Am I The Only Mchale Lover

McHale will be coach of the Rockets for at least the next four years, so I hope some of you don't get your hopes up. The dude not only accepts Morey's basketball philosophy, but embraces it to the fullest.The Rockets can win a championship with him as head coach, and (looking at the schedules of San Antonio, Portland) the Rockets could very well be third and/or 2nd in the west.

 

Sorry..the Rockets can't be 2nd and 3rd in the west!

 

I think he's an average coach, he's had his ups and downs just as any coach does. They are like players in the sense that they do not perform the same everyday. Unless we can get a veteran coach then I say we keep Mchale. u may be down for Chris Finch though. ..

 

McHale might as well be a power dancer. His leadership is mostly motivational and less substance. A big reason why this team is so inconsistent is precisely because there's no real system or sets to anchor them. It makes them more likely to play down to the level of supposedly inferior competition, and it's also more difficult to get out of ruts when shots aren't falling. You're right in that there should be a lot more integrated plays involving both Harden and Howard, but it's just not there. For the most part they do their own thing, but that's expected if Harden is half-hardheartedly playing PG.

 

I thought McHale out-coached Brooks last season, and yet superior talent won out. Funny how that works in the NBA.

 

Rockets have won 1 playoff series since Rudy T.

 

Sigh. No real system. The "systems" you yearn for were discarded starting half a decade ago by NBA franchises because Coach Thibs defenses blew them up. In modern basketball sets, except for jump balls, inbound passes and the like have no place in the NBA. Integrated plays are blown up early by NBA defenses and then where does a squad sit???

 

Link?

 

Weren't all the games in that series, except for games 1 and 6 decided by 5 points or fewer? And even game 6 was close until the last couple of minutes. For the team's and McHale's first playoff appearance, they did pretty well even considering Westbrook's injury. We had injuries too as well, and even without Westbrook, the Thunder were still a better team than us. The Thunder are probably a better team or play better as a team without Westbrook as they have shown this season.

After game 1, we made the right adjustments like going to a 3-2 zone, playing small all the time, putting Harden on Ibaka and starting Garcia that were all good adjustments McHale and the team made that made the series competitive.

 

I think what he meant to say was not system, but structure. The Triangle, Princeton Offense, etc. are not necessarily set plays (which are run generally only out of timeouts) but structured ball movement for an open shot. I think as some people pointed out, McHale does have a structure around read and react.

However, in half-court plays, I consistently see only 2 of the 5 players moving and very few screens. This means if the cutter doesn't get open, the ball handler (JH/JL/CP) ISOs if the clock is tight, or passes to DH for the post. Oh, and passing back and forth on top of the key does not count as ball movement if you are not trying to get free.

Put it this way. James Harden is #5 counting backwards in the whole league for players above 15min a game, distance traveled per48. Players around him are all centers or PFs. Our usual suspects for the cutter Parsons/Casspi are in the top 100, but only Bev is in the top 20 (typical Bev awesomeness). Lin and the rest fall out of that.

This is not necessarily proof that they don't move (don't know if there's any stats here), but it certainly does not contradict it.

 

You are wasting your time. I along with a few other posters have pointed out that the NBA no longer regularly has set plays except coming out of a timeout (even then it is simply positioning and spacing). Some folks don't get it.

 

Remember guys, he's still fairly new to coaching. If you're giving young players patience in their developments, you gotta give some to coaches.

The one criticism that I hate about Mchale is that he doesn't run plays.

The Rockets offense is a read and react offense, it doesn't use set plays. It's based solely on the judgement of the players. It's the kind of offense where experience is a must to run it as effectively as it can be. Players have to learn what exactly to do in each certain situation they encounter. The merit to me is that it seems to help a lot with offensive development of players in terms of IQ.

As the what 5th? youngest team in the league that is having 3 pt shooting woes, I'd say it's working very well.

As for the defensive rotations , I think our players need to be better coached in defensive fundamentals (Sampsons fault?) They seem so leave their feet a lot on defense, lots of communication errors, etc.

The question is: will he eventually improve on rotations, can he draw up plays when he has to (could be Bickerstaffs fault also), and will he continue to command the players respect.

The verdict is still out on whether he can get us to the championships, but he is the perfect coach for the young roster we have right now

 

I am not overly impressed with McHales body of work but he is not a terrible coach either. I do not think he pushes defense enough although I like the uptempo offense. I think he should hold the superstars a little more accountable when they make mistakes or have defensive lapses. I do not care for the way he handled T Jones and DMo last year as I think they would be even further along had he really given them a fair shot last year and played them. I have my doubts we could ever win a championship under him due to his lack of pushing defense although I hope I am wrong (because that would mean we win THIS year).

 

There are a few easy questions to ask to show that McHale really isn't all that bad.

1. Are we underperforming, schedule-wise? The answer is no. We are on track to get ~55 wins, which is easily at or above expectations for this team. Can't blame the coach when the team is at or above expectations. Those of you who expected a 60 win season right out the gate are delusional.

2. Are our young players developing correctly? Clearly yes. Honestly McHale needs to get way more credit for his player development. PPat and McMorris both ended up pretty well, but we aren't even missing them because TJones is already just as good, if not better. Lowry and Dragic are suddenly All-Star caliber players...coincidence that it's 2 years after they each had a year with McHale? I think not. Chandler Parsons.

3. Are there locker room clashes, coach-player conflicts? No

4. Does the team know how to O? Hell yes.

5. Does the team know how to D? There's room for improvement but, 10th in defensive efficiency isn't that bad.

6. Can the coach make adjustments, out-coach the other team? This one is pretty much impossible to answer definitively until we see some more playoff series, but the one we had against the Thunder looked like a Yes to me.

So from objective standards, McHale is a pretty good coach. And if the team continues to improve on defense and wins a few playoff series, he'll be a great coach.

 

Funny how that works in the NBA?

McHale's doing that very same thing now.

And no, McHale did not outcoach Brooks in the playoffs. We still got beaten, and that was without Westbrook for half the series.

Plus, outcoaching Brooks isn't some sort of feat.

 

The only thing I really dislike is how many minutes Harden and Parsons are playing. I'd tolerate a couple extra losses to keep them down around 35 minutes per game.

 

McHale hof player and future hof coach

 

I can't even take you seriously. It is due to McHale that we avoided a 4-0 sweep by putting Garcia on Durant and having Harden guard Ibaka in the post. His rotations were also top-notch, given that Lin was out for most of the series and Delfino was playing with bone spurs in his foot, which he aggravated after that poster on KD. The Thunder were simply the much more talented team and we made it close due to coaching. Remember our bench in the playoffs?

I suggest you watch more NBA basketball before you make such remarks.

Is McHale a perfect coach? No, he has lots to learn. However, I trust him to lead us deep in the playoffs (this season).

 

I love mchale too and I do believe he can lead us to a championship and I can see and hear dwight giving mchale and the dream all the credit and props while holding up the trophy

 

Typical McHale practice:

http://instagram.com/p/kNZac4Ki6Q/