is doing now.


You argue that Mchale has led the youngest team to 7th/6th seed, I argue that our players already had enough skills & potential to make it there. I even say that this coach has cost us about 7 or 8 games due to his horrible decision-making, iso-plays, terrible substitution pattern. But that's besides the point.

We can all finally agree, whether you are a LOF, LOH, Veteran, Clutch, Troll, that Mchale has a NEGATIVE impact on our players' confidence.