Mark Jackson is old school, but you don't see him pulling the same crap on the Warriors as McHale did on Wolves and now the Rockets. McHale has no clue. Worst, Rocket is not even clinch for the playoffs. 9th seed still a good possibility.
i knew i would see this thread bumped up again. think of what happened tonight this way: strong message sent to the starters, especially since its this late into the season during a crucial playoffs push. starters better rested and prepared for big game tomorrow night against the clippers, who are coming off playing a game today. tomorrow should be a good game.
Although I disagree with a lot of what McHale did, but tonight is simply lost. Preserving energy may be a good strategy. What I worry about, however, is that Rockets are not showing chemistry in half-court plays (while the opponents had a very good one, as manifested in their numerous nice connections), neither are they running and gunning. I simply don't recognize this team anymore. This does not bode well.
I just don't understand how this team's recent play is not on the coaching? Clearly the league (ahem the other coaches) have adjusted to our gimmicky offense. Defenders have also adjusted to Harden's tricks. This team is picking the worse time to have these issues. I don't think the Rox won't make the playoffs but it's clear they are going to back themselves in. And if we do miraculously drop out of the playoffs, god help Morey if keeps mchale this offseason.
Woodson motivated Melo to play hard in both ends of the court and other players followed, which was why the Knicks played much better immediately after D'Antoni stepped down. On the other hand, McHale plays double standards in the Rockets overusing some players on one end and demanding other players to cover them on the other end. And the Rockets sometimes look like 1 against 5 in offense and 4 against 5 in defense. Rockets played their best games when our PG was allowed to dominate the ball as the floor general. Then after a few blow-out wins the coach possibly wanted to take more credits and started to enforce his "system", and the Rockets fell apart. We have seen this roller coaster cycle several times this season. When the coach plays the virtual PG, the game becomes too ugly to watch.
Right on the spot. Some people including our coaching stuff just easily forget the ugly seven-game-losing-streak.
Really? not making any substitutions since the 4min mark in the 3rd, knowing midway through the 4th quarter that the unit was gassed is not doing a good job. If he didn't want to put the starters back, he could have a least subbed in brooks/garcia/ohlbrecht. Watching all the second unit players with they're hands on their hips looking tired was horrible, even the commentators noticed it.
McHale has been trying hard this season to please Harden by playing other players out of strengths which has cost the team quite some winnable games. But near the end of the season McHale seems to have lost the team including Harden.
As much as I do not like McHale as a COACH, please do not bring the death of his daughter into this. That is just messed up.
What was that message? "I don't give a sh-it who you are... I decide who plays. If I don't want to play you, I am not going to play you. Win or lose you won't play!" That's the message I heard. And from the looks on the starters faces they heard that same message. The reality is the subs made a little run but then ran out of gas. At a minimum Harden should have been subbed in around the 4 minute mark. If he did that for any other reason than to teach Harden some kind of lesson than he really is a stupid coach and should be replaced immediately. I don't think he is stupid. But I do think he wanted to show who is the boss. I do think he got his message across. Now let's see what happens going forward. Maybe he is a bigger genius than many of us think.
Was Pop stupid when he did the exact same thing last year? McHale didn't even have an OT to bench his starters for like Pop did....
