Sources: McHale using Sampson's absence as an excuse for poor defense

Sources: Some chatter I heard around the office.

 

Lionel Hollins or George Karl would be great fits.

 

Here is what I saw from that LMA's full highlights vid. x-posted in "Guarding LMA" thread. Sorry if that's frowned upon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpcn-LhkJe0

Wide Open is the Worst Defensive Strategy

Make 1) Harden on LMA mismatch, recover switch, Howard gives LMA 4 ft of space, open jump shot, half-hearted contest cause Howard's too far away

Make 2) Pick and Roll, Bev kinda just goes under and hangs out. D12 with a hard hedge, LMA wide open to receive the pass. Jumpshot

Make 3) Again same play & error as basket 2. But ball goes to Lopez. LMA with rebound & putback

Make 4) Pick and Roll yet again. Bev and Jones both unassign themselves from LMA. Wide open jumpshot. He misses Lopez gets rebound and reloads LMA cause still no one wants to go over there and maybe not let him have open jumpshots.

Make 5) Lillard screen for LMA. Bev doesn’t help. 4 ft space between Asik & LMA. Open jump shot

Make 6) Let LMA catch under rim in favorite spot. 1 on 1 with Howard, step back jumpshot

Make 7) Pick and Roll. Bev and Asik double team Lillard and leave LMA wide open for jump shot. Waits for Asik to recover, who gives a half-hearted contest

Make 8) Asik fronts LMA, gets ball under basket. Howard with late to nearly no help D. Bucket.

Make 9) Asik fronts. LMA & Asik 1 on 1 in his fav spot. Good D, but jumpshot made cause now he's heated up from all the open jumpshots.

Make 10) Pick and Roll. LMA rolls, Howard chasing 10 ft behind him cause he left him on the PnR. Jogs in a lay up.

Make 11) LMA high pick for Batum who drives. Dish out to LMA who has no one within 8 feet of him. Open jumpshot.

Make 12) Pick n Roll. Again no one cares about covering LMA after LMA and Lillard separate. TJ rushes to recover on wide open jump shot. LMA fakes and dribbles by for open jumpshot.

Make 13) LMA 1on1 post up TJ. Step back J.

Make 14) Lillard drives. Asik helps off LMA. Lillard hits wide open LMA for wide open J

Make 15) LMA & Asik 1on1. Jumpshot. Heated up and hitting everything now. No double team.

Make 16) LMA & Asik 1on1 again. Again jumpshot. No double team again but 1 defender is better than 0 defender right?

Make 17) Pn R, driver dishes back to LMA who then drives uncontested for a dunk in your face Houston. Chandler was supposed to pick him up after PnR, gambles for a cheap steal on the pass back.

Make 18) Rebound and put back.

 

Didn't Yao officially retire after McHale got the job?

Regardless....

I'm not a fan of hiring a guy that's only good for a rebuilding team. I'd rather have hired a young and upcoming coach that could maybe be a really good coach...Kind of like what the Celtics did...

And the Rockets had to have planned on eventually getting good enough to compete in the playoffs.

You don't hire a coach thinking "well, this guy is just here for the re-build". That doesn't make any sense.

If no established coach will take the job, you grab a young and upcoming guy that has shown he can actually coach on some level.

This wasn't a good hire because McHale is not a good coach. The state of the team at the time is not relevant. You don't ever hire a bad coach. I don't care what the situation is.

 

I wonder what office. Maybe in the Rockets front office?

 

Also, if you're going to hire someone for a young re-building team I would hire a guy that would hammer fundamentals and playing the right way to at least build a foundation for the team to work off of.

These guys go out and make the same dumb mistakes all season long...

How many games in a row did Lin run down the court, jump in the air and throw the ball away? How many times did Harden fall asleep on defense? How many times did a big not put a body on their guy for a rebound? How many times did the ball get "sticky" and not "pop around"?

I swear I think Matt Bullard could coach this team better than McHale. He seems to have more of a clue.

 

Thank you!!! That's why its becoming baffling why Morey is not getting more scrutiny at this point. McHale was NEVER a good hire under any circumstances. Its looking more and more like McHale was just hiring an incompetent puppet to implement his flawed Morey ball.

 

*Morey

 

Yeah...I'd take Matt Bullard over McHale.

I think Air Bull would have this team at least playing smarter than they do under McHale. These guys just do dumb like it's never been done before. Same stupid mistakes all year long.

This team has gotten by on talent and just basically free styling. No structure. No strategy.

McHale might as well not even be on the sidelines. I think if they didn't have his voice in their ears they might hold each other more accountable and be able to figure some stuff out on their own.

McHale is holding the team back.

 

Hey I agree but LaMarcus torched everybody that guarded him again last night. Dude is playing out his mind. Again the it doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to know that doubling LMA and getting the ball out his hand might help us to win. Make another player beat you for crying out loud. You are right Jones can't handle neither player and Asik should start from this point on. When they bring in Robinson that's when we need to bring in Jones. Also give players like a Powell a shot on LaMarcus.

 

He had stretches were he played solid defense. If we had a coach like Pop you can best believe he will be playing defense or sitting his butt on the bench. Jerry Sloan also knew how to get the best effort on both ends of the court out his players.

 

Uh, NONE in game 1? Arguably ONCE in game 2.

Game 1 he was stripped while driving and had a ball bounce of another player's foot.

Game 2 his first TO was a scramble for a rebound, his 2nd was a pass to Tjones that was poked by the player behind TJones.

You might want to actually stick to what actually happened on the court.

 

That's what you pulled from what I wrote?

And you have to be the most dense person in the world to not understand that I was talking about over the course of the season.

 

As seen, McHale is not a defensive mind. His defensive scheme is transparent and it never adjusts. EX: last year in the finals, Spoelstra would switch between switching on all p&r, hedging, trapping, etc. What McHale IS good at is letting players have freedom and motivating them INDIVIDUALLY. Obviously this is getting too far with Harden, who does whatever he wants and often makes bad decisions as seen last night. McHale needs to stop being a offensive-minded players coach. Although he doesn't really have an identity. And this team is too talented to exit in the first round.

 

Probably this office or one that works with these guys-

http://www.relativitysports.com/

You know damn well that one of the requests that Fegan and Dwight made before signing was that they would be kept in the loop for coaching decisions being made.

Usually any leak from a source comes from an agency or someone in the business. What Cyberx and others hear is probably 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand, but is probably grounded in some truth. Sort of like the game telephone.

After a huge playoff game where Dwight dominated, but the team still lost, I wouldn't be shocked at all if Morey had to get on a conference call to brief Fegan on the series from inside the coaches corner. That's how this stuff comes out typically.

 

You look at that entire post and extrapolate something about Lin?

Who are you?

 

Well we knew it was coming sooner or later.

 

I thought you were referring to the play offs. My error, I was skimming. A LOT of threads today.

As for fundamentals, McHale was never the guy to teach fundamentals. That's supposed to be his assistant coaches which as a complete staff I've never been especially crazy about.

As for the regular season, it's Lin's jump pass turn overs do not happen nearly as often as many people think. I did a play by play analysis over a 10 game sample including video links of every play by play in another thread and it really happens much more rarely than people think.

Doesn't change the issue that McHale is lacking in several areas.

 

You keep harping on failed "Morey ball". Can you actually articulate to me what you mean by "Morey ball" and how it has failed? The run n' gun scheme of 3 pointers and FTs and drives to the basket? That totally works! Statistically, it works too. Our problem is on defense, which I don't think is part of "Morey ball" and frustrated players taking poor shots at times (cough*Harden*cough). Otherwise, the only aspect of "Morey ball" is taking assets and turning them into superstars, which Morey has done a FANTASTIC job with.

 

McHale is done.