How can you expect Larry Smith to get any recognition if he runs the same plays and substitutions as Rudy. This is his chance to showcase his brilliant coaching skills. He's doing a great job so far don't you think
Actually I do like the job he's doing. He's allowed Moochie to get more minutes, maybe he'll break out of his season- long slump. He's also playing Posey a lot, which I think is a good thing. Posey is the only guy besides Yao who can get us easy baskets.
Larry Smith is an idiot. He nearly cost the Rockets this game with his 4th quarter substitutions. Yes, Yao needed to get some rest. It kept him fresh for the final 3-4 minutes when he made all the big plays. But for God's sake, why would you put a lineup out there of Moochie, Steve, Cat, Rice, and Cato when the Warriors are making their run?! They have no inside player to go to and they're undersized against one of the best rebounding teams in the league. Thankfully, the Rockets won in spite of their head coach tonight but Rudy can't return soon enough.
Coach Smith still made a lot of strange decisions. Frankly I think should have blown out GSW if not for his dumb sub pattern. I wonder if he's a rebounding-only player himself made him favour Cato over Ming. I mean he benched Ming for the whole 2nd quarter and thus cooled him down? Didn't give him a rest until late in the 4th quarter? Played Moochie so much? Never played Ming and Rice together? And at 1 pt, put a frontcourt of Hawkins, Rice and Cato, meaning Rice at PF and we kept getting outrebounded?
Did you just say Posey is the only guy besides Yao who can get us (the Rockets) easy buckets? *haha* James Posey? Yeah, I agree with pretty much everyone else about Mean's poor subs. He's really fortunate the they aren't 0-3 to start this five-game roady!
I was surprised that Mo-T got only 1 shot in the game. If he doesn't get some more shots his confidence will go down and it will make things difficult for us. Was he hurt?He should be playing in the 4th quarter.
I really like the way Larry Smith is using the lineup especially w/ Yao, playin him the whole 1st quarter none of the 2nd and all of the 2nd half I think that works well. And last night was the most I have ever seen the Rockets hustle!! I wouldnt mind havin him around longer
Exhibition? It is silly to reinvent the ship midway - especially during this stretch run. IMO, it is somehwhat an insult to your head coach, Rudy. Larry has no clue. He does not have to show anyone anything - he is mere "an acting coach" not an "interim coach". There is a big reason why no team has called him thus far into his coaching career - he is not fit to coach yet. He has lots of things to learn. He needs to stay focused on team management and substition patterns. His problem now is that he is trying to hard to impress someone - but that need not be; just be Rudy clone for now and steady the ship until he returns (I did not know it was this hard to follow your mentors blue prints). The good news is that we have enough talent to overcome Larry's coaching flaws. Interestingly what he has showed us so far is that he is simply out of his depth - he needs to go back to the drawing board to learn his basics all over again. Come back soonest Rudy - we miss ya (irony huh?).
I know we won, but he still was indecisive last night... Didn't know when to call a timeout, substitute... But hey, we won, and that's all that counts...
I don't think Coach Smith is a big fan of Mo. I'm just assuming, since he built his career around rebounding, and Mo is a poor rebounder. Ona side note, a whole offseason with Coach Smith could do wonders for Mo and Griffin together. If he installs some mean into Griffin, and some rebounding into Mo, it would really helps us out.
Well Rudy told Larry to run the team he wants to. This made Larry and his associates more comfortable. Rudy trusts him... Larry.....well yes. It's a very difficult transition.... Well...some of the substitutions don't make sense. We could have won yesterday's game much easier....but he kinda screwed it up. OH well. CONGRATS TO HIS FIRST WIN.
As pointed out already, now is not the time to be changing rotations, lineups, etc, especially if we expect to see Rudy come back and change them again.
Doesn't Rudy T do the same thing with Yao, sit him out for the whole second quarter. I don't think Smith's substitution pattern is all that bad. At least his mixed it up, like playing Moochie, Steve, and Mobley, and he's done some other things as well. I frankly am tired of Mr. Robot substitution pattern Rudy T.
Mo Taylor was getting lit up by the opposing four, the guys lack of and rebounding kept him on the bench. If he isn't scoring, he's useless.
Don't look at coaching as just deciding what players he puts on the floor. Substitution is just one aspect of on-court coaching (not to mention the off-court coaching aspects). The coach also needs to adjust game plans due to opponents performance. He needs to motivates. He needs to watch BOTH his own players AND opposing players and tell his players how to adjust their games. You think coaching is as easy as making substitution at certain points of the game, huh? One example is that Posey said how he adjusted his defense on Jamison which caused not only Jamison's cooling down in the 2nd half but also the confusion of the whole Warrior offense. I bet this is not just Posey being smart but have somthing to do with the coach.
Yeah.....he did make some changes. I guess he is becomin a better coach every day! Posey would never have figured that out...that was a great change though. Jamison scored 20 points in the first half along with 7 rebounds. In the second half, he scored 1 point and got 1 rebound.
Yes, slashing and running the break gets us easy baskets. He's the only guy on our team that does those things well.
