Watching this game seems like the past 3 days of practice has given the coaching staff a genius idea of simply telling everyone to defer to harden. Whether hes on fire or not, offense should be running through lin. Even when lin is shooting horrible he dishes and makes plays on the offense. Harden should be getting the majority of dimes from lin and be the 2nd option for running plays, not playing iso hero ball then dishing once in awhile. When Harden is having an off night like tonite and against portland, lin still has the options to dish to others. Even when Lin is shooting like **** he helps out in other categories i.e. steals,reb, assists... It seems like the coaching staff is just playing hero ball with harden and then occasionally harden will dish to others. It looks even worse when everyone else is shooting horribly. I have no doubt that Harden HAS to get the ball a majority of times, but simply deferring to him before you even attempt to run the PnR and make some kind of fluid offense going doesnt work because teams will be prepping for Harden. This should open up options to other players.
it just blows my mind when you have rookies that looked promising, a backcourt tandem that should be running real fluid. The first two games they really worked good because both Harden and Lin pretty much took turns instead of dumping it all on Harden. Lin needs to be aggressive and the Mchale needs to emphasize less hero ball. It was so ugly watching the Portland game and tonights game against Denver.
Kind of reminds me when LeBron was with Cleveland. Give the star the ball and everyone just stand and watch. Basketball is a team sport. You can't win it all with 1 player.
When will we see the high PnR? Those two days of practice were actually more detrimental to team chemistry IMO. All the Rockets looked out of sync, not just Harden and Lin. And as good as 2Pat looked, he needs to be more physical on the glass. An enforcer on this team would be nice as well. Nuggets beat the living heck out of the Rox with no fear.at.all.
Sorry to repeat myself but if this is a coach hate thread than, McHELL said it the other day after the Portland game "We're a team that's gonna shoot a lot of 3's" I died a little inside when I heard him say that, no wonder this offense looks so pathetic. Everyone is parked at the 3 line and when they get the ball they rather pass because they're scared to shoot knowing they're not good at 3s. Horrible offense, this team needs a coach that will use each of the player's strength to win games.
I remember reading some qoute on this board where one of the assistant coaches basically said the offense runs through Harden. Maybe someone remembers where it was posted. Im pretty sure everyone on this board agrees that Harden is clearly the number 1 option and should get the most looks, but the way they ran it tonite was ugly, and no adjustments made by McHale at all. It didnt even look like he tried to even run sets to get Harden out the double-team or space from igoudala. (who played great D against Harden) Coaching is so awful...lol
I am a little surprised that Terrance Jones has yet to get any playing time when he was doing so well in the preseason games. I thought since the team is so young and with so many new faces, that the player that stood out the most during the preseason games would at least get some playing time...
Switch back to the original mission of gelling the team with Lin running the show - let Harden take the shots he gets as they open up - instead of forcing it. Harden new record for the season with 6 TOs - let Harden do what he does best, instead of try to make him take over Jeremy Lin's job.
Im not posting this thread to hate on Mchale or bait any HOF or LOF fans. Im simply saying it really looks like the coaching staff didn't do a damn thing right this past weekend...I cant even imagine the rest of the season. Didnt it seem like chemistry was there the first three games, even during the portland matchup when they were struggling there was still a glue between the teammates. This game just looked awful after 3 days of practice and it looked like McHale didnt attempt to fix anything.
Harden has turned the ball over a lot in almost every game. He should be playing off the ball more. Lin can not really play that well off the ball yet. This would utilize both of their strengths. McHale does not realize this. He has not set any scheme for our offense it seems.
