Why did you say Karl Malone twice? I'm not trying to absolve McHale from guilt here, but Hardens main issue is getting lost off ball. Same crap was happening with Team USA. That doesn't have to do with rotations, that's just ball watching. I'm sure they go over defensive rotations all the time.
How Coach McHale (one of the Best Defensive Players in the NBA) can allow the D to be so porous is mind boggling Hiring Bowen as defensive coordinator ain't a bad idea
I know McHale was standing on the sideline, yelling to stay with yer man... then Harden told Chandler to switch onto Lillard...
If his podcast is any indication, he'd be a horrible coach. No insight or analysis beyond what you'd expect a random beat writer would say.
Did he have the same role in OKC as he does here? No Does he play the same amount of minutes? No But, he does play the same defense.
"...but what are the principles in Houston? I’m very disappointed in their team concept." Yeah, that quote sums it up for me. There are so many questions even a dedicated Rockets fan could still ask about what their modus operandi is as a team and on the court, and, furthermore, it all seems to vary game-to-game. And not in a well-planned way, accounting ahead of time for different teams' styles of play. More of a "keep trying combinations during the game until it works" kind of play. It often does work right at the very end when you've gone through over a dozen different lineups and finally have something that fits, but that's just so chaotic that it will never take us to a championship. If there's one thing that is a clear team principle, though, it's the obsession with shooting threes. Somehow we got a shiny, new center while simultaneously having everyone's proficiency beyond the arc take a dive, and we STILL led the league in three-point attempts. Our 3P% was lower than the next 6 teams on the list, though, and a lot of those missed threes led to fast break points for our opponents or just wasted possessions by us. Can we please consign the three-point-heavy strategy to the dustbin and work on defense, ball movement, and actual plays to get better chances at points? Pleeeeaasseee.
I think our rotation is a significantly better shooting team than last year. Canaan, Daniels, Papa, and Ariza are all better outside shooters than the guys they're replacing. If DMo, Jones and Beverley have modest gains (which isn't all that unrealistic) we should be a really good 3PT shooting team.
What Bowen said about McHale and Harden is well known. What is strange is WHY does the Houston Rockets allow McHale and coach that way and thus, for Harden to play that way?
I think we have very different definitions of "goes off". Everything the "selfie generation" types up is so sensationalist.
This Harden-defense meme is out of control. I go to Youtube if I need to learn how to edit in photoshop. If I'm researching a basketball player there, I probably have an agenda.
If you studied that chart you linked to, you'd notice that the Rockets were 3rd in the league in Adjusted Field Goal %, behind only Miami and San Antonio.
Copied this from another thread when asked about bringing in an assistant coach to replace Sampson... Coincidence, or could there be some butthurt on Bowen's part?
Yes, this is the BEST POST of the year. It is an institutional issue. There is a reason that Rox has not won much since the Dream years. I sense only an owner change could fix it.
I don't even know what that means. The last two coaches the Rockets had were Jeff Van Gundy and Rick Adelman... two very respected coaches. The Rockets were the 4th seed in the West last year and played a team in the playoffs that had an identical regular season record of 54-28 and it came down to the wire. I'm not the biggest fan of some of McHale's in-game decisions, but acting like there is some kind of culture issue within the Rockets' organization relating to bad decisions when it comes to coaches is a ridiculous over-reaction. Putting him on the hot seat instead of firing him isn't some big blunder.
