I mentioned several times in the game thread. 8-men with Garcia almost played no minutes. DMO was used quite a lot right before the end of the season, why? Traded for a backup 3 and then signed another before playoff, Garcia was not seeing the court much before season end. Why Garcia only now with him not doing much. Perhaps Sampson was the real coach of this team. McHale does not know what he is doing.
The moment Mcfail decide to insert Caspi and Garcia into the rotation, the Rockets offense has dramatically iced out...yet another gem by Mcfail...
The traditional short roster Pop played 10 players in game 1, played 13 players in game 2. GSW and LAC played 10-11 players. Give me another example of 8-men.
OK. Just give me another example of 8-men rotation. If I don't count Garcia, then we played 7. And 7 that did not work in both games.
Maybe the team we're playing against? Trail Blazers has had effectively a 8-men rotation for both games, and in fact gave their starters more minutes in both games. They're also a young team, by the way. Second youngest team in the playoffs. The third youngest team in the playoffs is the OKC, and they do 9-men. It's really just about age.
What I am trying to say is, McHale worry too much about losing. I don't know whose decision it was to trade and sign the two small forwards. McHale is like a deer in the headlight, afraid to make any adjustment.
The blazers are kicking our ass. Maybe when they are in the next round some team will make them dig deeper. But right now we are the ones that need to make adjustments.
Well yeah, maybe increasing the rotation size a little might help. I'm just saying it's not that unusual for a younger team to have a shorter rotation. And actually, in both of the two playoff games we won against OKC last year we used 8-man rotations: http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400459782 http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400459783
DMo in rotation during regular season. Rockets win. DMo no in rotation during playoffs. Rockets lose. Play Casspi and I'll scream.
