Almost every game the Rockets lose, McHale points to a "sticky" ball, meaning a lack of ball movement, which begets poor shot selection and turnovers. However, Harden, when the team in behind seems to revert to ISOing almost every time he initiates the half-court offense. If this outcome is what happens why doesn't either Harden stop doing it or have the ball taken out of his hands by McHale?
McHale wants the ball in Harden hands, because he believes most of the time Harden gives us the best chance to win. He'd prefer Harden make better decisions at times, like all of us, but believes that comes with experience.
Taking it out of Harden's hands or benching him is dangerous to a player coach relationship. McHale did everything he could to try and initiate ball movement.
When the ball gets to him, any and all off the ball movement ceases. Then we get to watch him go iso. It's mostly Harden's but is also everyone else on the court including coach's fault. A lot of the times it seems he's waiting for a cutter to pass to, or someone to get open, which doesn't happen because they are just standing by for him to go solo, whether he wants to or not. As a result, the only option left is for him to go 1v1. This is everyone's fault, not just Harden or Mchale. I hope that they work on communicating better this summer. And Mchale clearly points out which situations create the sticky ball/sticky players behavior, so that they can be avoided unless Harden has a clear advantage to score and isolation is warranted. We free flow when the ball free flows.
Harden never had a training camp. I think they were doing the quick fix and just let him do whatever. I think we'll see marked improvement the beginning of next year.
