ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Mavericks 3/6/2013

I totally bought into the Mchale hates Lin theory, but now I start to wonder...with Morey's recent sarcastic tweet on making fun of the LOFs conspiracy of not playing Lin, means that Morey knows full well about whatever the Rockets are trying to experiment w/ respect to Lin benched in the 4th. Even Lin was laughing casually about PB playing to close out games without a worry in the world, unlike Alex Smith of the 49ers losing his starting job. Is Morey up to something that we don't know about? Is there like some optimal model that could enable the Rockets to destroy every team in the playoffs? Who knows. The relationship appears to be okay in spite of this inexplicable benching.

But then again, Mchale could be just an LOH.

 

I will only give credit for playing Parsons over Budinger and that is it. It wouldn't even possible if Morey didn't trade and drafted Parsons.

McHale gets too many bail out from his players. From lowry, to dragic, to parsons and delfino. Now that he has Harden, he expects harden to bail him out too with so much ISO.

When adelman was here, you rarely see the team turnover because of the shot clock violation. Now that McHale is here, you see it more often than you should be. McHale has no offense whatsoever.

Swing the ball around the perimeter and shoot the 3.

 

Notice that in the 3rd DAL game, we had Parsons on Dirk, and D-Mo was having trouble staying with Marion in the first half, but fortunately DAL only went to Marion sparingly. At the beginning of the 4th we switched to D-Mo on Dirk and Parsons on Marion, at which point Marion was shut down and DAL's offense just completely collapsed and we feasted in transition off of their offense. 6 minutes later when D-Mo went to the bench we were up by like 20 and DAL never recovered.

Carlisle must have watched the tape, strategized, and made the adjustment to exploit what he saw, because Marion was absolutely killing us tonight. What's really funny was that instead doing what has gotten us the almost 20 point swing in the first game, guard Marion with Parsons, I take it McHale simply obliviously and blindly blamed D-Mo and went with Garcia, who was even worse at staying with people. I don't think McHale has realized yet that this ain't the Garcia from two years ago anymore. SMH.

Listening to McHale's interview during the "AB practice," it was pretty obvious that he was like, meh, whatever, wasn't paying attention, paying attention is overrated, we'll just do whatever it is that we do. Time and time again even when he stumbles upon what works and the perfect solution falls into his lap out of the clear blue sky, he's just not paying enough attention to take advantage of it for posterity. Carlisle obviously looked at the last game and saw how he could exploit Marion's quickness advantage (which we were able to decisively shut down with Parsons in the previous game 3rd quarter). Over on the other practice, McHale was telling his bigs to drop their asses...and move the ball...because everything else would just be too complicated...including the most basic of strategies...

 

Er...I mean at the beginning of the 3rd, obviously.

 

Sampson is just as bad or worst. Gotta get rid of both McFail and Sampson

 

McHale will probably say that the ball got sticky today in the 4th. Well, not having your starting pg whose most lauded qualities are penetration, court vision, and unselfishness is gonna do that for you. I know Harden is not selfish but literally noone else could break down the defense or force a double team, and basically was forced by McHale to iso every play. Parsons was basically just standing around without a single touch in crunch time. Harden was clearly affected by his leg and Marion clearly was causing Harden fits, Lin was the obvious choice down the stretch today. If you guys can't see that we often have stagnant offense without Lin, our starting pg, you're not seeing the game of basketball well, IMO. Was Beverley good today, yes. He did his job as a backup, and with a thank you, McHale should have brought Lin in to close with Harden. In no way is Beverley ready to be given the duties of the starter this year and in no way are Lin and Beverley similar in talent. Lin is a walking talking offensive system, a floor general who creates flow naturally. Beverley is not at that level. McHale is either clouded in judgement by something really negative he sees in Lin or he's logically impaired if he can't see the difference in playing his bench player over his starter in an important game while jockeying for a playoff position.

 

Another great post!

 

So if you're going to keep bev in the game for his defense, then why not put him on someone that can actually score like mayo, instead of having him worry about mike James?? If you're going to keep bev in at the expense of your starting pg, at least utilize his best asset, which is defense!

 

Who in this league would go ultra small and put in Delfino as a power forward to guard Dirk? This team has a winning record despite having a bad coach, not because of him.

 

In crunch time Dallas went to the mismatch of OJ Mayo being defended by Harden, then on defense they put Shawn Marion on Harden .... Mavs made adjustments and exploited a mismatch all night. McHale made hardly any adjustments.

 

I don't understand why DMO does not get more touches in the post.He scores so easily down there..very bizzare, they got him wandering around shooting threes like Lin earlier in the season

 

this game was a real let down. I was glad my band, Abandon City, had a show tonight shortly afterwards... because watching that was brutal.

First of all.. Asik needs to figure whether h can shoot FTs or not. Perfect one game, and missing like 7 in a row in the next game does NOT cut it.

Secondly, what was with ALL of the reviewed calls going Dallas' way??? I swear, that 3 at the half was initially called "good," yet some rather inconclusive evidence gives doubt.... so they take it away?

And the Beverly foul when the Dallas player was CLEARLY tip-toeing the halfcourt line... shouldn't that have been a turnover??? and they call a foul giving the Mavs FTs?

the Beverly foul on Carter, really? REALLY? He moved inward and sure, he nudged the MUCH bigger Carter while we got a dunk... called off. Again, this would've been HUGE. Nope. Dallas ball. again.

THEN, the out of bounds that was called to Houston, more inconclusive evidence shows it kind've could've been out on 2-3 ppl.... SWITCHED to Dallas ball.

Carter was hitting crazy shots, Matrix was making r****ded finger rolls constantly from 12 ft away, and Dirk was Dirk (although sometimes he was being kind've a little b****).

All in all... this was completely winnable, but in the end poor substitutions, turnovers, and anxious shot selection did us in. I'd say defense was an issue, but cmon... its an extremely fast-paced game and Dallas only scored 52 2nd-half pts. Sure, Houston had a lot more FTs... but I don't think that correctly tells the tale of who had the refs in their pockets. Besides the Harden 3 that gave us the 104-102 lead, every....single...game-changing play felt handed to the Mavs.

It wasn't a "must-win" I guess, but it should've been a win regardless. I hope can bounce back from this close-game problems we've been having. night all.

 

Lin does not have a reputation for being good to end games, he's had some good plays here and there but as a coach to take out a player when he's forcing turnovers, diving for balls, and playing up front hard defense is silly no matter who you are ? Are you sure about this>? How can Jlin be evaluated properly if he cant even play properly on 4th Quarter basis? You have to understand that being a PG is a TO prawn because he will set the play and dictate the pace of the game...And for those samples you mentioned, I don't think Jlin is bad on defense, actually he's doing pretty good at D. forcing TO? Nah! What do you mean some good plays? Jlin already showed what he can do but you haters are expecting him to do the impossible thing...What you expect from him provide Lebron's number? C'mon man, Jlin is a legit PG, maybe he struggled sometimes but the guy has a heart...he never gives up...And I'm not looking at the players only, of course I will be happy for the team as a whole if they reached the playoffs. For me, I don't have any problem on Mchale's adventure to see the capability of his team players but my friend, half season already passed and he still didn't cracked or figured out what supposed to be the hidden talents of these youngsters? See, he even thought that PB played well with 0 points? and you never heard him at least recognize Jlin's performance against OKC with 29 pts and 9 asst? SO where's your point dude?

 

Disagree.

Lin is the better passer, better at leading a break/transition as well as initiating/running the offense.

Why do you think Harden ball always ends up looking ugly with shot clock turnovers and no ball movement.

Harden is the better shooter/scorer as well as overall athlete.

I think they are both equal in ability to slash/get to the rim but Harden is a much better finisher and much more adept at getting to the line.

 

Still proud of this team and i'm liking what i've seen from T-Rob thus far. Now, everyone calm down and hope we can steal one in Golden State and get ready for our favorable 7-game 2-week homestand soon!

For what it's worth i had us going 1-1 with this home and home against Dallas so lets all be content we didn't go 0-2. Like most of you, i didn't like the 4th quarter benching of Lin and Asik but lets give McHale the benefit of the doubt since like us, he wants to win and he believed that was the best lineup to get us a W last night. It was just too bad it didn't pan out and it made him look a bit foolish.

Remember that we're a young developing team on our 1st year of rebuilding. Lets try to be more patient with the team and our coach. Heck, we're still in 7th seed when almost the majority had us being lottery bound this season. Lighten up guys! The coaching staff and the team in general will learn from these type of setbacks.

 

I agree, Lin shouldn't get any special treatment, no player should. However you forget that the coaching staff (specifically Mcfail and Sampson) have decreed that the Rockets don't play democratic ball, but would rather ride their superstar everytime. Now, that very fact removes any system of meritocracy, because we simply defer to our superstar every damn moment possible. So yes, I think we can and should blame the coach for creating such an unproductive team culture. To make matters worse, every team in the NBA KNOWS about our reliance on Harden, especially in clutch moments. Its as simple as adjusting to double team or triple team harden, force him to chuck a heavily contested three, and make sure their bigs get the rebound, and they win in the closing minutes.

In terms of sub patterns in the 4th, Asik should definitely have be in for the D and rebounds he provides. Bev was useful as spark, but should not have stayed in so long. We are not even talking about who should play more minutes, but rather who should have played in the final closing minutes of the game. Lin HAS a reputation for being clutch (he did hit the 3 which the refs discredited), Bev doesn't. Lin IS talented in running the offense and picking spots for teammates, and was especially needed since we were trailing and desperately needed to score. Lin should have played then, not Bev.

Bottom line is coach can do much better. We have already delineated the talent base of the team having been this much into the season, and it is pretty high. Yes, we are the youngest team and the least experienced, and were projected to tank this season, however that doesn't mean that its okay to lose, especially not games like today where we could have won. The team can do better, but the coach seems to be holding them back.

 

Another McHale bad instinct for letting Beverly finishing the game. Did he forget Lin is NBA top 10 in steals?!?!?!? If we didn't shoot that many FTs, this would of been a Mavs blowout.

 

Actually, he does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR3NhE8fBs8

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rR3NhE8fBs8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

lols im not the one who said that, i just replied back to that hater who's belittling Jlin's reputaion as a good finisher...

 

Stop hating dude...and McHale should take responsibility for this game...benching your MOST QUALIFIED PG in favor for a back-up is a boneheaded decision...

I won't detail all that went wrong in the fourth quarter but this is far the most head scratching coaching I've seen of him...

And Lin fans are not particular of his minutes....it's the way that he is being used...benching him when his hot...benching him when he sucks...benching him when he is neutral....benching him for whatever reason they could come up with...just accept it, coach has been bailed out by his players most of the time this season...it's not because of him, it's because our players are talented and are not giving up....