AGREED 100%. Miami did this in the post season forced either Serge or Perkins to guard the perimeter. We need to do this. I was wrong about blasting McHale for always going small. McHale just needs to make a simple adjustment I pray that he is smart enough to do it.
We played our best when we went small without Greg Smith. We had Lin and Beverley in the game. Why not try this? C - Asik (guarding Perkins) PF - Parsons (guarding Durant) SF - Harden (guarding Sefalosha) SG - Lin (guarding Ibaka) PG - Beverley (guarding Westbrook) If your worst matchup is Lin vs Ibaka, I'd take that. If OKC chooses to try to exploit that matchup, that means KD/Westbrook aren't taking as many shots, and plus you're gambling that Ibaka will be able to keep making jumpshots. If Morey wants to increase variance, that would be one way to do it.
Not disagreeing with you, but that small lineup that closed the gap also coincided with an OKC lineup of Dereck Fisher, Reggie Jackson, KMart, and Nick Collison. When Westbrook et al. got back into the game we lost everything we gained.
No. Because Beverly is to small to defend Russell Westbrook. Also Lin Bev harden all need the ball to be effective. Neither of those three move off the ball well enough they just stand around & watch. There is just no motion with those guys & no hierarchy, everybody wants the ball & nobody is shooting well enough from deep off the ball. Better to start Carlos & have Bev come off the bench. Lin guard Westbrook, harden on Thabo, Parsons on KD & Carlos on Serge. Best to just play your 5 best players who have the most familiarity playing with one another.
it is tough after 1 game, but i agree about putting smith on the bench. ibaka is too good on defense for smith to post up. delfino costs too much in the rebounding department. how many outside shots did ibaka make? jones or robinson have more quickness than smith to contest those shots. i wanted jones to start game 1 on ibaka & i would like to see robinson get a chance to defend Durant. Smith is a better matchup against Collison. how do you not make major adjustments after a 30 point loss?
Small ball got us back in the game during the first half. Have to shoot and execute better, and a couple of guys have to step up. *cough cough* Jeremy Lin *cough cough*
We were out rebounded by 7 but Jones had 8 rebounds in 18 minutes. Stretching the floor is great but we can't get destroyed on the glass. We need to always have two bigs on the court especially when asik is out of the game. Smith and 4 smalls can't work. T Jones has to play. One positive in this game was asik, he was the only starter with a reasonable plus minus , he was only minus 3. Without asik we have no rebounding or defense. Asik doesn't get the credit he deserves.
Small ball is good strategy with this roster because our front court is so weak. Hopefully people will realize we just arent that good....
Generally don't like small ball, but if that's what it takes to get Ibaka out of the paint then I'm all for it.
Thunder are just a better team simple as that Rockets dont match up well with them just like against Denver
1) Why is McHale getting bashed right now? Give him the chance to make the necessary adjustments for game 2 before we keep bashing him for our guys being to nervous in the post season. 2) Jones & Robinson are not the answer. Rockets needs consistent outside shooting, somebody that can spread the floor from the 4 spot & force Serge or Perk to guard the perimeter.
We have no PF. Our best PF is a rookie playing in DLeague all year until last month. Smith is out of position as a backup C so now we don't have one (without going smaller). Mchale is searching for a PF that can stretch the floor to give Harden/Lin/Parsons more room but neither Smith nor Jones are that kind of player so he puts in a SF to play PF. Then when that didn't work, he tried to go even smaller in the backcourt in the hopes of bringing more action which might distrupt OKC's game. Fail and Fail. Small ball might win a game here or there but you don't stand a chance against the best in the West in a playoff series. Who didn't see this coming?
Y'all need to stop blaming Mchale when it's Morey who wants us playin this "european" style that puts up alot of points in regular season but looks embarrassing in the postseason. Morey chose to give us a fun team over a actual winner. He traded both our PF's just to force Mchale to play small. Now we're getting embarrassed playing against a real basketball team We are NEVER going anywhere play this european crap.
Pretty much, people don't seem to get that when we made the run, OKC was sitting one or two of their stars at the time, once they didn't we started to get bleed. Also in the second half, McHale went for a small ball line up consisting of Beverly, Garcia, Delfino, Parsons and Asik/Smith/Jones at one point when the route went into overdrive. Small ball is a change of pace strategy not a legit leading option, especially in the playoffs when you aren't going to get foul calls but we really have no offensive or defensive strategies anyway so expect more brutality.
